Stay by Brenna Leahy

It was dark out, even though it wasn’t late yet. The darkness had been there since I woke up this morning. It was the type that sticks with you throughout the day, wraps itself up in you and wears you. I almost rolled over and stayed in bed this morning, but I had an essay due midway through the day, and I needed the money too badly to skip work no matter how cold it was outside my blanket.

The cookie dough in front of me was frozen solid. The other delivery driver for Insomnia Cookies, Miguel, was probably in the back room, the drivers’ room, getting high. I separated out the cookies that looked like they had freezer burn and placed the surviving dozen neatly on the sheet lined with wax paper. It was almost clinical. The method is timed down to the last second. I didn’t need to mentally present as I went through the steps – I just needed to set the timer and remember to always produce an evenly baked cookie. This wasn’t technically in my job description, but the official baker, Addie, took smoke breaks with an alarming frequency and I would cover for her.

My mother taught me how to bake. We made cream puffs and pies out of flour and butter and so much sugar, pressed and baked to asymmetrical perfection. This was much easier, and the cold feel of the dough bleeding into my fingers made me feel less homesick, closer to the familiar leisurely numbness. I snapped off my disposable gloves. They left a chalky dust that clung to my skin. I turned on the sink with my elbow, slathered my hands with soap, and started to scrub. I could see my tattoo snaking out from beneath my hoodie, tendrils of black ink hiding underneath the suds. The tattoo sunk down my arm, took over the translucent skin on my wrist. The ink formed the last city that had felt like home to me, shrouded in clouds and fading at the edges. It was a bigger city than this one, and it felt more like home. I had almost stayed.

When I got my first tattoo I was afraid to tell my mother. I knew what she thought about tattoos, and I knew that she had a certain notion of who got them. I think she expected the ink to spread across my skin like a disease, to take over the daughter she raised, the person she painstakingly formed me into. When she found out about it over Thanksgiving break – and there was no question that she would find out, it wasn’t discreet – he didn’t say anything overtly bad about it. She just asked how much it cost, and then her lips pressed together in a thin line until we started talking about something else.

“Hey,” Miguel said, making me jump. I had made the cookies in a trance, filled up the heated drawers that sat waiting beneath the cash register.

“Hey, sorry,” I said. “You scared the shit out of me.”

“I’ve been told I make no sound when I move, so really this one’s on me,” he said, laughing. Miguel had obviously been smoking. His eyes were glinting at me in the light from the fluorescents, his pupils huge and deep.

“You having fun back there?” I asked.

He smiled at me, the skin around his eyes creasing in a fan of deep lines. I thought about how they would look when he was older, of all the delicate lines that would decorate his face.

“I don’t know what you mean, Erin.”

“You have got to get me one of those pens, you don’t smell like weed for once,” I said.

“Right? They have revolutionized getting high at work for me. If you give me thirty bucks I can get one for you,” he said.

“Oh yeah? Do you know a guy?” I said.

“I know a guy. Anyway, uh, do you want to come over tonight? It’s not like a party party or anything, but my roommates and a few other friends are going to hang out at my place if you want to join.”

“After work tonight? I don’t mean to sound old, but fuck I’m tired,” I said. I knew I looked exhausted, too. We all did. The manager who had hired me had been fired a month ago, and we were all overscheduled to the point of exhaustion.

“No, no, no, you’ll have so much fun. There will be weed, and snacks, and beer…”

There was a pause.

“I have some water…” “Whoa, you have water? Why didn’t you lead with that?” I said, smiling at him.

“I know you’re making fun of me, but does this mean you’re in?”

“I might stop by,” I said.

“Erin, my cat misses you. You should come-- – you know the place. Do you have any orders for me?” he asked, his face tightening as his eyes shifted to Addie walking back through the door, holding a plastic bag in her hand.

“You can go back if you want. I’ve got nothing.”

Addie looked up at us as she walked. Her face had gotten bird-like in its thinness since I had known her in high school. Her exhaustion looked bone-deep today. She was older than me, my brother’s age. We had both moved out here to go to school, but she dropped out when she had her son.

Miguel pulled out his pen, took a long hit and said “I will be in my office, ladies,” as he exhaled and walked away. Sometimes when I saw Addie I thought about the time I had seen her get arrested. It was like a compulsion. Maybe I did it to make myself feel better on off days, I don’t know. It had been during Fall Fest, our old town’s annual celebration, and I had been paused on the Ferris wheel with my first boyfriend-- – the nice one-- – when I saw her down below. She had been so angry that she had screamed when the cop arrested her. He had dragged her down the sidewalk to the station, kicking her long legs and trying to flip her body out of his grasp like a fish. I think she had stolen candy from the gas station, I’m not sure. It felt wrong to watch.

As she walked past me the cigarette smell made my nose tingle. I sniffed and rubbed my nose, trying not to sneeze. I think she noticed.

“What’s up?” she asked. The skin under her eyes was sunken and dark, and her face looked drawn.

“I’m fucking tired,” I said, and shot her a smile.

“God, so am I,” she said. She sat on the stool in front of the cash register. “Thanks for getting us stocked up on cookies.”

“Yeah, it’s no problem. I get pretty bored back there. Nothing against Miguel, it’s just the driver’s room is actually more of a storage room with a single folding chair.”

Addie laughed. “Yeah, don’t forget about the dead crickets.” “How could I?” I said, leaning against our walk-in freezer. “So what’s up? You look exhausted.”

“Yeah. I am. I don’t know.” She started to say more when the computer announced an order. “Fuck, is it your turn to take this or Miguel’s?” she asked.

“Is there a good tip?” I asked.

She smiled. “Yes, actually.”

“Then it is my turn,” I said.

The cookies were always bundled up in a carrier bag, so they stayed warm. I carried them to my car and opened the passenger side with a squeak to lay them gently down. I shoved the skeleton of one of today’s caffeinated beverages to the ground to make room. I should have worn gloves-- – my car has a heater, but it doesn’t work for at least the first fifteen minutes of any trip. At least it wasn’t icy this time.

I parked in the street and made sure my mascara wasn’t smeared, that my hair was tucked correctly into my hat, and leaned over the driver’s seat to reach the cookies. I saw headlights reflecting on my windshield. They illuminated the gore of all of the unwashed, dead bugs.

“Hey, turn around!” A white truck was idling behind me, with a guy hanging out the passenger window. One of his arms was draped down the door of the truck—I didn’t focus on his face, just the fact that he was there. I decided to keep my head down, get to the house and ignore it. My phone had an app on it that was tracking my location for work. Someone knew where I was. My feet took me to the sidewalk, my eyes were glued to the directions on my phone as my shoulders started to tighten, my heart started to speed up.

“You should learn to answer when you’re spoken to, bitch!” he called after me, his voice carrying over the well-manicured lawn and burrowing itself in my ears.

I reached the house and rang the bell. Time seemed to distort as I stood there waiting for someone to answer the door. I began to wonder if the address was wrong and no one was going to answer this door, I imagined the man in the car coming up behind me. I wanted so badly to look but I could hear my mother’s voice telling me that I shouldn’t acknowledge it, that it would be fine, that I should just find someone and make sure they remember me, that I should make them keep me safe.

The door opened, and I heard the truck’s engine rev and pull away. I wondered if they would be back. My ears were buzzing when the customer opened the door.

“Oh, thank you, I’ve been looking forward to this!” said the middle-aged woman standing in the doorway. It sounded like she was trying to speak at a normal volume across a great distance. I smiled and nodded back at her. I tried to let my body to relax as I felt the warmth drift out from her house to touch me for a moment before leaving.

“Have a good night.” I said, with my customer service smile. It felt wrong when I turned towards the road, like I should have asked something of her before I left, or made an excuse to stay longer in the safety of company. My car was still cold when I got in. I started the engine quickly and drove in the opposite direction that the truck had gone.

I drove back to the store, and as I parked, my heater started to kick on. Addie was still at her stool when I walked in. She glanced up at me and waved, but her stare lingered when she saw my face.

“Hey, are you okay?” she asked.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” I said, trying to laugh. “Some guy just yelled at me from his truck and it freaked me out.”

“Oh, shit, are you okay?” she asked again. She looked genuinely concerned and I felt bad about how I was thinking about her earlier.

I laughed and sat down on top of the deep freeze in the kitchen. “Yeah, it isn’t like it’s the first time I’ve been catcalled, it just was dark and it scared me I guess. It could have been worse.”

“Yeah, it could have,” She agreed.

I laughed but her words brought me back to darker places. I felt better now that I was in the store. I never thought I would see this place as a haven, but I was so happy to see that fucking neon cookie sign when I drove up.

“You know, one time this guy started to follow me home from the grocery store,” she said.

“Really? What did you do?”

She nodded.

“Yeah, really. I was at Walmart, getting diapers, and he was parked right by my car. I kind of gave him a look as I was getting in, and he got so red in the face. He told me not to look at him stupid, and, you know, at this point I was just ready to get the fuck out of there so turned on my car and basically peeled out,” she said, pausing to drink some water.

“And then as I was waiting to get on the road I saw him coming up behind me. I ran that red light so fucking fast,” she said, and then barked out a short laugh.

“That’s fucking crazy,” I said. But the thing that scared me was that it really wasn’t that crazy or out of the ordinary. Not really.

A door opened in the back and we both jumped. It was just Miguel leaving the drivers’ room.

“What’s up?” he said. “You guys look like you saw a ghost or something.”

I laughed. “No, I just got catcalled on a delivery and I still feel kind of weird.”

“Oh, man I get yelled at all the time when I’m delivering,” Miguel said. “You just have to shake it off, don’t worry so much, Erin.”

Addie glanced at me as I tensed up.

“Miguel, don’t.” she said.

“What? What did I do?” His eyebrows travelled up his face innocently. Maybe he was right. Maybe I should have reacted differently. Maybe it would have been better if I had said something back, told him to fuck off. It was easier to imagine how brave I would be next time in my temporary haven.

“Forget it, Miguel.” Addie said, rolling her eyes at me. “I’m going to smoke and maybe get some food after, do you want to join?”

I hesitated. It might be nice to talk with Addie more, but it was too cold outside, and I didn’t really smoke cigarettes anyway. “No, go ahead. I’ll hold down the fort.” I said, smiling at her. She nodded and left Miguel and I alone in the kitchen.

Miguel’s arms were crossed tightly across his chest as he leaned against the freezer, trying to seem nonchalant.

“So what happened tonight?” he asked. When he saw me start to hesitate, he said “No, no I’m serious I didn’t mean to joke about it before.”

I told him what had happened, but I told him how it felt because I wasn’t sure he knew. As I spoke, he relaxed and moved closer to me. He sat next to me on the freezer and I let him move closer and closer. When I was finished talking, he started to rub circles on my hand with his thumb. It brought my eyes toward him, which lit up my nerves even more. His pupils were blown and wanting.

“I’m sorry about before. I didn’t mean to be a dick.”

The lights were still fluorescent and harsh, but time felt like it was slowing down. Miguel was warm and solid beside me.