Markus's hands felt icy on my face.
Still groggy, I pushed his hands away from me, pressing myself closer into the corner of the room. My knees pushed to my chest, my chin leaning against it. I didn’t even notice him enter the room. My eyelids felt heavy, and it swelled my eyes shut. Unconsciously, I hug myself tighter, stealing glances at the door.
From behind me, I heard Markus utter a small curse, “Oh shit,” Then I hear his footsteps running to one of the shelves and when I turned around, it was just in time to see him reach a tissue box that was placed alongside other tissue boxes. He grabs one and tears through the packaging and hands it over to me. My hands shook as I tried to grab it.
Something weird has happened.It had been a few weeks ever since my minor episode and ever since I got acquainted with my stockpile room. Over the weeks, I managed to grow a slight bump and most of my camisoles don’t fit me anymore. I started wearing loose shirts that I only used to wear on days that I hated myself.
Markus was sweating buckets behind me.Like how I usually did when shopping in bulk, I emptied shelves and dumped baskets of things inside my cart. We scurried through every single aisle. When I go shopping, I usually have work right after, which meant I only had a certain amount of time to do it. Now, however, I had all the time in the world.
The last transaction reaches a total of $900.It was bigger than I had calculated, and I flip open my binder and check the pages to see if I had missed a coupon. There were times when I had made mistakes with mathematics, but this was too big of a mistake. The only logic behind this is I must have missed a bunch of coupons.
The drive back to his apartment was peaceful enough.I was still distraught at the irrelevant fluttering of my heart and I’ve already decided that it was irrelevant, and I would not be paying any sort of attention to it. Markus didn’t look alright either. W
The morning after, Markus jolted me awake on my bed.He was shaking my shoulders, and I squinted my eyes at him. The fluorescent lamp in my room shining brightly. The smile on his face annoyed me so much that I grabbed a pillow and hit him on the face with it. Groaning, I then slap his arms away from me and turn around, hugging a pillow.
Every 26th of the month, my parents would contact me and ask for money.Being as I’m the only person who had an actual job in that family, they had always reached out to me. Usually, I’ve always had this date remembered because every month, I save my money so that I could give it to the kids. My siblings. I can’t depend on my parents in providing them what they needed.
My palm hits his cheek and I feel tears prick my eyes. Having to live with them was one thing to be embarrassed about. Having Markus know how my parents talked to me was another thing. But the pity he had on his eyes now as he looked at me, a big red palm-shaped welt forming on his face, was an entirely uncommon thing.