Night Life {Watty Awards Finalist 2012}

Chapter 12

I cursed the gloves I wore for being fingerless. Who invented fingerless gloves anyway?

It was the second week of December. Finals were finally over and I was on winter break for four weeks before second semester began. I was relieved. Finals had been hell.

I was a bit annoyed, though. Having classes all day and then work in the evening kept me busy. But now that classes were over with for the semester, I had nothing to do but sit at home and watch old re-runs of Gilmore Girls.

I wasn't complaining. Having no school meant that I could sleep during the day, something that I really needed to do. I averaged about an hour of sleep a night during finals, but now I slept for four or five hours at a time. I called that an improvement.

Since the last day of finals, I had been cooped up at home all day. It was too chilly at night to go anywhere and honestly, I was just too lazy. Instead of my late night endeavors, I stayed at home and watched old movies. In the past few days, I had watched all the way through: The Lord of the Rings trilogy (extended edition), Harry Potter movies 1-4 (extended versions), Crazy, Stupid Love, Easy A, and Batman Begins. Tonight my plan was to watch Dark Knight, and both the Iron Man movies.

But at the moment, I had no food in my apartment, which is why I was walking to Shop Mart in the bitter cold after my shift at Steve's.

The diner hadn't improved since we started the combo deal idea. However, it hadn't gotten worse, either, so at the moment, Steve decided to keep it going. Once our customers started dwindling again, we would approach the situation differently. But for the time being, things were all the same.

After that first day, Steve switched around mine and Caleb's schedules so that we worked on alternating days. He realized it worked better that way since both our class schedules were conflicting. Also, on Thursdays, Caleb had to take Liam to swimming practice and pick him up early, so he couldn't work those nights. The only day we worked together was on Wednesdays.

Which was nice for me, since the less I was around him, the more at ease I felt. After that last conversation we had, I was afraid Caleb had looked too deeply into my life. I didn't want him to get too close and I knew he could tell that I had a past. But he had one, too, and I think he was just as relieved that we didn't have to see each other everyday.

I walked into Shop Mart, greeted by a nice blast of warm heat. Feeling my cheeks sting as they defrosted, I pulled a shopping cart from the row and made my way to the pasta aisle. First item on the list: spaghetti.

I reached the aisle and looked at the selection of pastas. I ran my finger over the different boxes and my mind lingered back to that day that I had run into Caleb, the day he told me that he was helping me live my life.

I shook my head to rid myself of the thought. I really needed to stop thinking about him.

Picking up a box of tortillini shaped pasta and grabbing a jar of pasta sauce, I made my way to the breakfast foods section. There, I picked up a packet of plain bagels and a box of mini Eggos. Deciding I needed more than just pasta to eat for dinner every night, I went to the frozen foods section to browse the frozen dinners.

When I got there, I saw the very person I was trying not to think about.

Caleb.

He glanced up when I rolled my cart into the aisle and I stopped at the end. He was standing towards the middle and if he hadn't seen me, I would have definitely turned around and walked away. But he had seen me, so I stood rooted to my spot. He gazed at me for a few seconds longer before looking back at the frozen pizza box in his hands.