profundis | Express Check-out (Reply)

As I punched in my PIN code on the cardswipe machine at the grocery store, I caught a familiar sight in my peripheral visison - a big braided strawberry-blond ponytail - and absentmindedly followed it up to the broad shoulders I knew it should rest on, and even further up to the fawny hair and goatee that I was accustomed to seeing with it, and there was Jake in the next lane over.

Except of course, it wasn't Jake, and it won't ever be Jake. I had to stop myself from staring as that punch in the gut feeling took hold. I had a fleeting fantasy of me telling him "I'm sorry for staring, you look like someone I used to know" but the cashier was babbling something to me, and my eyes misted up and I thought "I can't look him in the eyes, what if he has those ice blue eyes, too?"

I wheeled my cart out and made a bee-line for the truck...but I stood and watched him walk to his car in the next row, nonetheless.