BUT DID IT REALLY HAPPEN?

Molly walked slowly through the market, studying items on the shelf. She was in the cereal aisle. She stepped close, tapping boxes as she read their names, pretending to concentrate on the cereal, but always watching behind. Then furtively checking in front.

They were watching and staring; she knew it.

“She’s the one.”

The woman with the baby —was it really a baby?

The man stocking shelves.

The old lady in the motorized cart.

Molly felt their eyes on her as if they were pelting her with BBs.

“That’s the girl.”

She hurried out of the cereal aisle for the dairy products, but that’s where a group of teens were staring —everyone was staring.

She turned on her heel and broke into a jog, breath cut off by all the sharp eyes, pounding, suffocating her.

Shoving the bag boy out of her way and ignoring his protest, she fled, hitting her full stride as the doors whooshed open and she was outside.

“She made it all up.”

More eyes. She wanted to scream.

She turned left and sprinted, trying to get away from the eyes, but there was the cross. The evangelical church on the other side of the market, with a large cross in the front.

God’s house.

This was all God’s fault!

God let Molly down in the worst way.

Because of God she was crazy, and now the cross accused her.

Molly’s head felt as if it would explode. She stopped and brought both hands to her head, ripping tufts of hair out of both sides.

She screamed and cut right, into the street, away from the cross and in front of the car she never saw coming.