Keeping my eyes closed made no difference. I was awake, and it was past time to scramble all my items together and run off to work. No matter how hard I tried to preserve specific scenes, people, words, the details slipped through my fingers. All that remained was a bitterly nostalgic aftertaste that soured any attempts to focus throughout the rest of the day. My mind had a foot in another world, and I could not shake that feeling. I went about my routine until Mr. Humke came to the backroom where I was sweeping.
"You don't need to clean up. I'll get my kid to finish. You go on ahead, Kath'rine. No one else is coming in today."
He never pronounced all the syllables.
"Yessir. Thank you. See you tomorrow."
"See you Monday. Have a nice weekend."
"Right!"
I gathered my things quickly and hopped in the car. I flipped through my phone's music library longer than the commute itself would have taken, until I found something slow enough not to clash with my mood but varied enough to not be boring or cheesy. It's not like I had anywhere else to be.
I stopped by the grocery store on the way home and picked up enough for a simple sandwich to eat alone in silence.
Hell.
I was pretty sure I had a dream I was in Hell. All I remember is what I said to- Was someone else in Hell with me? I mused after the scene, the face, the context, and scraped nothing more. The weird guy on Discord was talking about lucid dreaming opening your mind to demonic contact. He's an idiot, but something from that conversation must have bothered me deep down. Idiot Elerias gave me a nightmare. Hilarious. A smile crept over my face. He totally got me.
----
It was bitterly cold out. I didn't want to spend my break inside, though, so I sat, butt frozen to a metal bench, watching my breath crystalize. Lane was in today, and her queer judgmental glances in my direction bothered me. I couldn't tell if Mr. Humke had said something to make her think less of me, if she was jealous, or if it was something as simple as her thinking my shoes were dorky. She was perfectly civil when we did speak, but we never had smalltalk in the year and a half I worked for Mr. Homke. He had her working since she was a toddler, from the sounds of it, so even though I only met her a few months after I started working, she had a lot of seniority. She'd probably inherit the business, too. Ah, well. Mr. Homke did say once he would be open to selling the business to me. Would she not inherit the business? Thinking of her always sank a stone in my gut.
I looked up at the sky. It got dark earlier and earlier. It looked like midnight out here, and the sky was the perfect combination of cold and dry, so that every star and its halo was visible. The moon was robed in rainbow. And it was exactly 6 P.M. The stars looked like snow in a way, caught in the air. Like the snow back then. I reached out my hand and met another, clasped around mine. My break was over. I snapped out of daydream. Back when?
That touch haunted me all day. No one had ever held my hand. Not even Mom and Dad when I was little. Where did a memory like that emerge from? It made me feel bitterly lonely. And sexless. Such a masculine hand.
I carried that itch to the very end of the day. I washed my face before bed, and before finishing, made eye contact with my reflection for a moment. The bathroom had terrible lighting, but the light still caught in my eyes in a way that looked kinda cute. My face definitely had a cuteness to it. Maybe not beauty. Certainly nothing sexy. But I was pretty. And that prettiness was enough to feel confident that some guy could notice me, clasp my hand like that.
I reached my hand out in the same way, but the feeling was empty and alone, nothing in the middle of my bathroom. But my mind could almost insert some kind a guy willing to touch me. I swear I had felt that some time. In some dream or something. Probably something stupid, like some book character or something. A total figment, maybe even. Certainly no one real. I looked back into the mirror and saw quite a plain girl, stuck in some small business with no upward mobility, and nothing really special about her to capture any guy's interest.
And if I ever did strike some guy's fancy, it's not like I'm all that fun. I don't drink or smoke or party or have any of that mystery or thrill. What boy reads? Or does quiet things? Probably one who doesn't reach out and grasp a girl by the hand and tell her she's pretty.
I slumped into the bed. It was stupid, but I pretended I was next to someone. Just hands clasped like that. The memory was so tangible, it was indistinguishable from the real thing in the dark. He was right there.
"--You never got the key."