Jayce

Jayce

I'm staring at the cheese case as if it might hold the answer to the meaning of life, or at least like it might decide whether I want medium or sharp cheddar for me. I have no idea how long I've been staring at cheese. Definitely longer than a person should stare at cheese.

"Hi."

The gentle greeting disrupts my attempt to convince cheese to jump into my cart on its own, and I turn toward the voice. I'm slightly startled when I see him standing beside me with his indigo eyes and tentative half smile. I stare for long enough that he speaks again, apparently having decided I'm not going to return his greeting.

"You've been standing here since I came in. Can I help with something, maybe?"

A quick glance at his cart shows he's been here long enough to pick up at least a dozen things. It's not like it's the first time during the past month I've awoken from a god knows how long trance. It's just the first time anyone has bothered to say anything.

"No." I have to force out the word. "Thanks though," I hurry to add, not wanting to sound like a complete asshole.

His face seems to soften somehow as he steps closer and reaches past me, plucking up a small block wrapped in black plastic.

"This is my favorite. Now you can cross cheese off your list."

He offers me a kind smile as he places it almost gently in my cart.

"Thanks," I grunt quietly.

His head tilts like he's a confused puppy, and his pupils dilate as he studies my face. Sadness seems to overtake him for a moment - just as it did the first time we met - before his features return to the kind expression he's been offering me since he first spoke. Somehow, the look doesn't feel like pity. I can't handle any more pity. It's all people seem to offer me anymore. They no longer extend condolences and casseroles with empathetic sadness and shared grief. Their lives have moved on, and the looks they give me seem to say that they don't understand why mine hasn't as well.

"I'm going to ask you to do something for me. You don't have to say yes, of course, but I'd like you to consider it." His voice is calm and smooth, but I'm still startled by his request.

Nervousness grows in the pit of my belly. I don't really have anything to be nervous about; it's not like this small, beautiful man would be capable of harming me in any way, even if he wanted to. But I can't handle the idea of doing anything more than remembering to breathe - even that is touch and go, and I don't like feeling that I'm being set up to disappoint him.

I nod once, and a broad smile takes over his face. I've never seen a smile like his before. It's blinding. It's so much like staring directly into the sun that when it falls from his face slightly as he begins speaking again, I'm left with the residual memory of it branded into my retinas, like the pale-green spot you burn into your eyes when you look at an eclipse without glasses in the way everyone does even though you're not supposed to.

"Come with me."

He gestures with his head, and I follow without thought. Thankful that, for one moment, I don't have to think about what I'm doing or where I'm going.

He leads us to the front corner of the store. This is a small town in the middle of nowhere, but we aren't heathens - we do have a coffee shop. It just happens to be five small café tables and an espresso machine in the windowed front corner of the supermarket. He leads me to the back corner table, the one that's tucked away on its own close to the windows, and pulls out a chair, gesturing for me to slide in. I don't have it in me to resist. The seat he's chosen for me places my back to the shoppers and lets me stare into the black and white and shades of grey nothingness of a parking lot peppered with snow and stray metal carts and pickup trucks coated with road grime. I slump deeper into the chair, only to hear his footsteps fading away as he moves off without a word. I don't wonder why he's left me here. It doesn't really matter.

It's sunny today; it's the beginning of spring after all, and the sun was bound to poke its head out sometime. The light is blinding. After months of darkness and shadow and gloom, the rays that reflect off the barely melting snow and bounce through the windows and into my eyes are nearly painful. I stare anyway. Some part of me welcomes the pain. Pain is all I've known for a month now; it's become familiar.

The brightness dims as he slides into the chair opposite me and settles a delicate mug with a matching saucer onto the chipped and worn Formica table in front of my hands. He's backlit by the glow from the windows as I watch his long, graceful fingers toy with a small espresso cup, and it's hard to pull my attention away from the way they move in order to look at the drink he's placed in front of me.

The scent of cinnamon wafts up as I lift the fragile mug, and the first sip startles me, pulling me a fraction of an inch closer to reality. It's exactly what I would have ordered for myself if I were still capable of managing to complete human tasks like ordering a drink or remembering to drink at all. I feel my eyes widen in question as I look up.

He shifts awkwardly, and a blush spreads across his pale cheeks.

"Your coat smelled like cinnamon." He shrugs and mumbles as he lifts his cup and studies its contents after taking a small sip.

My coat smelled like cinnamon .

Is it creepy that when I returned to retrieve a forgotten jacket after my brother's funeral, this ethereal man noticed what other scents lingered on the worn leather as he carried it from the back room? I decide that it's not. No one has cared what I smell like for a very long time. I have to tell myself that the sip of chai is the only reason there is a pool of warmth spreading through my abdomen.

"Do you have a list?"

My eyebrow tries to escape my forehead in confusion. "A list?"

He takes another sip. "A grocery list."

Oh. "Oh. No, I don't."

He shifts to the side in his seat and pulls his phone from his back pocket. He presses on the bottom corner, and a small stylus pops out, which he uses to tap on the screen for a moment before sliding the phone across the table to rest beside my tea, stylus on top.

"Why don't you make one for me, and then I'll grab your shopping with mine while you sit here and enjoy your tea."

What?

Why in the world is he offering to shop for me? I don't know this man. The most effort anyone has extended to me has been to leave a roast or scalloped potatoes at the shop when they've dropped off their trucks.

I shake my head quickly. "No. That's not something you…"

He cuts me off .

"Please. Let me do this."

I search his face, all strong, sleek lines and soft skin.

"…Why?"

"Because I want to." He says it like it's the most natural thing in the world to want to grocery shop for someone he doesn't know. Like it would be the most natural thing in the world for me to agree.

He watches me struggle to say yes and seems to decide that perhaps an additional reason might sway the tide.

"Besides. I only allow myself one espresso a day, and if I do this, then you'll have to buy me a second as a thank you, and I'll have to drink it. It would be rude of me to decline."

A noise escapes me that feels like it's trying to be a laugh but manages to sound like nothing more than a choked sob.

His playful grin is wide and brilliant and all-encompassing, and I can't remember what it's like to look at anything other than his smile as his smooth voice winds its way across my skin and down my spine.

I can't say no when he looks at me like that, when his voice sounds like that.

I look away before his radiance blinds me, nod once, and quickly scratch out a list on his phone.

As he walks away, leaving me with my still steaming cup of tea, I realize that for the first time in more than a month, for one brief moment, I forgot to hurt.