#jb001

he couldn’t sleep. it wasn’t like he wasn’t tired. he was downright exhausted, actually. and he wasn’t falling asleep and having nightmares. lucas just. could not. sleep. he stood in front of the sleep aids in aisle six, squinting at the various bottles and picking one up at random. he turned it around and read the ingredients, unsure of most of the active ingredients. he set one bottle down and picked up another, more expensive option, weighing it in his hand before winding his way down another aisle. 

his shoulder ached, still, too. it took the edge off of his knee, which was probably the only semi-good thing to come out of that night at the cemetery. lucas reached for a fresh bottle of tylenol and tossed it into his basket, too. he looked down at the list his mom had sent him to the store with and weaved his way through the store, collecting milk, eggs, and bread before stopping at the frozen food section. he hadn’t had eggos in...years. his mom usually made pancakes from scratch on the weekends and it was always just cereal during the week. he opened the freezer door and tossed a box of frozen waffles into his basket, too, and then headed for the counter.

lucas didn’t know what he’d expected. melvald’s wasn’t busy enough to warrant a lot of employees, but he hadn’t expected to run into joyce here. he half wanted to grab the sleeping pills from the basket and discard them, but he’d already set it on top of the counter by the time she turned around. lucas reached up to take his headphones off, draping them around his neck instead, and clicked off the walkman. “ms. byers. hey.” he chewed his lower lip. “sorry about your car.” smooth. he hadn’t wanted to bring up will disappearing for the umpteenth time, but that wasn’t much better. “how are you?”