Page 15 of The Fix

Rex took the EBT card from the exhausted-looking woman standing at the register in front of him and scanned it quickly. Next to her, a kid who looked to be about eight pulled at her leg. “Mom,” he whined, “can I get a candy bar?”

The woman swatted him away. “Shush. Can’t afford that.”

The kid sulked as the computer buzzed, the sound Rex had come to know well. “Sorry,” he told the woman. “This doesn’t cover it all. Your order went twenty-seven dollars over. Do you have another way to pay the balance?”

She stared at him blankly before turning to the bags she’d already put in her cart and then removed a few things. “Take those off my order,” she muttered wearily.

Behind her in line came the sound of grumbling.

Rex’s jaw set. As if each one of them hadn’t had to do without at least a time or two.

This grocery store was situated in a neighborhood where most people watched in nervous silence as each one of their items was rung up, and then breathed a sigh of relief when the total was what they had in their wallet.

He looked down at the things the woman had chosen to give up: a bottle of shampoo and conditioner, a container of ice cream, and a two-pack of paper towels.

This probably wouldn’t even cover the balance she owed unless this particular shampoo and conditioner cost more than he estimated.

His gaze went to the kid, whose eyes barely cleared the counter.

“Actually,” Rex said, “I’ve got a coupon that I can scan for you. Should cover that.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. You’re good.”

She took her items back and placed them in her cart. “Thank you,” she said, her eyes darting around in confusion, even while her expression had relaxed into relief.

The little boy gave him a gap-toothed wave as they turned away.

“How many of those coupons you got?” the man who was next in line asked.

“Just one,” Rex said. “Some rare promotional thing.”

“Shoulda split it up,” the man said. “That woulda been the fair thing to do.”

“Fair is a myth,” Rex said. “Nothing in this fucked-up life is fair.”

“That’s for damn sure,” the man grumbled.

Rex glanced at him as he scanned his items. The guy appeared as exhausted as the woman before him with the kid.

The woman who was the reason he was now going to put twenty-seven dollars of his own money in the register to ensure it was balanced.

The man was old and haggard, and he was buying beer and a bunch of shit food that he was going to take home and probably consume sitting in front of a television set in a smelly recliner.

“Forty-two eighteen.”

The man handed over cash and Rex made change, and then he began scanning the items of the next person in line.

Nothing in this fucked-up life is fair.

He hadn’t always felt that way, even though he came from a single-parent household on the wrong side of the tracks.

Even though he lived in a rental with a roof that leaked when it rained and one bathroom that hadn’t been redone since the house was built in the fifties.

Even though his mom drank too much and brought home men he didn’t like and then cried when they made her feel like shit.

Despite her poor life choices, he knew she loved him, even if she didn’t always love herself.

Mostly, she tried. He wasn’t resentful toward her.

He didn’t feel like a victim, but plenty of people around him did.

He’d been born with a few strikes against him, but good things had happened to him, too, and he’d always, no matter what, felt this unexplained hopefulness about his future.

He was great with numbers, and that talent had opened doors for him. He worked for that, and he could claim it.

But his father’s heritage had also created opportunities for him and, though it wasn’t his doing, he was proud of that as well.

It’d meant he’d gotten into a private school in a wealthy part of town that had labs and extracurriculars and some of the best teachers in the state.

It’d meant gaining a spot crunching numbers on the football team, which he knew would look great on his college applications.

And his heritage had helped him get scholarships into the college of his choosing.

But all those things had been rescinded.

He’d sat, hollow-eyed and stricken, as his school counselor informed him that they’d made the tough decision to award the money to someone else.

“But why?” he’d croaked, swallowing before his lunch came up his throat and spewed from his mouth.

His counselor sighed, her eyes shifting away.

She felt terrible, he could see that, but she also wondered if he’d really done what they were saying he’d done.

And because of her doubt, she likely hadn’t fought for him.

“I’m sorry, Rex. They no longer feel you’re the best representative of their foundation. ”

“That’s unfair,” he’d said. “No charges were brought against me because I’m innocent.” Innocent until proven guilty. Wasn’t that supposed to be how it worked?

“I realize that. But your name ... it’s been tainted. And they’re worried about backlash. You understand?”

He did understand, and that made it worse. He understood that a fatherless nobody from the wrong side of town had been questioned about the murder of two beautiful, wealthy women, and even though they hadn’t had the evidence needed to arrest him, the suspicion was enough.

He’d graduated two weeks before, and while he’d expected to be choosing a dorm room, instead, he was scanning people’s food, his dreams up in smoke because he’d decided to go for a fucking run.

He handed the older woman the receipt he’d just rung up, and she turned. A few items moved toward him on the conveyor belt, and he looked up to greet the next customer in line, freezing when he saw who it was. Cami Cortlandt.

His heart dropped, then rose, then took up an irregular pattern that stole his breath.

Her eyes widened and their gazes locked. It felt like mere seconds went by and also an eternity as everything around him faded away.

“Is there a problem?” the person behind her snapped with impatience. Reality rushed back in, the ding of the overhead speaker bringing him firmly into his own shoes as someone called for assistance on register three.

Their gazes broke, and Rex picked up her first item, his eyes hitting on what was just beyond it. Her hugely pregnant stomach. Oh. She fidgeted, her arms going in front of it and then dropping to the side, obviously realizing that any attempt to conceal it wasn’t going to work.

She looked to be near the end of her pregnancy.

He quickly did the math, his heart constricting as he held back a wince.

He set a bunch of bananas on the scale, working to remember the item number he’d had memorized for weeks.

“Hi,” he finally said. What else could he do?

Pretend he didn’t know her? He looked at her again as he reached for another item.

She appeared as tired as the woman who couldn’t quite pay for her groceries.

Tired and sad and slightly dazed. And far too young for any of that.

“Hi,” she said back, her voice as dull as her eyes.

They were both quiet for a stilted minute, and then she looked away.

He could have cut the tension with a knife.

He almost asked her what she was doing there, in that part of town, miles away from where she lived, and at a grocery store that wasn’t a tenth as nice as the ones near her home .

.. or what had been her home. Had she moved since .

.. She’d have had to, right? Who could return to the scene of a crime like that?

Who could sleep under that same roof again?

Yeah, I guess ... it could have been him. Rex Lowe.

He ran a loaf of bread over the scanning screen too quickly and then had to do it again, and then again. And as he placed the item in a bag, he realized exactly why she was there. She was hiding. Shopping in a shitty grocery store across town at ten p.m. in an effort to avoid anyone she knew.

He swallowed. And suddenly, his anger and frustration and disappointment and grief —truth be told—for the way she’d believed the lies about him, all converged in his chest. Only this time, all those negative feelings, which had contained a spark of righteousness, took a back seat to the underlying empathy he continued to feel for her, now multiplied.

And God, but the influx of hurt he felt for her, and also because of her, made his lungs feel too big for his chest. “Cami, are you okay?” he asked softly as she dug in her purse for the amount displayed on the screen.

She pulled out a credit card and met his eyes. As she handed him the small piece of plastic, he saw that her hand was trembling. “No, not really. You?” There was a bare trace of hostility in her voice, and it wounded him all over again, when he thought he’d hit rock bottom as far as his shame.

“No,” he said. “Not really.”

She cast her eyes aside, and he took the card, their fingers brushing before he pulled away and swiped it. He handed her the receipt, and she took it, then turned away quickly after gathering her bags.

She left without another word, and he watched her walk away, her gait slow and swaying the way women at the ends of their pregnancies moved.

“Hello?” the old man next in line said. “Are you high or what?” Rex looked at him, the guy’s face set in a scowl.

“Sorry, I’m on break.” He waved at the manager who was nearby, and she gave him a nod and began walking over to replace him while he took fifteen minutes.

Rex removed his apron as he walked toward the employee breakroom down a short hall next to customer service.

The room was empty, as he’d expected, and he sat down and leaned forward, gripping his head, his fingers raking through his hair.

He didn’t want to feel like this. And God, if he stayed in this town, he’d never be able to shake the suspicion surrounding him, even if he’d been officially cleared.

Even if the DNA at the scene didn’t match his, and none of his had been found.

Didn’t matter. Like he’d told the old man—nothing in this fucked-up life was fair.

And maybe, eventually, even if he didn’t like to think it was true, he’d turn into one of the bitter old people he saw night after night, ringing their single-serve items through before they headed home to eat alone.

Because the thing was, he already felt the bitterness taking hold, eating away at his innards like a swarm of termites. Eventually, many years from now, when he was all but a hollow shell, someone would push at him, and he’d crumble.

You’re being dramatic, Lowe.

Maybe. But dammit, he still knew he couldn’t risk it.

Because part of the bitterness was fear. He suddenly understood how close he’d come to being arrested and charged with murder. One farsighted witness who was unwilling to budge from their story or another shred of circumstantial evidence, and he might be awaiting trial right this second.

He might have been convicted.

That fear notched up, skittering over his spine when he pictured himself sitting in a jail cell for a crime he didn’t commit against a girl he’d only ever dreamed about and would have protected against any crime, but especially one as heinous as the one she’d experienced.

Rex stood and poured himself a Dixie cup of water from the filtered tank next to the bulletin board. He perused the forms relating to the grocery store employees, attempting to regain his equilibrium before he returned to his register.

His eyes moved down the board, and he drained his cup as his gaze caught on an ad half obscured by an informational flyer. Rex tossed his cup in the garbage to his right and moved the flyer aside so he could better see the ad. Be All You Can Be.

Rex let out a small grunt. He’d tried that route. Now maybe it was time to be whatever the fuck he could be, which was why he was here, biding time in what felt like a liminal space.

He turned to head for the door, but something stopped him, and he pivoted back and tore the ad off the board. He folded it and stuffed it in his pocket and then went back to work.