Two Blondes and Liquor Store

Two Blondes and a Liquor Store

Madison Clark exhaled softly and shook her head. A bell chimed swiftly as she pushed open the door leading into a small liquor store. She glanced around, it was practically empty aside from the shelves lined with an array of coloured bottles. She wouldn't want to go around saying it, but in all honestly, Madison adored liquor stores. She'd probably spent a small fortune in them over the past thirty or so years, and just the fact that there was so much alcohol in such a small place, filled her with wonderment. She loved how there were so many separate escapes just inches from her fingertips. Madison Clark was an alcoholic, and she supposed that a liquor store, to an alcoholic, was what a toy store was to a young child.

She walked further in, straight towards the spirits section. Vodka was her drink of choice, she loved the stuff, relished in its stiffness, the fact that just one bottle could waste her entirely. She also liked Scotch and Tequila, but they weren't quite as perfect as her first choice.

Quickly, she scooped a few bottles into the basket that was slung over her arm. She drunk cheap liquor, she was a guidance counsellor, and most definitely not a millionaire, so she couldn't afford anything better. She knew that she really should try to stop, that she should attempt to get sober, but she knew that she wouldn't. She'd been addicted, hooked, a slave to the liquor she craved, for over thirty years, and that wasn't something that was going to change overnight.

She didn't drink for no reason. Abused as a child, she had first turned to the bottle, at about age thirteen, in an attempt to stifle the memories of way that she had been mistreated, sexually, physically and mentally, by her father. She'd continued drinking throughout the rest of her teens and well into her adult life. She had gotten married, in hindsight she supposed that that had been one of her biggest mistakes, but that relationship had left her with two bundles of joy, which she wouldn't change for the world. Her husband had been abusive, just as bad as her father, and for a good ten or so years, she'd barely gone a day without a new bruise. Even now, six years after his death, after she killed him, she was still covered in hundreds of faded scars. She wondered how she'd drawn such a short straw in life, why she'd been forced to endure all of this, if she deserved it.

It wasn't as bad as it had been anymore, well at least not since she had met him. Travis Manawa, a Maori-American English teacher, and just about the sweetest man that she'd ever met. He was stable, caring, compassionate, carefree and just about everything that she wasn't. That also meant that he was way too good for her, and just the thought that he might one day realise this shook her to her core. Maybe that was why she was standing there at the liquor store, feeling more fulfilled by a shopping basket filled with bottles than she had all day.

She proceeded in strolling across the store, focused entirely on the wine section. She craved a bottle of something cheap, probably a red, because a girl couldn't just drink spirits alone.

"Damn it!" Madison stumbled slightly as someone collided against her. She turned around slowly and glanced at the cause of the impact.

"Sorry, didn't see you there." A tall, thin blonde woman looked at Madison. She was clutching a shopping basket identical to Maddie's filled with a heap bottles.

The guidance counsellor examined the other woman, "that's fine, I'm just going to pay for these." She motioned to contents of her basket and faked quick grin.

The stranger nodded slowly, before she turned away and began to pull some cheap Chardonnay bottles from a refrigerator.

As Madison strolled toward the cashier, she couldn't help but glance back at the other woman. Maybe it was the fact that she was blonde and middle aged, or maybe it was just because she was stocking up with cheap liquor, but for some reason she reminded Maddie of herself. The blonde swiped her credit card, a little over a hundred dollars lost to liquor. She wondered if she should just give up, softly contemplated what it would be like to die, asked herself if she'd be missed.