The old register beeps when Ellen types in the cost of the milk and gum. I pull my card out and swipe it.
âYouâre always studying,â I say. Itâs true: every time I come here sheâs alone behind the counter and is either reading from a textbook or filling out work sheets.
âI need to get into college.â She shrugs, and her brown eyes flash away from mine.
College?Sheâs in high school and works here this late, and this often? Even on the days when I donât stop in, I see her working through the window.
âHow old are you?â I canât help but ask. Itâs none of my business, and Iâm not much older than her, but if I were her parents, I would be a little worried about my teenage daughter working alone, at night, in a store in Brooklyn.
âI turn seventeen next week,â she says with a frown, which kind of runs counter to the typical teenage girl, who beams at the idea of getting another year closer to the golden age of eighteen.
âNice,â I tell her as she hands me the receipt to sign.
Sheâs still frowning when she hands me a red pen tied to a small clipboard with a dirty brown string. I sign it and give it back to her. She apologizes profusely when the printer machine jams before my copy of the receipt comes out. She pops the top off and I tell her that itâs fine.
âIâm not in a rush,â I tell her. I donât have anywhere to be except home to study for Geology. Oh, and my date with Nora that Iâm pretty damn nervous about. No big deal.
She rips the jammed paper roll out and tosses it into a trash can behind the counter.
Thinking about her, I realize that Ellen has never really seemed as carefree as a seventeen-year-old should be. Often I forget that most people in the world donât have a mom like mineâheck, most kids I knew growing up didnât. I didnât have a father figure growing up, but it never bothered me much, honestly. I had my mom. Everyone reacts to things differently based on their own personal experience and how theyâre built. Hardin, for example . . . his experiences had different effects on him than mine had on me, and he had to take a different path to understand them. It doesnât matter why; what matters is that heâs taken responsibility for them and is busting his ass to understand his past and shape his future.
When I was twelve, I began to count down the years and months leading to my eighteenth birthdayâeven though I wouldnât be going anywhere right away, my eighteenth birthday being right at the beginning of my senior year. Because of the enrollment cutoff, I was always older than everyone else in my grade. I hadnât planned on leaving my momâs house until after college, but that was before Dakota started mentioning me moving to New York with her during her senior year. After I spent months applying for a transfer, applying for FAFSA at NYU, finding an apartment for the two of us that was easily accessible to the campus using the subway, coming to peace with leaving behind my best friends, my pregnant mom, and my stepdad, Dakotaâs life took a change and she forgot to tell me.
Iâm still happy that I moved, happy that Iâm becoming an actual man whoâs socially aware, with responsibilities and plans for the future. Iâm not perfectâI can barely do my own laundry, and Iâm still getting the hang of paying my own billsâbut Iâm learning at a pace that I can keep up with and having a good time doing it. Tessa helps a lot. Tessa likes to keep things much tidier than a normal person, but we both clean and do an equal share of the chores. Iâve never left a dirty pair of socks in the living room, or forgotten to pick my damp, dirty clothes off of the bathroom floor after a shower. Iâm conscious that I share an apartment with a woman who Iâm not intimate with, so I never leave the toilet seat up or freak out if I see a tampon wrapper in the trash can. I make sure sheâs not home when I masturbate, and I always make sure to leave no evidence behind when I do.
Though perhaps yesterday disproves that last claim. My mind keeps going back there, to the encounter with Nora.
After turning the machine off and back on and changing the roll of paper twice, Ellen prints my copy of the receipt. I decide to linger just a little longer; I have a feeling that she doesnât get much interaction outside of the characters in her history books.
âAre you doing anything special for your birthday?â I ask her, genuinely curious.
She scoffs and her cheeks flare. Her pale skin turns red and she shakes her head. âMe? No, I have to work.â
Somehow I knew she didnât have plans outside of sitting in a stool behind the high counter.
âWell, birthdays are overrated anyway,â I say with the biggest smile I can manage. She half smiles, her eyes lighting up with just a touch of happiness.
Her back straightens slightly and her shoulders sag a little less. âYeah, they are.â
I tell her to have a good night and she says she will. As I close the door behind me I tell her not