Falling for Ocean Blue [BxB] ✔️

Chapter Thirty

The week blurs together like smudged ink. My body has reached its limit.

The last of my energy splutters like death spasms in bursts of rage. I snapped at Percy during Friday lunch. I don't quite remember what she did to deserve it, only that I felt worse afterwards.

He didn't show up.

For four days, I've been sitting with my thoughts in the music room. The kind of thoughts that linger in the darkest corners of my mind. The ones that haven't met Dr Birch. They chatter like memories, occasionally piercing my vision like ghosts.

Hallucinations are the last hurdle to insanity.

I bite down on my tongue to ground myself to this plane. Specifically, the parking lot of a Walgreens. One of two in my neighbourhood.

A man called.

I must remember to kill my sim card after today. To kill the messenger is irrational but something has to suffer so I don't.

I take a deep breath.

If I don't pick up the prescription, they'll call Mum and Mum will call Soren. I can't give another person ammunition to be lauded over me.

The sun is simmering behind the hills. Saturday morning is fleeting, and I have a town car waiting for me back home. I need my medicine today.

I let that thought drive my feet into the tall warehouse. An ice-cold air blasts into my T-shirt when I enter. A greying security man follows me with unyielding eyes until I cross an aisle and he loses me to the produce section.

I pull Soren's yellow baseball cap low over my temples. There isn't a lot of people in the store, which is reassuring. I cross the waxed floors, avoiding shoppers and misplaced carts. In the far back, next to the self-checkouts, sits a little hut with a neon sign buzzing a bright green. Pharmacy.

There is a girl leaning over a pristine white counter. She looks bored as she scrolls through her phone, chewing obnoxiously loud, lips smacking.

I cringe.

She catches me staring.

"Do you want something?"

I'm not prepared for the question. I was hoping to loop the aisles a couple times rehearsing my scene like a thespian. The girl is in her early teens with brown skin and a lab coat. Her name tag says Padma.

I nod awkwardly, stumbling forward into the counter.

I clear my throat.

"Picking up."

Padma rolls her eyes. She pushes her phone into her breast pocket and sighs dramatically, reaching for a clipboard. I watch her, helplessly, while she slips on red glasses.

"Name?"

"Maxence Grier."

"I have a Maxence Grier-Gellar. That you?" She blows a pink bubble. It pops between her pale lips.

"Yes."

She runs the back of ball point over the sheet.

"Diazepam, Lamictal, lithium..." Padma looks up from her clipboard and frowns. I know the list must go on.

I look away.

"ID, please."

I take out my Eurocard.

"No, I need a licence or passport. Something with your face on it."

My chest tightens at this turn of event. I look through my faded wallet for a picture of me, slipping through plastic sleeves, finding only rolled up dollar bills and IOU's in Kitty's handwriting.