CHAPTER 11: To Walmart In High Spirits

CHAPTER 11: To Walmart In High Spirits

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Ella was angrily thinking: 'he can't do whatever he wants to, just because he seems to have an upper hand!'

'He couldn't just do that! Can he?' She frowned.

'Damn it, he can!'

'So, what now? This can't be how it ends. And he's just blaming me for reading those letters but he probably read everything I wrote too. I accept that I wrote back replies, but I never gave them to him... He somehow got the journal, probably stole it and I clearly wasn't ready for him to read all that.' She grumbled to herself, but a small smile tugged on her lips, ever so slightly, just because all of it wasn't a crazy hallucination. It was all real and the letter in her hands was hard proof.

Her head swam with thoughts of everything she wrote in those replies and she cringed in embarrassment. Ella buried her face in her hands, she knew she hadn't filtered her words and her letters contained some very personal, some awkward and probably even humiliating moments and private confessions.

After sitting there blankly for quite some time Ella finally got her bearings and checked her phone. Jay's texts had flooded her inbox and abruptly she was pulled back into reality and was reminded of her promise.

Quickly she folded the letter along its creases and pushed it back in the envelope before going back to her desk and keeping it in her bag carefully.

Thankfully, Leah, her coworker, was already there at the desk as she had to take over after Ella's shift. She gave her a bright smile as Ella pulled her bag strap on her left shoulder. Leah has been among her first few acquaintances turned friends when she had joined the college, she was also the one who showed Ella the ropes about her current job and helped her in every way she could.

"What's the hurry?" She asked just to make conversation, her familiar dark eyes twinkled with friendly warmth, as she tucked away a few loose strands of her dirty-blonde hair.

"Gotta go meet Jay at the Wall-mart, besides I need to do some shopping of my own," Ella answered swiftly.

"Oh man, don't remind me..." Leah frowned at the thought of grocery shopping. "Have fun, buy something substantial and don't go into the snacks aisle, it's a trap!"

"I'll try." Ella chuckled and rushed out, trying not to think of the letter she just read. But the smile on her face refused to leave her.

Thankfully the Walmart wasn't too far, it was only a fifteen-minute walk from the library and she was determined to make that journey in twelve minutes or less.

Once she arrived, it wasn't hard to spot Jay, he was for some reason picking up tomatoes from the floor and looked like he didn't want to be there.

As soon as Jay saw her he pouted, "Why are you so late? Where were you? I was about to cry."

Ella rolled her eyes, smiling, "Stop being so dramatic." She said and picked up a tomato on her way and handed it to him.

"Dramatic? The bag of tomatoes I picked split open from the bottom and all of them rolled away." He pointed at the torn bag as if it was the culprit. "And then a toddler even kicked one of my tomatoes right before stealing it and now you're being mean to me." He complained.

"Awww, you got bullied by a kid..." Ella teased, laughingly.

"No, I didn't." He picked up the last tomato and added it to the bag which was barely holding itself together. "I just got robbed by a kid, he stole my tomato." How was that any better? She wondered but decided not to question him.

"Alright, sure... what else do you need to get?" She asked.

"Everything else, I only managed to get the tomatoes, and look how well that panned out." He grumbled.

Ella sighed, "fine, let's go get everything else..."

She grabbed a shopping cart of her own and they both pushed their carts through the aisles shopping for various products.

"You look like you're in your high spirits today." Jay said, "anything good happened?"

"Well, you could say that." She shrugged, the smile on her face widened.

"Which would be...?" He asked curiously, being the nosy 'I need to know everything', person that he was.

"Nothing specific." Ella said, "it's just a good day."

Jay raised a brow, confused but amused at her answers. "Not for me, this is dreadful." He said, referring to the work at hand.

Ella found it funny to watch Jay freak out over everything he had to get. "Can't Patrick just get here already!" He grumbled.

"Patrick is coming too?" She asked.

"He just texted me, he said he managed to get away from work but he's running late now, stuck in traffic," Jay said.

"Right." She mumbled and watched as Jay dumped arms full of ramen instant noodles packets in his cart. "What the-!"

Jay dusted his hands as he stared down at his handy work and said, "This is for Daniel, he only eats ramen... And if I offer him something I cooked, he looks at it like I gave him a dead rat."

Ella was well aware of Daniel's habit of hanging out at Jay's and raiding his food, and she smiled at the way the guys just encouraged each other. "I see...you sure it's not because you suck at cooking?" Ella asked.

"Of course not." He denied it flatly and then moved on with his shopping until he spotted a kid with a bright red tomato in his hand.

"Hey, kid! Give me my tomato back!" Jay yelled as he looked at the tiny boy.

The boy looked up at him before sticking his tongue out and then giggled as he ran away. Ella watched with a mix of surprise and amusement as Jay abandoned his cart to chase him.

"What the hell Jay, you're gonna get us thrown out of here!" Ella frowned at him as the little boy and Jay ran around in circles in the snacks aisle. Oh no, everything was chaos.

Jay was letting him get away as he continued to chase him, pretending to be serious about catching him.

This went on for several minutes until Ella Intervened, "Stop! Stop! Stop!"

Jay was standing in front of her while the little boy hid behind her. "That man started it!" The kid said pointing up at Jay.

"No, I didn't! You took my tomato!" Jay accused.

"It's not yours! I found it on the floor all by its lonesome." The little boy said defensively.

Ella looked at the boy and tactfully asked, "just because you found it doesn't make it yours does it?"

"Yes, it does! Finders keepers, losers weepers." The boy said to her.

Ella and Jay looked at each other before she said, "he's got a point."

Jay frowned, "I'm not a weeper."

The little boy stuck his tongue out at Jay again and then ran away yelling "mom" at a lady who was busy shopping in the next aisle.

"I think you got beaten by a kid twice in a day," Ella told Jay.

He laughed and fondly said, "he's such a brat."

As they walked around some more, Jay spoke up, "Dan and Nora said they want to visit the taco place on Wednesday, apparently, there's some eat-all-you-want offer, you in?"

She thought about it, but realised she wasn't idle that day, "I have other plans."

Jay being the overdramatic idiot gasped at the revelation, "You have other friends beside us?"

Ella cracked a smile, "Something like that..." she didn't elaborate.

A few minutes later, they were both in the soaps and shampoo section of the Walmart where he lost his cool over detergent and then he pulled out his phone which held the grocery list and read out loud 'Peas'.

"We need to buy peas." He said and then dragged her with him and she dragged the shopping cart along with them to the produce aisle while wishing she could buy him some peace of mind.

"There it is," Ella said pointing at a spot in the aisle and they walked closer.

"Which one should I get?" Jay asked, seemingly confused as he looked between snap peas, garden peas and a refrigerator next to them that had frozen peas. "Why must there be so many types?"

"I think frozen peas would do." A voice spoke up from behind them as they both turned to look at an amused Patrick.

"Oh thank god you're here..." Jay exclaimed and then hugged Patrick like the drama queen he was.

"Patrick would you please tell him not to have a meltdown over everything he's supposed to buy..." Ella said in an I-can't-deal-with-him tone.

"I'll try." Patrick humoured as Jay moved out of the embrace he was holding Patrick in.

"Much appreciated." She nodded.

"I thought he'd be alone so I decided to drop by in case he has a panic attack over soap or a laundry detergent." He joked.

"Hey! That's offensive to people who actually have panic attacks!" Jay added.

"You did panic over detergent if I remember correctly," Ella recalled.

Jay quickly added a bag of frozen peas to the cart and said "let's go." as he started pushing the cart with him. Patrick and Ella followed with amused smiles.

The next hour was a blur of walking around in Walmart as Ella witnessed Jay and Patrick shopping for each other.

"These potato chips are fine," Jay said.

"No, they're not! You don't like them baked, we are getting the other one." Patrick disagreed.

"We don't have to..." Jay argued, and this went on for a few minutes.

When Ella went to grab pasta and returned, they both had already moved on to another debate.

"I hardly ever eat ice cream, you know I'm on a diet." Patrick was saying.

"But you have cheat days every now and then and I don't want you to eat a flavour you don't like." Jay countered.

"You don't even like strawberry flavour, you can't buy a whole carton just for me," Patrick told him.

"But you like it. So I'm getting it, besides I don't hate it, maybe I'll even grow to like it." Jay said. This went on for another couple of minutes.

Ella went to grab some apples and lemons and came back a few minutes later.

"We should get the honey nut Cheerios!" Jay declared.

"No, of course not. They are too sweet, we're getting Applejacks!" Patrick said and kept honey nut Cheerios back on the shelf.

"What the hell? Applejacks are boring, I'm telling you the Cheerios are much better, you'll like it if you stop nitpicking about every little thing!" Jay argued.

"Do you not understand that it's too sweet?! I don't want to start my day by giving myself cavities!" Patrick said.

"Oh my god. Can we just get both and go home?!" Ella exclaimed and they both turned to look at her, shocked. "You guys are worse than a married couple!" She grumbled as she pushed her cart away.

"No, we're not!" They both said in sync and then instantly glared at each other.

She thought Jay was bad at shopping, she didn't think Patrick and Jay together were terrible.

After they were done with shopping they got in a line to pay and get out of there. Jay and Patrick were goofing around as usual.

Ella wasn't paying much attention to them until she saw Patrick's name signed on the receipt that he pocketed and froze in shock.

The handwriting of his signature was awfully familiar to her eyes.

And she couldn't help but draw a parallel.

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