sakura
After skirting into the CVS parking lot, I pulled on an oversize sweatshirt and pulled the hood up. I didn’t want anyone to see me here, especially buying the morning-after pill. I refused to be caught dead here by someone from Redwood. That’d be the end of my life. Literally.
I scurried past the automatic doors and into the pharmacy, glancing up at the signs above each aisle. Not aisle one. Nor two. Nor three. Four maybe? My hands were sweating now.
Where the hell is—
“Can I help you with something?”
I jumped back in surprise and placed a hand over my pounding heart. A kid, who looked to be only a couple of years older than me, stood next to me with a huge smile on his face. My gaze dropped to his name tag—Jim.
“Oh! Um …” I swallowed nervously and bounced on my toes. “Feminine products?”
“Aisle nine.”
Cheeks flaming hot, I hurried to aisle nine and thanked the Redwood gods that I didn’t know him from school. I was a loner, a nobody. But while not everyone from Redwood knew me, I knew them. And that didn’t make it any better.
I would forever fear that they’d recognize and expose me.
Rushing down the aisle, I quickly searched for the pill. Pads. Tampons. More tampons. Panty liners. Adult briefs.
Gosh, they have Plan B stuff with feminine products, right? Maybe? Where the heck is it?
Once I reached the end of the aisle, condoms finally appeared on the shelves. I eyed the boxes, wondering if I should get any. Responsible adults like Mr. Avery should be the one buying them, but …
If he had wanted to use them with me, he would’ve.
Warmth rushed through my core, and I bit back a whimper. He should’ve wanted to use one, but he hadn’t. And when I’d told him that I wasn’t on birth control, he had come inside me anyway, as if he loved the thought of getting his most innocent student pregnant.
Pressing my thighs together, I cursed to myself for reacting this way. I should be freaking out. My teacher had just stepped over all the boundaries, giving me detention for his own personal gain and stealing my virginity.
He stole my virginity.
More like I had given it up willingly to him because I was a horny woman who had been aching for a man’s touch for far too long. His fingers, his hands, his mouth … had all felt so good. I didn’t want to tell him, but I wanted more.
So much more.
“Feminine products are up here, miss,” Jim called from the counter.
My entire face burned with embarrassment. I forced myself to smile at him, then nodded and tossed the idea of buying condoms aside. Mr. Avery wouldn’t use them anyway. He’d rather slip into me raw.
Once I grabbed, like, three different boxes of Plan B, I hurried to the counter and hoped that there was a self-checkout available. While I didn’t know this Jim guy, I didn’t want him to catch me buying this.
Hell, I didn’t want anyone to catch me with these pills.
Closed. See next available cashier.
After reading the sign on the machine, I pursed my lips and scurried to the counter where Jim stood. He eyed the boxes of Plan B and raised an eyebrow.
“Are you sure you need all three?” he asked, like it was his business.
“Please, just scan them,” I whispered, looking around nervously.
The automatic doors opened, and I spotted a Redwood Academy sweatshirt from the corner of my eye.
Fuck.
Vera Rodriguez hurried into the store with her long chocolate-colored hair all disheveled and her soft pink lips swollen. Like me, Vera was at the top of the class, a studious nerd with straight As. Not only that, but she was, like, the prettiest girl at Redwood.
At least she hadn’t looked over here yet.
Jim lifted his gaze and grinned at her. “Let me know if you need help with anything!”
Vera glanced over in a daze, her gaze landing on me. My eyes widened, and I turned back to the counter and pulled up my hood even further. I didn’t know if that made it ten times more obvious that I was trying to hide something, but I didn’t care.
Maybe she didn’t recognize me.
Hopefully.
After pressing a couple of buttons on the register, Jim asked, “Did you find everything you were looking for today?” in a monotone, almost-mechanical voice, as if he had asked the same question fifty times already today.
“Yes.”
“Do you have a CVS card?” he asked.
Annoyed that he didn’t just let me pay, I pulled the CVS card out of my wallet and let him scan it so I got my reward points.
He pressed another button on his screen and hummed. “Would you like to donate to children in need?”
I gritted my teeth and nodded. “Sure. Sure. Just hurry up.”
“How much?”
I nearly slapped myself in the face. If this man didn’t stop asking so many questions, then Vera would surely be up here in a couple of moments with her items and would spot not one, but three boxes of Plan B.
She’d think I was a whore or something.
“You can round up, if you’d like,” Jim said.
“Yeah, sure.”
“Would you like a paper bag with that? It’ll be ten cents extra.”
I never resorted to violence, but I wanted to punch this man right in his big nose. Couldn’t he see that I was in a rush? What was with all these goddamn questions? I hated coming to places like this.
“Plastic is fine,” I said.
“Someone doesn’t care about the environment,” Jim mumbled to himself as he placed the boxes into a plastic bag and finally rang me out. “That’ll be one hundred sixty-eight dollars.”
I pushed my card into the card reader and tapped through the buttons on the screen. Once the receipt printed out, I shoved my card back into my wallet, grabbed my plastic bag, and practically ran out of CVS.
Man, that guy was annoying as hell.
When I slipped into the car, it was nearly five o’clock already. I never came home after four, which meant that Dad was waiting for me. I didn’t have time to read the back of every box to figure out which one would be best.
So, I sped home in a daze and parked in the driveway of my family’s home. We didn’t live in the slums, but on the outskirts of the ritzy billion-dollar section of Redwood. The two-story house was big enough to live comfortably in. And while it might not have been the size of a mansion, this place felt too big for just three people sometimes.
I stepped out of the car with my backpack slung over my shoulder and the CVS bag in my hand, then hurried toward the front door. I needed to slip past Dad before he had the chance to stop me and ask where I had been.
After stepping into the dark house, I turned the living room lights on so I could head to my bedroom to take this stupid pill without Dad or Mom noticing. If she found just a single one, she’d snatch it up from—
“Surprise!”
I screamed and jumped up as my entire family popped out from behind couches and under tables with balloons and gifts in their hands. My heart pounded against my rib cage, threatening to freaking break it apart.
Dad had thrown a surprise birthday party. For me. After I had just climbed onto my professor during detention and gotten railed for the first time in my life.
Everyone stared at me, catching me red-freaking-handed with a CVS bag in my hand.
I was screwed.