At dinner.
“Don’t look at melunary.
I huffed and looker “ostly watched Gervase eat, my eyes tracing the movement of his throat as he swallowed.
that,
said suddenly, looking flustered. “Stella, it makes me feel… weird.”
At the next table, a young family was eating. Their little boy pushed a piece of carrot around his plate. “Mommy, I don’t like this. It tastes yucky.”
“Then you
don’t have to eat it, sweetie,” his mother said, moving the carrot to her husband’s plate and giving the boy a piece of chicken. “Try this. Do you like this one?”
“When I was a kid,” I found myself saying to Gervase, a wry smile on my face, “if I said I didn’t like something, my parents would call me picky and force me to eat it. I went through a phase where I hated seaweed. So my mom cooked it for every single meal. Seaweed pancakes, stir–fried seaweed… she told me I could either eat it or starve. I lost ten pounds that month, crying
while I choked down seaweed. My mom was so proud of herself. She said she’d cured me of my bad habit.”
I turned to see Gervase had put down his chopsticks and was watching me with a complicated, unreadable expression.
“What’s with that look?” I asked. “Do you pity me?”
He shook his head. “Do you want to go to the store? There’s one right next door. I’ll go with you.”
E
www
www
I didn’t understand why he wanted to go to a department store, but I was too tired to argue. He pushed the shopping cart, and I followed silently. My gaze lingered for a moment on a large Barbie doll set before moving on.
Gervase noticed. He stopped the cart, picked up the box, and asked, “You want this?”
I shook my head.
“Then why were you looking at it?” He placed the pink box in the cart.
“No, don’t,” I said quickly, frustrated. “It just brought back a bad memory.”
“What bad memory?”
“Do you have to make me say it?”
He just stood there, his gaze unwavering. “Say it.”
I kicked his shin lightly. Staring at the box in the cart, I finally relented. “Once, my mom promised to buy me a present if I placed in the top three on a test. I studied like crazy and actually did it. I chose this exact set. But in the store, my mom started screaming at me. In front of all the employees, she yelled about how I didn’t appreciate my parents, how I was just a waste of
money… After that, whenever I see this thing, all I can remember is her yelling.”
And me crying. And the confusion. And my mother abandoning me in the store, leaving me there until the closing announcements echoed through the empty aisles. She finally came back, her face a thundercloud, and dragged me out. On the way home, she hissed, “If you ever throw a tantrum and waste my money again, I’ll leave you for good.”
I pressed my temples, trying to banish the memory. I nudged Gervase’s shoulder. “Put the box back.”
He looked at me, a deep, long look, then called over a sales associate. He pointed to the entire shelf of Barbie dolls. “All of these pink sets,” he said, his voice clear and loud. “I’ll take all of
them. Do you offer home delivery?”
“Yes! Yes, of course!” The associate’s eyes lit up. The commission would be huge. She was ecstatic.
Gervase then picked up four more of the pink boxes and added them to our
Cart.
“What are you doing?!” I hissed.
“Buying things. Can’t you see?”
“You–You-!” I was at a loss for words. Other employees, hearing the
had started to gather, staring at Gervase like he was a lunatic.
He just smiled, raised his voice a little, and asked me, “What else do you like? I’ll buy out the whole shelf for you.”
In that moment, every employee’s gaze shifted to me. I was their golden goose. I pinched his arm hard. “What the hell are you trying to do?!”
“Do
you
feel any better?” he asked me suddenly, his voice soft again. “Now, when you see these, you won’t just think of your mother. You’ll also think of me, the idiot who bought out an entire shelf. Right? Memories can’t be erased, but they can be overwritten. Even if it’s mostly your mom, if there’s just a tiny bit of me in there, it won’t hurt so much. Will it?”
The angry words died in my throat. So that was his goal.
“Why are you doing all this?” I whispered, wringing my hands.
Gervase ignored my question. He reached out and gently booped my nose.
dont
start
Moving, their s
are
going to burn a hole through you.”
The last of my confusion evaporated. “That’s your fault!”
“It is,” he said with a warm smile, his eyes incredibly gentle. “It’s all my fault. So pick whatever you want. Today, it’s all on me.”
Most guys try to impress a girl by clearing out a luxury boutique. Gervase’s method was to empty out a department store. Cassette tapes, children’s books, smartwatches, potato chips… The sixth time he pointed at a shelf and declared, “I’ll take all of it,” I finally broke.
“Stop buying things!” I begged, tugging on his sleeve. “Please, I’m begging you, we’re going to run out of room in my apartment.”
“Not calling me Number Three anymore?” The man could hold a grudge.
“I was wrong,” I apologized quickly. “Can we please just go now, Gervase?” The sales associates‘ eyes were starting to feel like laser beams.
He chuckled. “Where to next?”
“Home. To sleep.”
He poked my forehead. “The Ferris wheel is beautiful at night. Want to go?”
7-”
“If you say no, we keep shopping. I’ve got the money.”
And that’s how I ended up fuming at the base of a Ferris wheel. He bought me a bucket of popcorn and, like a real boyfriend, cupped my cold hands in his, murmuring. “You need to remem- ber to wear gloves next time.”
Once we were in the cabin, he asked, “Have you been on one of these before?
I have,” I said. “With my ex. We chose one that took 13 minud 14 seconds for one rotation–a number that’s supposed to mean ‘forever.‘ We broke up the second we got off.”
Who ended it?”
