* * *
The fluorescent lights hummed a frequency Ira felt more than heard—a low, persistent vibration that had worked its way into his molars sometime around hour four. He was in grocery now, restocking canned vegetables on the middle shelf, his knees aching against the hard floor even through his jeans.
Three days since the lumber arrived.
Two more voicemails to Ridgeline, unreturned.
Miss Hagarty had texted Monday night: Just checking in. Praying for you and the project. Let me know if you need anything.
He hadn't replied. He didn't know what to say. Thank you felt like a lie. Leave me alone felt ungrateful. I don't know what you did to me but I can't stop hearing your voice—that one he couldn't even finish thinking. So he'd left it on read and told himself he'd respond later, when he had something to report, when he'd earned the right to take up space in her inbox again.
He hadn't replied to Ellie either. Four texts since the beach trip. The last one, yesterday: ok now I'm actually worried. call me?
He'd typed three responses. Deleted all of them.
Easier to not.
* * *
Ridge Market had been his second home for four years. He'd started freshman year, bagging groceries for minimum wage and the strange dignity of having somewhere to be. By junior year they were floating him everywhere—dairy, produce, frozen, wherever a body was needed. He learned to read the rotation schedule like weather patterns, predicting where he'd be needed before anyone asked. Management loved him for it. Ira's reliable. Ira figures it out. Ira never complains.
Three weeks ago he'd turned eighteen. Now he could work the deli slicer, the meat counter, the bakery ovens. More access meant more asks. He'd picked up three extra shifts this week alone, trying to save for—what? College books. Gas money. A future that felt less like a cliff edge and more like a road.
His body was keeping a tab he hadn't checked yet.
* * *
The canned corn was dusty. He wiped each one with the hem of his shirt before shelving it, a habit no one had asked him to develop but that he couldn't seem to stop. The store was quiet—Wednesday afternoons always were. A few retirees comparing soup labels. A mother with a toddler in the cart, the kid's shoes kicking against the metal bars in an arrhythmic drumbeat.
His stomach growled. He'd skipped lunch. Not on purpose—there just hadn't been a moment. His break had gotten swallowed by a delivery that needed signing, and then the dairy cooler started making a sound, and then Mrs. Pemberton needed help finding the gluten-free crackers, and then—
And then it was 2:47 and he was hungry and tired and his knees hurt and he still had two hours left on his shift.
He reached up for the top shelf, stretching to push back a row of canned beets that had migrated forward. His shirt pulled free from his waistband—he felt the cool air hit his lower back, the fabric bunching up around his ribs.
"Your shirt—okay, abs."
Ira's hand slipped. A can of beets wobbled but didn't fall.
He turned. Luca was already walking past—nineteen, maybe twenty, shift supervisor for barely a year but carrying it like he'd been born to the clipboard in his hand. Curly dark hair, tan Ridge Market polo, and the kind of ease in his own skin that Ira couldn't imagine having.
"What?" Ira heard himself say.
Luca was already at the endcap. He glanced back, shrugged. "Rode up. Just saying." And then he was gone, disappearing toward the stockroom.
Ira stood there.
His shirt was still untucked. The air was still cool against his skin. His hand was still raised toward the top shelf, frozen mid-reach, like someone had pressed pause on a movie and forgotten to press play.
What just happened?
The beet can settled on the shelf with a soft metallic sound. His pulse beat once in his throat. Twice.
He tucked his shirt back in. Smoothed it down. Checked to make sure no one else had heard—the aisle was empty, the retirees long gone to soups, the mother and toddler somewhere in frozen foods.
His face felt warm. Something flickered through him—not quite a thought, not quite a feeling. More like a question his body was asking before his brain caught up.
He didn't know what to do with that. So he didn't do anything. He just finished shelving the beets, moved on to the green beans, and tried to forget the way Luca's voice had sounded—easy, unbothered, like noticing someone's body was just a thing people did, like it didn't mean anything at all.
Maybe it didn't.
He couldn't tell if that made it better or worse.
* * *
The green beans were almost done when he heard her voice.
"You're ignoring me."
Ira looked up. Ellie was standing at the end of aisle seven, arms crossed, dark curly hair pulled back in a way that meant she'd come straight from somewhere else—practice, maybe, or volunteering at the community center. She was wearing a faded t-shirt with a camp logo on it and cutoff shorts, and her expression was the one she got when she was trying to decide whether to be hurt or angry and hadn't landed on either yet.
"I'm working," he said.
"You're stocking beans."
"That's part of working."
"Ira." She walked toward him, her sandals slapping against the linoleum. "You haven't texted me back in five days. You didn't answer when I called. I literally drove here because I thought maybe you'd died and no one told me."
"I didn't die."
"Clearly." She stopped a few feet away, close enough that he could smell her shampoo—something fruity, familiar, the same scent she'd worn since sophomore year. "So what's going on?"
"Nothing's going on. I've just been busy."
"With what?"
"With—" He gestured at the shelves, the cans, the fluorescent wasteland surrounding them. "This. And the parsonage. And church stuff. And—"
"And ignoring your best friend?"
"I'm not ignoring you."
"You're literally doing it right now."
He didn't have a response to that. She was right. She was always right. That was the problem with Ellie—she saw things, saw him, in ways that felt like being x-rayed. There was nowhere to hide.
"I'm on the clock," he said finally. "I can't just—"
"Ira." She looked around the aisle pointedly. Empty. The whole store was practically empty. A muzak version of "Don't Stop Believin'" drifted from the ceiling speakers, offensively cheerful. "There's literally no one here. You're not exactly swamped."
"My supervisor—"
"Will what? Fire you for talking to a friend? You've worked here four years. You're their golden boy. They'd let you take a nap in the walk-in freezer if you asked."
He wanted to believe that. His body didn't. His body still thought someone was watching, waiting to catch him doing something wrong.
He opened his mouth to argue, but nothing came out. She wasn't wrong. That didn't make his nervous system agree.
Footsteps behind him. He turned—Luca was walking back up the aisle, clipboard still in hand, heading toward the front. Ira's spine straightened automatically.
"Hey," Ira said, his voice shifting into something more formal, more employee. "I was just helping this customer find something."
Ellie raised an eyebrow.
Luca slowed, glanced between them. His gaze lingered on Ellie for a beat—not in a weird way, just assessing—and then landed back on Ira with something like amusement.
"That so?" Luca said.
"She's looking for the, uh—" Ira turned to Ellie, willing her to play along. "What was it you needed?"
Ellie stared at him. Her mouth twitched.
"Beans," she said flatly. "I desperately need beans. It's a bean emergency."
Luca laughed—a real laugh, surprised out of him. "A bean emergency. That's a new one."
"It's very serious," Ellie said, deadpan. "Life or death. These specific beans." She grabbed a random can off the shelf without looking at it. Kidney beans. "Thank God your employee was here to help me. I never would have found them on my own. In the aisle. Labeled 'beans.'"
Ira felt his face go hot. Second time that happened today. In Aisle 7. The bean aisle.
Luca looked at him—really looked—and something in his expression softened. The amusement was still there, but underneath it was something else. Recognition, maybe. Understanding.
"Ira," he said. "Take fifteen. Catch up with your friend."
"I still have to finish the—"
"I'll get Marco to cover. You've been here since ten. Take a break."
"But—"
"That's not a suggestion." Luca's voice was easy, but firm. He reached out and clapped Ira on the shoulder—a brief, casual touch—and Ira managed not to flinch. "You're wound tighter than a two-dollar watch, man. Go sit down. Drink some water. Talk to your bean emergency friend."
He walked away before Ira could argue, disappearing through the swinging doors to the back.
Ellie watched him go, then turned to Ira with her eyebrows raised.
"'Bean emergency friend,'" she repeated. "I'm putting that on a t-shirt."
"I hate you."
"No you don't." She grabbed his arm—her fingers wrapping around his wrist, warm and insistent—and tugged him toward the front of the store. "Come on. You look like you're about to collapse. When's the last time you ate?"
He didn't answer. He was too busy trying to figure out why Luca's hand on his shoulder felt different than Ellie's hand on his wrist—why one had made him want to flinch and the other just felt like Ellie, like always, like the most natural thing in the world.
* * *
The break room was small and beige and smelled like old coffee. Ellie sat across from him at the plastic folding table, watching him eat a granola bar from the vending machine like he was a science experiment.
"You're staring," he said.
"You're inhaling that thing. When's the last time you had an actual meal?"
He tried to remember. Breakfast had been half a piece of toast, eaten standing up while his mom searched for her keys. Dinner last night had been... had he eaten dinner last night? There'd been something in the microwave. He couldn't remember if he'd actually eaten it.
"I've been busy," he said.
"You keep saying that." Ellie leaned back in her plastic chair. "Busy with what, exactly? Because the way you're acting, I'd think you were running for president. Or hiding a body."
"The parsonage stuff. The lumber finally came."
"That's good, right? That's what you were waiting for."
"Yeah." He looked down at the granola bar wrapper, folding it into smaller and smaller squares. "Except now I have to actually... coordinate everything. The volunteers. The contractor. Someone has to be there when they're working, and Ridgeline isn't—" He stopped. Swallowed. "They're not really involved anymore. It's just me."
"What do you mean, it's just you? It's their project."
"It's my project. They just..." He searched for the right word. "Facilitated."
"That sounds like code for 'dumped it on a teenager and walked away.'"
He didn't respond. The granola bar wrapper was a tiny square now, dense as origami.
"Ira." Ellie's voice had shifted. Softer. More careful. "What's going on? And don't say 'nothing.' I've known you since seventh grade. I can tell when you're drowning."
"You're not sleeping. You're not eating. You're not answering your phone. You missed the beach trip—"
"I already told you, I had to be at the parsonage—"
"And you've been weird ever since. Even before. Something happened at the parsonage that day. Something you're not telling me."
The granola bar wrapper tore. He looked down at the pieces in his hands, suddenly aware of how tightly he'd been gripping them. His knuckles were white.
"Miss Hagarty came by," he said. The words came out before he could stop them. "That morning. When the lumber didn't show up."
Ellie waited.
"She said some stuff. About—" His throat felt tight. "About patterns. And rot. And cutting things out before they spread."
"Rot?"
"Like in the walls. The parsonage has water damage. But she wasn't really talking about the walls."
Ellie was quiet for a long moment. Her face had gone still in a way he recognized—the way she looked when she was processing something that made her angry but she hadn't decided what to do about it yet.
"What exactly did she say?" she asked.
"It doesn't matter."
"It clearly matters. You're still carrying it around a week later."
"I'm not—"
"Ira." She reached across the table and put her hand over his—the one still holding the torn wrapper. Her palm was warm. Steady. "Hey. Look at me."
He did. Her eyes were brown and fierce and seeing him in that way she always did, the way that made him feel like he had nowhere to hide.
"Whatever she said," Ellie said carefully, "whatever she made you feel—that's not gospel. That's just one person's opinion. And Miss Hagarty isn't exactly..." She trailed off, searching for words.
"She wrote my recommendation letter," Ira said.
"I know."
"She believes in me. She sees potential in me that—"
"She also made you miss the beach trip. She made you feel like you had to choose between your friends and being a good person. And now you're working yourself to death and not answering your phone and sitting in a break room looking like you haven't slept in a week." Her jaw tightened. She squeezed his hand. "That's not mentorship, Ira. That's something else."
He wanted to argue. He wanted to defend Miss Hagarty, explain the context, make Ellie understand that it wasn't like that, that she was just trying to help, that she cared about his future.
But the words stuck in his throat. And underneath them, something else was rising—something that felt like relief, or maybe just exhaustion, the feeling of setting down something heavy you didn't know you'd been carrying.
"I don't know what's wrong with me," he said. His voice came out small. Younger than eighteen. "I keep trying to do everything right, and it's never enough, and I'm so tired, Ellie. I'm so tired all the time."
She didn't say anything. She just got up, walked around the table, and wrapped her arms around him.
He let her.
He closed his eyes and breathed in the fruity shampoo smell and felt her hand on the back of his head, steady and warm, and for a few seconds he let himself be held instead of holding everything together.
"You're going to be okay," she said into his hair. "I don't know how yet. But you are."
He didn't believe her.
But he let her say it anyway.
* * *
She left at 3:30, after making him promise to text her later. Actually text her. Not just think about texting her and then not do it.
"I mean it," she said at the door, pointing at him with the kidney beans she'd accidentally bought. "If I don't hear from you by tonight, I'm coming back. With reinforcements. And more beans."
"You don't even like beans."
"That's how serious I am."
She hugged him one more time—quick, fierce—and then she was gone, the automatic doors whooshing shut behind her, leaving him standing in the entryway with the shopping carts and the wet floor sign and the low hum of the fluorescent lights.
* * *
The last two hours of his shift passed in a blur.
He finished the canned vegetables. Rotated the milk in dairy—newer dates to the back, older to the front, the way they'd taught him freshman year. Helped an elderly man find the right brand of prune juice. Swept the bakery floor even though it wasn't his department, just because he was there and it needed doing.
Luca found him at 5:15, clocking out.
"Hey." Luca leaned against the time clock, arms crossed, watching Ira punch in his numbers. "Your friend seemed cool."
"She is."
"Known her long?"
"Since seventh grade."
Luca nodded, like that explained something. "She was worried about you. I could tell."
Ira didn't know what to say to that. He stared at the time clock screen, watching the numbers blink.
"Look," Luca said, "I know it's not my business. But you've been running pretty ragged lately. Even for you, and you're usually the first one here and last one out." He paused. "You don't have to do everything, you know. The store's not going to collapse if you take a sick day once in a while."
"I'm not sick."
"Didn't say you were." Luca shrugged, pushing off from the wall. "Just saying. You're allowed to have a life outside this place. Most people do."
He walked away before Ira could respond, heading toward the break room, leaving Ira standing at the time clock with his punch card in his hand and something unnameable sitting heavy in his chest.
* * *
The drive home took twelve minutes.
He sat in the driveway for another five, engine off, hands on the steering wheel, staring at the garage door. Inside, his mom was probably starting dinner. Rosie was probably in her room, scrolling through her phone, existing in that easy way she had—taking up space without apologizing for it.
The birthday money was still in his drawer. Fifty dollars. The cost of being remembered without being present.
He thought about Ellie's hand on his. Luca's hand on his shoulder. The way both touches had landed differently, left different marks on his skin that he couldn't see but could still feel.
Your shirt—okay, abs.
He didn't know what to do with that. With any of it. His stomach ached; he'd eaten half a granola bar since morning. His face was still warm. His skin still remembered the cool air, the brief exposure, the moment before he'd tucked himself back in.
At eighteen, he was supposed to know what these things meant. He was supposed to be a leader, a role model. Someone with vision and potential.
Instead he was sitting in a driveway, too tired to go inside. His knees still ached from the grocery floor. His teeth buzzed with a hum that wasn't there anymore.
His hands stayed on the wheel.
Somewhere across town, the lumber sat in the parsonage. Waiting.