Elia

“Why are we here?”

Juniper and I were standing in line, waiting to check out.

“What do you mean?” I replied.

“Why are we here?” she restated. 

I cocked an eyebrow and stared at her.

“I’m not foolish, you know. There must be some other reason for us to be here. Why else would you bring someone you barely know here?”

“It’s nothing. Don’t worry about it.”

She was right, but I wasn’t going to tell her that.

Maximilian’s reminded me of my father, of afterschool adventures and of joyful holidays. Whenever I saw those mahogany doors, a wave of glittering nostalgia hit me.

It was quickly followed by the taste of bittersweet grief on my tongue, my brain trying desperately to hold onto the happy memories without remembering the hole bored into my soul the day I lost him.

Our purchases were an assortment of random items; Juniper held a colorful used shirt, that wixx from earlier, and a crystal from the escalator, and I held a store-bought WellCorp blue raspberry pie, cold and crisp. 

I didn’t really know what I was going to do with the pie. I wasn’t going to eat it. All those invented, lab-produced flavors always tasted too artificial to me. 

But my father loved this pie. He said it reminded him of his own father, of his ancient farm on the long-gone prairie. 

As soon as I saw the sign for the pie, I knew I had to get it. For him.

I looked at Juniper, trying to measure her reaction, but I was met with silence. I glanced down, trying to remember what the logo on her new shirt said. 

That’s when I noticed her hands.

They were startling, an ashen shade of gray, her veins shining a fluorescent teal agains her pallid skin. It looked as though someone had drained the life out of her, and she was losing color by the second.

“Hey, Juniper,” I asked, worried. “Are your hands okay?”

She stuffed them in her pockets and quickly glanced up at me, dropping her wixx onto the tiled floor.

“I’m fine,” Juniper bluntly replied.

I squatted down to the ground and picked up the stuffed animal, tucking it under my left arm. 

“You don’t look fine.”

She shot me a frantic and anxiety-ridden look. Something was wrong. How had I not noticed earlier?

“I’m f-fine,” Juniper let out, catching a stutter.

She was shaking, barely holding on to the crystal tightly grasped in her right hand.

“I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what’s going on, Juniper.”

“It’s fine. I’m fine. Everything is f-fine.”

As she said the last part, her used graphic shirt dropped to the floor. I leaned down and picked it up, putting it under the same arm as the wixx. 

She was growing visibility clammy, her face turning a waxy shade of fuschia. 

“Would you like us to go outside?” I tried to smile, attempting to not let my worry cloud my decision-making power. It wasn’t working. “If you get exonerated, you can always come back.”

I shouldn't have said that.

She grabbed my arm with her shaking hands, looked up at me, and smiled, sadness staining her eyes. 

“I’m all right. I’ll be f-fine in a few hours.”

The rest of the time we spent waiting in line flew by in an awkward silence, both of us too worried about worrying the other. Or at least, that’s what I thought. 

Honestly, I’d never seen someone reject help as easily as Juniper. I could see it in her eyes; she never was going to tell me what was going on. 

I had a pretty good guess, just assuming by nationality, but my guess was ridiculous. Irrational. Totally idiotic.

My guess was based on an urban legend, a myth I had heard in the field about Xylians many years ago. 

But I didn’t want to accidentally offend her until I was certain.

Whatever it is, Juniper thinks she has it under control.

Before long, we were in front of the register, laying out our assortment of goods for the clerk to judge. 

“Good morning,” I said.

“Good morning, ladies. Will this be all for today?”

“Yes, sir.”

He slowly and methodically inspected the items, looking for any flaws or damage to store goods before putting his final estimate down. 

“Here,” he smiled politely. “For you and your friend.”

He slid over the estimate paper, handing me a pen to sign. 

“I mean, she's not really my friend,’ Juniper mumbled.

My eyebrows furrowed into a confused line. I tapped my corpcell to the receipt to process the payment.

“Oh, is she one of those… special friends?” the clerk replied, a hint of disdain staining his voice.

What?

We’d barely known each other for less than a week.

I let out a small chuckle, and turned to look at Juniper, who had one gray hand clamped over her mouth, struggling to not burst out laughing.

“No, sir. We are just acquaintances.”

The cashier wrapped up all our gifts and put them into a rectangular paper bag, Maximilian’s’ logo was proudly displayed on the bag, colored an eye-catching metallic gold against the startling white background.

“Young people and all of their special terms,” he grimaced. “Back in my day, if you wanted to date someone, you just did it."

The cashier was interrupted by the beeping of the receipt printer, a fresh slip of paper sitting in its mouth. He pulled out the receipt and stuffed it in the bag.

"All of you kids are so anxious. It’s going to give me a heart attack one day.”

He pushed the white bag over to us. 

“Now you two kids go have fun.”

The cashier, I think his name tag said Craig, gave me a small wink and whispered wordlessley, ‘just do it.’

I picked up the bag, tucking it under my right shoulder. 

“Thank you so much, sir,” I politely replied. 

Juniper and I left the crowded department store within seconds. I could hear her next to me breathing out one final sigh of relief as we exited Maximilian’s, a distant smile lighting up her face. 

“Are you doing better?”

“I am,” Juniper replied. “Or at least, I will be.”

She was not fine. I could see her hands shaking, the pallid gray still not disappearing.

“I’ll call over a WellRide.”

I quickly picked up my corpcell and opened the WellRide app, finding a car in seconds. 

Within minutes, our WellCorp driver arrived. 

“Good afternoon, Sir,” I smiled. “Could you take us to 43F of the Xena plot?:

“That haunted, old house?”

“Yes. Please. Quick, too, if possible.”

And with that, Juniper and I piled into the backseat of the WellRide. 

How dare he call my house haunted.