Teased(62)

“What are you doing?”

“I need to wash some clothes, and I’m hungry. We need groceries.” Vida named several things they needed to get done on their day off.

“Okay. Food first then we will get busy with everything else.” Vida watched as he dressed, regretting that she had put an end to their fuckfest, yet she needed some time to figure out what she was doing.

They decided to have breakfast out, sharing a huge stack of pancakes and laughing at who had the bigger appetite. Afterwards, they went grocery shopping. Vida picked out several items that would be easy to prepare after working in the shop all day while Colton picked out items that could be microwaved and were tasteless. Those, Vida put back.

“Hey, I wanted those burritos,” Colton complained.

“No, you didn’t.” Vida pushed the grocery cart on, leaving him behind.

“I did.”

“Stuff like that won’t fill you up, it’ll make you fat.” Vida pushed the cart to the fresh fruit. Picking out a variety of apples and oranges, she put those in the cart.

Colton put several more items in the cart, most were rejected and put back by Vida.

“I’m getting my cereal,” Colton protested when she placed it back on the shelf.

“We don’t need it. We have oatmeal and the frozen pancakes that you wanted.”

“Vida, I’m not giving my cereal up.”

“Colton, you’ll...”

“And I won’t get fat because I plan to work off the calories fucking you.”

Vida closed her mouth and put the cereal back in the buggy.

They had walked to the nearby grocery store. Carrying the groceries back to the apartment, Vida smiled.

“What’s so funny?” Colton asked.

“I swore I wouldn’t end up like my mother, yet here I am, packing groceries back to an apartment three blocks away from where I grew up.”

“Fate’s a bitch.”

“Yes, she is.” Coming to an intersection, they stopped, waiting for the light to turn red so they could cross. The traffic halted as the light turned red. Out of the corner of her eye she saw a little boy on his bike on the sidewalk riding towards the road. His was trying to stop, however he was going too fast. He was going to run out in front of the traffic that had begun moving from the other direction now that their light was green.

Vida instinctively dropped her grocery bags and started running. Screaming when she realized she wasn’t going to reach the child in time. Colton ran past her, barely managing to reach the child before a car slammed on its brakes.

The child’s mother ran out of one the shops, crying frantically at the same time that she thanked Colton. He lifted the bike back on the sidewalk and handed the child to his mother, assuring her he was fine.

“Thank God,” Vida said when Colton came back to her side.

“Let’s get the groceries,” Colton said grimly.

Luckily, they hadn’t purchased anything that could have been broken.

Shakily, Vida walked the rest of the way home where Colton took the bags from her and then Vida sat down at the kitchen table while Colton grabbed her a bottled water from the fridge.

“You saved that child’s life,” she said shakily.

Colton shook his head. “I didn’t even see what was happening until you took off running. You saved him, I didn’t. That mother owes his life to you.” Vida, about to raise the bottled water to her lips, stopped. A memory that she had forgotten came to life, playing back in her mind.

“Vida?” Colton quit putting up the groceries, watching her as realization dawned on her face.

“I remember, Colton. I remember something about King.” Colton sat down next to her at the table.

“What did you remember?”

“When we were little, Sawyer, Callie and I were outside playing one day on the playground.” It hadn’t been a normal playground; it had a couple of slides and a merry-go-round that didn’t work. They would usually sit on it instead of the dirt to play with their dolls. That was, Sawyer and her would play with their dolls, Callie didn’t have any. The girls would share with her, but she never had one of her own.

“One day, Callie showed up with a brand new doll. She was so proud of it. Both Sawyer and I wanted to play with it. She was so sweet, Colton. That was the first toy I had ever seen her with, yet she shared it with us.

“We were having such a good time. I can’t believe I forgot this, Colton. I still see her playing with that doll.”

“You probably blocked it out because your memories of her are so painful.” Colton took her hand.

Vida held it tightly, continuing her story, “There was a gang of boys who were bugging us, especially Sawyer. She had Callie’s doll and one of the boys jerked it from her hand and threw it into the street. Callie took off running into the street. Sawyer and I ran after her, both of us reached her just before a car drove over the doll, crushing it. If we hadn’t reached her in time, she would have been killed. That car was going so fast…” Vida’s voice broke off.