Once Mark steered us toward the front of the store and slid into a spot at the checkout, I made a few more silent plans to get rid of that junk food. A thirteen-year-old wouldn't even buy that much.
No wonder he worked out so religiously.
"Oh, toilet paper." I snapped my fingers, able to execute the act just as I'd planned. "We almost forgot that."
He held up a finger and turned to leave, then stopped and shot me a questioning glance. I smiled and nodded toward the back of the store, letting him know I'd be fine. He disappeared just as the cashier grabbed the first item I'd stacked on the belt, if a guy with shoulders like that could disappear.
Once he was out of sight, I turned to the cashier, a middle-aged woman with a quiet smile and fluffy hair. Then I passed her two one hundred dollar bills.
"Can you accept this now so that he doesn't try to pay?"
She lifted her eyebrows, then winked. "Of course."
"Thanks." I grinned. Winning felt good. The energy of the store felt good. Then I proceeded to cull at least half of the junk food he'd piled on and asked her to reshelve it. She laughed and tucked all the sugary boxes onto another counter. While she prattled on about a story with her neighbor and a particular brand of window cleaner that we were buying, I glanced around.
Even though I felt silly for doing it, I couldn't help myself. The busyness of the store made it impossible to track people around me, but seeing faces helped. Maybe at least gave a false sense of—
A quick move jolted my gaze back to where I'd just looked, near the back door. My heart leaped in my throat when, for a second, I could have sworn I saw Joshua in an orange parka. His neatly arrayed hair. Strong but lean shoulders. The perpetual smirk of one side of his lips. But the sense faded away.
Paranoia, again.
I turned half my mind back to the conversation with the cashier and tried to smile at the right time, but couldn't help the jarring feeling left behind in my body. Like someone had kicked me and I couldn't quite get my breath back. Maybe this hadn't been such a great idea. Maybe the close, ragged edges of the mountain felt safer. Maybe—
My breath whooshed out of me, as if literally kicked, when I looked back up and right into Joshua's eyes.
He stood on the other side of the store, near the exit, in an orange parka and a pair of jeans. He stared right at me without a waver in his expression or . . . much expression at all at first. Seeing him wouldn't have been so frightening if he didn't look so utterly . . .
Nothing.
Then his gaze hardened. His lips pressed together. My heart slammed against my ribs for several seconds before I could recover my wits. The woman continued to prattle while she typed in the code for bananas, and the world moved on, but my gaze didn't falter from Joshua's. Not for a second.
Suddenly, all the memories rushed back.
The awkward silences at work after he'd said something inappropriate. The way he'd watch me walk to my car. The feel of his eyes on me in a meeting. Emails upon emails upon emails. The hidden pictures of his current wife.
All the pressure of his intensity felt like a heavyweight on my shoulders.
Now, he stared back at me with rage, frustration, resentment, and the bitter dregs of something gone very, very sour.
At that moment, I knew I'd made a mistake.
I'd vastly underestimated his sense of entitlement and the way he showed up in the world. His desire to not only scratch back at anyone that harmed him, like a festering cat, but to destroy. I'd assumed that Mark's larger-than-life personality and foolish sense of confidence made him safe from someone like Joshua. Joshua who lived far more quietly, but not less dangerously.
Most of all, I'd underestimated everything that Joshua had to lose. Had the company let him go? Did his wife find out and divorce him?
Or was his sense of being in love with me delusional enough to push him to this point?
It all came back to me at that moment, when the fury of a thousand suns seemed to channel from his gaze into mine. We'd always played a game. Cat-and-mouse. From the first day, I rejected his advance to this very moment.
And I'd just been ignoring it.
Joshua wasn't here because he was an angry, thwarted lover. No, Joshua was here because he was livid, probably on the verge of being destitute, and desperate. I was the one that got away.
When no one had ever got away.
My throat ached as I stared at him, hardly daring to breathe until a light touch on my arm pulled me from the trance. I blinked, looked at the cashier who must have asked me a question several times because she stared at me like I'd lost my mind, and realized that several people stared at me that way.
"You okay?" she asked
Her voice swam through several layers of thought before I managed to nod. "Sorry," I mumbled. "Yes."
"It's $205, dear. You got any more?"
Numbly, I passed over another $100 bill. My gaze darted back to the exit, but as expected, Joshua had left. No amount of searching helped, because he was gone. He'd made his point. He'd delivered his jab. He'd effectively cut off any hope and exhilaration and normalcy I'd started to feel again with Mark.
Just then, Mark nudged his way back through the line and at my side, a container of toilet paper in hand. The cashier dutifully rang it up and passed me my change. I barely registered Mark's annoyed exclamation once he'd realized I had paid. Then, like it happened years later, I felt his touch on my elbow.
"Stella?"
Concern colored his tone.
"Outside," I rasped.
Even I wasn't sure whether I was telling him
