Grey sweatpants are a terrible choice when you’re wearing a plug. Everyone at the grocery store can see exactly what a lie they are.
I knew it in the produce aisle, every step reminding me. Thigh-highs under the sweats, the lace tops digging into my legs, the plug shifting every time I reached for anything. Brett pushed the cart behind me, so close his hip bumped mine at every turn, and he didn’t say a single word until we hit the self-checkout.
Then he leaned in while I scanned the bananas.
“You’re leaking through the grey,” he breathed against my ear. “Little dark spot, right at the front.”
I almost dropped the milk.
“Keep scanning.” His voice was so calm. A woman two lanes over was bagging cereal. “When we get to the truck you’re going to climb across the bench seat, and I’m going to pull that plug out slowly, and then I’m going to put something bigger where it was.”
Please scan item again. The machine was screaming at me. I’d scanned the bananas three times.
“Say thank you to the nice machine.”
“Thank you,” I whispered, to nobody.
He took the bags. I walked to the truck with my hand pulled down over the front of my sweats, legs trembling, and he was two paces behind me the entire way, I could feel him watching the plug move.
Receipt says we bought eleven items.
I remember none of them.
