My Little Shadow

Chapter Twelve: Broad, Teeth showing, Show-stopping Smile

Something I realized halfway through the morning was that my shadow had nothing to her name.

No shampoo, toothbrush, brush, and I'm pretty sure all that those three bags carry is three outfits and a shit ton of origami.

She needed especially everything a human being had to have to be healthy and thriving. So with half of the savings I have left, I decided a trip to town was a must. I needed to talk to my old boss and see if he will take me back.

I was anxious, not about the job, but about being here. As we walked from store to store, I couldn't stop myself from checking my surroundings every other second.

May probably thinks of me as overbearing because I pulled her close to me every time a car went down the road. I don't know what I expected, I didn't even put too much thought into coming back to town but now that I'm here in the same area that Angelina took her last breath in, I'm taken off guard.

I try my hardest to focus on the good aspects of today. The way May has a smile from ear to ear when we enter a arts and crafts store, or how she couldn't help herself from skipping down the sidewalk when I let her get far enough away from me to have a little room.

She was like sunshine that peaked through a dark stormy rain cloud, or she was like rain when there wasn't a cloud in the sky, how the sun would catch those rain drops and turn them into shiny little multi-colorful drops.

It's funny that I refer to her as a rainbow during a store considering she was currently picking up a drawing set with every color of the rainbow in it and then some.

I'm going to have to learn to accept the fact that my life was now going to be going back and forth between dark and light. Dark is the memories of Angelina and the light is present with May.

She sits them back down on the shelf. She hasn't asked me for anything. I don't think she even knows why I've taken her into town. So, everything she's picked up I've gone behind her and bought it, along with getting some of the essentials.

She didn't catch on to what I was doing until this moment. Just as I pick up the pencils, she turns back to me, her eyes lock on them in my hand and her thick black eyebrows pull together.

I'm stuck at a loss for words, how did I explain this exactly? "Um .... I-"

She then looks down at the two bags dangling from my left hand carelessly. Her eyes grow small as she tries to study the content of the bag through the thin white veil.

Her soft kissable lips part and she looks back to me and instead of fighting for words that are invading me thoroughly I simply shrug with a crashy smile on my mouth.

Slowly, so very slowly her lips tilt up into a broad, teeth-showing, show-stopping smile.

My heart skipped and I coughed trying to get it to quit. Those feelings were dangerous and anything dangerous didn't have a place near May.

We shopped for another hour or two before I decided to head to Andy's house.

Like every other place in this town, it wasn't that far of a ride to get there, even though it was on the outskirts surrounded by fields filled with cattle and small ponds here and there.

May watched all of the trees through the window, the greenery casting its reflection onto her cheeks.

I don't know how I didn't wreck from not watching the road as I should. She captivated me that much.

His yards were overgrown, and his house needed pressure washing. I take this as a good sign that he hasn't hired anyone else to keep up the place yet.

"Stay here. I'll be right back." I reluctantly turn away from her and make my way up to the front door. I knock a couple of times loudly because both Mr. and Mrs. Jaded are nearing seventy and can't hear the best in the world.