Page 19 of Choose the Bears

I toldthem the entire story as quickly as I could, Jackie the manager coming out of her office to give us the hairy eyeball.

“Three hot guys rescued you from some old dickhead and then moved all of your earthly possessions for you with no expectations of anything?” Daniel shot me a withering look. “You bitches get all the luck. Maybe ask them if they have any friends who’d go for a guy with absolutely no gag reflex?”

“I’ll definitely do that,” I said as I opened up my aisle. Customers started placing their items on my conveyor belt and I rang them up, falling into a familiar rhythm, right up untiltheywalked in.

“So you did actually haveto work.”

My focus at work was very narrow. Concentrate on swiping each item as fast as possible, smile and greet the next customer while taking the last one’s payment. No one liked waiting in line at the supermarket, and so that impetus kept my attention on my immediate surroundings.

So imagine my surprise when Mike put a single bottle of Coke on the conveyor. Well, that and a belligerent attitude.

“You had a weekend shift, yet you managed to clear your shit out around your busy schedule.”

Fawn, that was my default response. I looked around wildly and saw people, so many people, but didn’t cry out. Why would I? Mike was a customer.

And so was Phil.

He placed a pack of kitchen knives and other items onto the conveyor behind Mike’s Coke.

None of them were doing anything that contravened the conditions of entry, so I couldn’t call security. I saw Jade further down the shop, but she was dealing with customers at the cigarette counter. Everyone was doing what they were supposed to, leaving me to deal with them.

They wanted to buy something? I’d ring it up for them, get them through my lane as quickly as possible, but when my hand went to the Coke bottle, Mike’s wrapped around it. His fingers digging into mine hard enough to hurt, and that stunned me. I just stared at him, wondering what the hell had happened. He never did anything to physically hurt me, so why had he started now?

Because I both didn’t matter and mattered completely, that’s what was clear in his eyes.

Me, Imogen, the girl he’d asked out at school, was never of much interest, but the bitch who dared to clear out and leave him to his shit, did. I wasn’t a person, I was thing, a thing with a high-pitched whine stuck in her throat. People were shifting restlessly behind the guys, wondering what the holdup was. They wanted to buy their damn groceries, and I wanted to serve them. That need had every muscle trembling, right before I wrenched my hand and the bottle free then swiped it across the sensor.

“$4.50, thanks.”

The last bit was tacked on at the end.

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure you owe me more than that with the stunt you pulled,” Mike snarled. “You pay for it.”

When he walked out of the lane clutching the drink, that gave me the pretext I needed. I pressed down a button each one us had at our register to alert security that we had a theft happening. It was for a meagre amount, but the theatre of itseemed to deter others from doing the same thing. Jade’s head jerked up and so did many others of my colleagues, all of them focussing on Mike. He got about ten steps away before male staff members ringed around him. That raised voice, his brashly declared innocence, it was all too familiar, but somehow it was a relief it was happening to someone else this time.

Because when Jade rushed over to see if I was OK, she understood.

“You alright?” She looked me over before I could answer. “Did he do anything to you? Imogen?” I just shook my head slowly, a high-pitched ringing in my ears. “How about you take a break?—?”

“She can ring up my order.” God, if I thought Phil’s voice was slimy before, it was positively unctuous now. Not content to allow the conveyor belt to draw his items forward, he picked them up and plonked them right next to me.

My eyes followed the shape of each knife, that and a big tub of Vaseline, all the way up to him. His smile widened, revealing yellowing teeth, some that had fine cracks in them, but it was that same hunger in his eyes that had me shrinking back, moving away from the register to allow Jade to take over. I felt his gaze burning into the space between my shoulder blades right up until I reached the staffroom. My phone was out and I was unlocking it without thought, staring at my contacts.

Who would I call, my parents? I imagined how the conversation would go. Mum, Dad, my ex walked out without paying for a Coke and his friend bought some items with a creepy smile. Friends? I didn’t really have any now. Mike had encouraged me to make him my entire world, sulking each time I went out without him. So who did that leave? My cousins in Queensland? My old property manager? That girl I met in a pub and never ended up going out for a drink with?

And Lucas.

My thumb hovered over his contact.Give me a call if anything happens…I could hear his voice in my ears, as if he’d anticipated this along with everything else. I shook my head, then tapped the contact, listening to it buzz.

“Imogen?”

His voice sounded scratchy, as if he’d only just woken up, and that had me feeling a rush of shame, but my mouth was moving before I could think better of it.

“He was here,” I said, unable to keep the emotion from my voice, though letting that slip was enough to get my brain engaging. Something in me needed to clarify, explain, minimise. “Mike, I mean. He was here and I just… need someone to talk to about it.”

“Are you finished with your shift?” he asked, completely clear now.

“No, Jade told me to go on a break?—”

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