Home Is With You(bxb)✔️

Chapter 33

Jacob's p.o.v

'Are candles necessary?' I ponder as I twirl the small pack of birthday candles around in my hand. My birthday is over a week and since it's the end of the month and I just got paid, I thought it would be great to spend some money to celebrate it, the only difference is that I'll be doing it alone this time around.

I feel a sharp tug in my heart when the fresh memories of how miss Alyssa and I used to celebrate both our birthdays on hers cloud my mind. We're both cancers so the wait for her birthday wasn't long, I only waited for two weeks because mine came first.

Baking became a tradition to us, when my parents weren't there of course, and we'd light as many candles as I wanted on the cake and decorate it with cute colors.

"That's really something to remember" I mumble with a sigh and wipe my face to prevent embarrassment. I can't even tell when I'm crying these days and just as I thought, there's a small trail of teardrops on my palm so I wipe it off and breathe.

I put the candles back down and carefully push my grocery cart around the stores looking for the cheapest stuff I can buy with the budget I have at the moment. I've been in here for approximately fifteen minutes and judging by my cart, I haven't really found anything yet. The only thing I've managed to get is cereal, some vegetables and fruits, nothing else.

Walking by the isle full of different types of cheese, I push the cart slower to check the prices and my mouth falls open in shock. Why are they so pricey, well not really, but I still can't afford this. 'I can't buy them, I can't buy them' I remind myself and rapidly make my way out of there.

When I first started working, I didn't purchase whatever I wanted, but I was able to buy more groceries and maybe some cute shirts.

Doing that now is impossible because my landlord recently found out that I'm working and that didn't really end well. Instead of the 300 I was used to paying, he increased my rent to 650 although I protested. Now I have no choice but to move out and go to Candy's, because I can't even safe my money even if I wanted to.

I flinch and pull my cart back when a guy suddenly appears in front of it and he chuckles when he notices that. He must be working here since he's wearing the blue polo shirt with a yellow logo. This is the third time I've run in to him today.

"Is everything okay?" he asks looking at my cart and I instantly nod, "are your necessities on the top shelf?" he goes on with raised eyebrows as I dumbfoundedly stare at him when his shoulders start to shake.

"I'm sorry, w-what?" I ask when he laughs loudly. If that was a joke then I must've missed it.

"You didn't get it? Well, since you're short and your cart's still a bit empty, I figured that you just can't reach for the stuff you want to buy. Never mind, it's not funny now that I've explained it."

"It wasn't funny before" I tell him truthfully and he nods looking around in embarrassment.

"Hey, sorry. It was just a joke, wait up" he says getting a hold of my shoulder when I want to walk away, "I just... I wanted to talk to you and I must've ruined it with a stupid joke so why don't we start over. The name's Elijah."

I give his hand a quick shake and pull away. "Park" I introduce myself and he smiles.

"So Park, are you from around here?"

"No, not really. Can you get that for me?" I say pointing towards a bag of chips and he does it, "thanks."

"Okay, where were we. Do you have an Instagram?"

"Yes, where is the register again?" I ask starting to feel very agitated and vexed. I tend to get like that nowadays, especially when I don't eat any candy and I don't have any at the moment. Whatever's in that thing makes me happy.