Take Me Home | ✔

Chapter Twenty-Three (being revised)

[ unedited & will probably be heavily revised later on ] 

author's note: i was initially going to make the 'stuck-in-a-grocery-store-scene' way longer than it would've been, maybe as an excuse for a filler chapter between eli and vienna, but considering the amount of writer's block i've had (literally a month of nothing), i decided it'd be better to just skip it. maybe i'll write the scene and make it a deleted scene later, but for now, enjoy this chapter and their new friend. 

recap: eli and vienna are trapped inside of a Safeway grocery store in Texas after a strong thunderstorm knocks out all power. elliot is outside in the parking lot doing god-knows-what, and the only cashier/employee in the building is twenty-year-old marie, and the thunderstorm's been raging and the electricity still hadn't come back. 

- x -

late tuesday night - three-ish days til graduation.

        We'd been sitting here on the dirty floor of the new Safeway mart for forty six minutes and thirty two seconds since the power went out. I knew precisely because I'd watched the black digital letters turn on Eli's iPod, and with each minute that passed, I worried about three things. 1) When the hell we were going to get out of this dark dungeon 2) what the heck was Elliot still doing outside and why wasn't he here with us, and 3) Eli's iPod, our only source of light, would probably run out of battery soon. 

This was a perfect way to spend a thunderstorm, don't you think? With two strangers in a store full of food and no one knowing that we were trapped here. 

"There's gotta be another way out," I said offhandedly, to no one in particular. Marie and Eli were sitting down in the drinks aisle, watching me as I stared down the metal doors than refused to open. For the last five minutes, I'd been kicking them dully with the stub of my shoe, like it would make them open. "We can't just be stuck." 

"It's a lost cause, Vienna, give up," Eli said. 

"I'll never give up," I muttered through gritted teeth, trying to pry apart the two doors and grunted as I pulled. The doors never budged. Outside, the storm continued to rage on, that the rain fell horizontally, splattering on the doors and causing streaks on the glass. I couldn't see five feet ahead. The wind howled through the cracks in the door, and even made the windows tremble a little. I slid down the glass doors melodramatically, banging my head against the surface. "Fine, I give up." 

"If you're worried about Elliot--" 

"I'm not worried about Elliot," I cut Eli off effectively. 

"Right. Of course you're not." 

I turned away from him so he wouldn't so how I was lying. I was a bit worried. Maybe it was just me, but I was getting a bit attached to Elliot. Not in that way, but more of a platonic way (or I'd like to think.) I guess being stranded on the other side of the country with a person makes you heavily reliant on them. He was really the only one who I'd trusted on this trip, albeit, the only person with me on this trip -- until Eli showed up. He didn't serve as Elliot's replacement, considering the two are polar opposites, but he would do. 

"Hey, Vienna?" Eli called out to me. 

"What?" 

"Could you stop banging your head on the doors? I can't really hear Elvis," he complained, flashing his iPod. 

Instead, I banged my head louder. 

"Just for a lack of excitement and conversation, who's Elliot?" Marie asked from the aisles. I could hear the crunching of her jaws as she ate peanut after peanut and the occasional cashew. It only took Eli and I a few seconds to realize that Marie the Cashier was inevitably addicted to peanuts.