#vingette

off a binger in the woods

FLESH

covered in bites

TEST-ing

what is real and what is good

Anyways hope yall enjoy!!

by B. Henderson

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There was this boy — or was he a man? — at the grocery store.

He was checking me out. I mean both figuratively and literally. He noticed that I was buying quite a few jars of olives.

I think I laughed — I don't exactly remember — and told him that I was hungry. You know the saying, 'don't go grocery shopping when you're hungry.'

He told me that they say the same thing about dating.

I felt my eyebrows scrunched up in confusion as I was trying to pick out a chocolate bar. I picked out two.

Against my better judgment, I asked him what he meant. I'd never heard anything like that before.

Now, I can't tell you exactly what he said because he was speaking far too fast and I was flustered because I'm sure this boy — or was he a man? — was flirting with me.

He talked about a bar, and falling for empty words, and he talked about breaking up in three months. It seemed like he was giving me, more than hypotheticals, a part of his life story.

I thought many things along the course of his story.

I thought, 'I've never been to a bar,' and 'everyone falls for what they want to hear, sometimes,' and of course, I thought about how strangely detailed his story seemed to be.

When he finished talking, I think I smiled at him a little, but never made eye contact.

I told him that it made sense to me, and he in turn complimented my shirt. We talked a little about how it was a hand-me-down, and sure, it looks cool, but I think it's just bleach-stained.

A young bagger girl — she had to be a teenager — had joined our conversation, and she liked my shirt too.

Somehow the whole thing circled right back to 'don't go grocery shopping when you're hungry.'

The cashier boy/man — who could have been 17 or 23 — that I was almost certain was flirting with me, said, "At least you're just going home with groceries (this time?)."

I'm sure my face scrunched up again in confusion.

I paid.

As I started to walk off, he told me to enjoy my olives.

"Thank you!"