Page 3 of Bound By Brielle (Crave & Cure Productions)

“Yeah,” I chuckle, his comments causing embarrassment to climb my neck, settling with warmth in my cheeks.

The old man at the meat counter is calling me boring… and he isn’t wrong. I am boring. I mean, I prefer disciplined and reliable, but the truth is, that’s just the spin I put on my monotony to make myself less depressed.

Tony weighs and wraps my meat order, slapping a black and white sticker over the package. Him slapping my meat order is the only action I get every week which is… I sigh. “Thanks, Tony. Have a good week.”

“You, too,” he says, shoving his hands in his smock. “See you next week.” He wags a finger at the clock on the wall. “Ten o’clock.”

I smile and push my cart away. At this point in my life, I’m pretty sure watching a spore grow under a microscope is more exciting than me.

Reroute your thoughts, I tell myself, pushing my cart down the aisle of cereals and oatmeals.You’re supposed to be focused on graduate school.I can take trips and make fancy meals and dance ina clubin Italy when I’m through with film school.This is the time to stay focused and dedicated.

As I pluck a jar of steel cut oats from the shelf and drop it into my cart, my mind goes to the first project I have lined up once I graduate.

A documentary.

About trees.

Jesus Christ, I have one of the coolest jobs at my fingertips—being a fucking movie director—and yet I have somehow managed to make that boring, too.

One of the wheels on my shopping cart goes full exorcist, spinning circles as I shove it toward the next item on my list. My hand is wrapping around a bag of granola when—“Elle?”

Elle.

He’s the only one to call me that. I loved the way he called me that, because it was ours, private and personal. No one tells you how something so simple as a nickname can wreck you, but as he says it again, my stomach swirls with bitter discontent.

“Elle.”

I paste on a smile and face my ex.

“Noah, hey.” My voice is too soft for the situation, so my next words are a bit louder and huskier. “What’s up? How’ve you been?”

He rolls his cart toward mine, and though I don’t want to, my eyes drop to the contents. There is a blue and green box in his cart, one that hollows my chest and seizes my lungs for a moment.Tampons.

Then, like the crushed main character in every heartbreak movie that has ever existed, a beautiful, leggy blonde rounds the corner, a bottle of champagne in each of her hands. And there’s a ring glittering on her finger.

I force my gaze on Noah, who undoubtedly watched that entire thing play out. His consolatory little smile angers me, and my eyes burn with tears of frustration and humiliation. “This is Tiffany,” he says, looping his arm around the blonde’s tiny waist as she sidles up next to him, lowering the bottles next to her stupid tampons.

Okay—that was harsh.Those tampons aren’t stupid. They did nothing to me.

“Tiffany, this is Elle.” He says, nodding toward my way as I lower my off-brand granola into my cart, next to my value size bottle of Tums.Oh dear Lord. “Elle and I used to date.”

Elle and I used to date?

This woman is wearing a fucking engagement ring and she doesn’t know about me? We dated for two fucking years! His stupid appendix burst when we were together—surely he’s told her he has no appendix. And he never said,oh by the way, when it burst, my ex girlfriend saved my life by rushing me to the emergency room at three in the morning.

“HelloTiffany,” I smile, keeping my eyes from blinking like an utter psycho, because if I blink, tears will fall.

“Oh, cool,” she says, so unbothered. A woman who has had her fiance’s penis inside of her a bajillion times is standing two feet away and she could give a shit less. His cum has been all over my face. I’ve stuck my tongue in his ass! “Nice to meet you, Elle.” Her smile is so wide, I briefly envision my mugshot on the news.Ex girlfriend snaps in grocery store, killing two.

“What are you up to?” he asks, his eyes scanning my cart. Why the hell do I have to have digestive problems so great that I’m buying an economy size bottle of gas meds? Sweat pools in my armpits, and down my back as I shift my weight in my…Crocs.

Jesus Christ.

“Ah, not much. Just… finishing film school this year.”Which you know damn good and well because I was a film school graduate student when we broke up a year ago. “Remember?”

Why did I say that? Why?And the tone, too. The tone was nothing short of scorned lover. I force a smile as he nods.

“Of course, yeah, I remember. Well, awesome.” He looks over at Tiffany who is beaming at me brightly, not a goddamn iota of jealousy or care in her eyes. “Good to see you, we have to get going, cooking a big meal tonight.”

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