"Sterling," she had no capacity to keep her voice below a whisper but it was at least blurred by the buzzing fridges. Her hand, a vice grip around his bicep, was the primary force dragging him to a frigid corner. He went to raise his own in a defensive position, lips just beginning to form a Woah, cool it when he catches sight of that sunfaded woven thing wrapped around his wrist.

That's when he finally felt cold. And... abashed, drooping, wilting like a flower under her stern stare. Her eyes were usually like a forest, dark and mysterious and strangely welcoming — today the were brilliant, hard, sharp — like jade.

"Sterling, why are you acting so strange?" He can't look at her. He can't do anything except compulsively rub that bracelet between his thumb and forefinger. Purple and red and teal and blue, his favorite colors, and a little moon charm. Since you're a Cancer, she explained once and he's never felt more like it than this moment.

"C'mon, sugarpants, I'm not—"

"Cut that shit out," her glare became more pronounced and her hand finally dropped from him so she could gesture forcefully: "I have been hearing from everyone that you are acting weird. Your boss, your friends, your cousin — and now I come here today and you're sweating and you've got the shakes—"

"It's the middle of the summer. What else can I tell you?" And now, more pointedly: "You know, drunks get the shakes too going cold turkey."

Her head snaps up and to the left, lips pursed and jaw clenched. "Don't treat me like I'm fucking stupid, Sterling. I saw you last night. And right now."

Sterling has half a mind to hit her with a Bud Light is basically water anyway but reconsiders.

She continues like a runaway train: "I'm not... Look. I'm only mad because you've been lying. About everything, to me — for weeks you told me you were not drinking or hanging with Shane, and now I know that's not true, and now you're at work looking like you've just come off a four-day bender, and for god's sake. I just don't know what to believe."

"You know I love when you just... start going. I love watching you talk," Sterling's mouth moves before his mind can stop him from another ill-advised comment, though its earnestness was so obvious, a dopey fondness coloring his gaze.

Hers only steels further.

"God damn it. Quit trying to change the subject or buttering me up. Here I am trying to give a fuck about you and —" She stops herself short and her gaze locks on something in the far distance. "Actually maybe that's my fault. I'm just... whatever, Sterling. We can talk about it later, or not."

And she unceremoniously pushes past him to stalk out of the store. Guilt has been gnawing at him this whole time (or, more like... digesting him from the inside. Dissolving his bones). He feels it growing into a seeping wound that tears and stings with every step he takes after her.

"Wait," his long legs [do something I guess. I didn't finish this sentence.]

"You can't just run out of work like that."

"Pierre's not even there and if he were, he'd get it," "He knows how I feel about you."

"That's not what this is about right now, Sterling." Every time she says his name it puts another weight on the weak little thing inside of him, bending and threatening to snap. He loves it — so lyrical and beautiful — he hates it — the guilt. He realizes she's still been talking: "This is about how you've been lying to me. And honestly if you did feel that way about me, you wouldn't have been."

He's silent.

"I mean, what did giving this to me really mean to you?" A glinting coin fished out of her back pocket — now housed carefully in a little sleeve, he realizes, jangling against her other beloved keys, charms and trinkets. There's little heart stickers even decorating it and the guilt devours him and starts to eat him alive and turns into pure, unadulterated shame.