Aiden

“My name is Aiden,” I said after the not pharmacist had been silent for an uncomfortable amount of time. “If that wasn’t obvious already” I quickly added motioning to the bag that he had retrieved for me. 

The raven-haired guy paused for a minute and seemed unsure about what he was going to say. He had been wary of me throughout our entire interaction and if things were as bad as he said they were it was probably for good reason. While not everything made sense to me he had reluctantly helped me so far so I didn’t have reason to think he was lying. 

“My name is Charlie” he replied eventually his face looking a little flushed as he turned away from me for the first time since I got his attention. 

Charlie was easily six inches shorter than me and looked like a strong breeze would be able to send him flying. It was weird seeing someone shorter than me that was still best described as lanky but that was the case with him. 

I wanted to ask him how bad things really were but also wanted to avoid revealing my ignorance for as long as possible. As if on autopilot I pulled out my phone and tapped on the screen revealing the Captain America shield with the time and date over the top of it. Usually, my lock screen also showed the weather but since there was no signal I was instead shown an unhappy cloud. 

Charlie snorted softly drawing my gaze back to him. 

“Any good texts?” he asked dryly. 

“Umm no, I was just checking the time” I replied as I pocketed my phone again without even actually registering the time. “It doesn’t have any service” 

“Of course, it doesn’t have any service, the cell networks went down like four days ago” Charlie informed me his face scrunching up again as if he wasn’t sure what to make of me. 

My plan to hide my ignorance seemed to be going swimmingly. 

Instead of giving me shit about this though Charlie moved back towards the rows of medications where he had been when I arrived. 

Usually, I enjoyed sitting in silence, at this moment though the last thing I wanted was to be left alone with my thoughts. 

“What are you looking for?” I asked watching as Charlie finished with one shelf and moved on to another. 

“Antibiotics and painkillers, anything that would be useful to have on hand just in case” he replied without turning from his task. Charlie seemed to have at least some idea as to what needed to be done and it showed in the evenness his voice carried. 

I definitely wasn’t on that level and I don’t think that I ever really had been. My whole life was just a series of stumbles and falls leading me to be pretty poorly prepared to deal with whatever the hell was going on. Doing nothing though seemed to be the worst choice. 

“Let me help,” I said pocketing my prescription before placing my hands on the counter giving myself enough leverage to try and swing my legs over the counter. 

In my head, this move was going to go off smoothly and prove how awesome I was. Movies had the main character doing it all the time, vaulting over the hood of cars looking cool, and showing their companions that they know what they are doing and could be relied on. Sadly this wasn’t a movie though so my performance was doomed. 

Everything started smoothly and I was halfway over the counter before things went wrong. My foot caught a display stand at the end of the counter which budged enough to send breath mints and cough drops everywhere but the display was obviously bolted down somehow keeping my foot from continuing. In the end, I landed in a crumpled pile behind the counter my hands taking the brunt of my fall, stinging almost as badly as my pride. 

My cheeks were burning as I looked up hopeful that Charlie had somehow missed everything. He of course had not and was instead looking directly at me his expression a scrunched-up mess of emotions that were hard to distinguish. 

Slowly the corner of his lips picked up his lips moving as if he was trying to hold something in. A snort escaped from him before he quickly turned away from me his shoulders shaking silently in what I could only assume was laughter. I guess that was better than his making fun of me though it definitely didn’t do anything to stop the stinging in either my hands or pride. 

While Charlie took the time to reign in his laughter I began picking up the mess I had made hoping to destroy all evidence of my mistake. 

“I don’t think you need to worry about that” Charlie's voice came from behind me, breaking the silence and startling me enough that I let the minds in my hand scatter to the floor once more. 

It was probably bad enough that we were stealing from the pharmacy but the idea of leaving a larger than necessary mess for the real pharmacists to have to clean up just seemed overly rude. Charlie might be right though, if things were as bad as he made them out to be maybe there weren’t any pharmacists left. 

Looking at the brightly colored mints and the more somber hues of the cough drops laying on the floor before me and thinking about how no one cared if they were picked up or not made me irrationally sad. Things were bad but people were resilient, it might take a while but I’m sure that eventually, someone would be cursing my name and the mess I left here, at least I hoped this would happen. 

“Why don’t you go look to see what there is for food?” Charlie suggested evenly.

I wasn’t sure if he was making the suggestion because it was a good idea or if he just wanted to get rid of me. Either case though I had made enough of a fool out of myself here that some time on my own was probably for the best. 

Abandoning the mints and cough drops I stood up from the floor and eyed the counter warily.

Charlie could seemingly hear my thoughts as I contemplated how to best get over the counter and saved me from further embarrassment by speaking up. “There is a door over there that leads to an office and through it to a hallway that goes to the main store,” he said simply before resuming his task. 

My cheeks burning in embarrassment from not even thinking about looking for a door I quickly followed his directions. The office was small, really only enough rooms for two chairs and a desk, a number of boxes had been shoved into one of the corners behind the desk making it feel claustrophobic. 

On top of the desk was a backpack, one of those big ones that people used when they went hiking or camping. It had a sleeping bag hanging from the bottom along with a solar panel lantern and a roll of duct tape. Shrugging off my backpack and putting it into the chair it quickly became obvious which of us was the better prepared. 

I wondered briefly if he had been in the boy scouts at some point. 

Going through the second door led me into the hallway that Charlie had mentioned. One end led to a large door with a red glowing sign over the top marking it as an exit and the other end of the hall opened up into the store, leading right into an aisle that had diapers of every size from baby to adult. A few other doors dotted the hallway as well with two of them marked clearly as the restrooms. 

I made my way down the hallway, past a number of aisles with less helpful items (stationery, baby formula, and pregnancy tests) before ending up in the snack aisle. Well, it was mostly just snacks, there was a small spot about two feet wide that had a banner over top marking it as the pantry essentials. Those essentials were pretty lackluster however and most of it like the oatmeal and pasta needed to be cooked. 

Settling on the safer options I grabbed as much beef jerky as I could before moving over to the drink coolers that ran down one side of the store. This section consisted mostly of beer but after some searching, I was able to find the meager non-alcohol section and procured two large bottles of water. 

Walking back to the office my anxiety started creeping in making me begin questioning my choices. What if Charlie was a vegetarian? Maybe he liked soda more than water. What if this whole thing had been a ruse to get me out of the way so he could leave? 

The last thought made me pause. I didn’t know anything about Charlie, other than him not being a pharmacist, so why did my anxiety decide that him ditching me was something to focus on. The thought of being alone seemed daunting for some reason. 

I was used to being alone though, even when surrounded by other people it was lonely. Like most people looked at me and got this idea as to the kind of guy I was, of course, the real me never lived up to any of those ideas. Knowing this I usually worked to keep the actual parts of my personality hidden and just let everyone around me assume they knew me. I couldn’t even remember the last time I had an actual friend instead of the army of acquaintances that had formed around me. 

Rebecca had started to see the real me, she had also cheated on me before announcing it in the most embarrassing demeaning way possible. I had been alone then, with no friends or family to call and talk to, no one to rely on for support. 

The idea of being alone now though was terrifying. I didn’t know what was going on, where I should go, or what I needed to be doing. Just thinking about having to try and figure all of that out on my own was overwhelming. 

Panicking over it though wasn’t going to help so even though my mind was still a confusing mess of all my fears and doubts I continued walking toward the office. I didn’t know anything about Charlie so I could only hope that he wasn’t the kind of person that would abandon a guy they just met.