It’d been a long time since I had a panic attack while in a store.
“So, most of the kids I’ll see this week will range from five, up to thirteen I think is the oldest,” Jasper pulled me from my innerthoughts, stopping the cart at the first little section of cheap things.
With it being the holiday season, there were a few different stands and bins placed in random places throughout the entire store, so the options were a bit wider than normal.
That still didn’t help me to figure out why he wanted my help. I had no clue what a kid of any age wanted. It was bad enough that I didn’t know what I wanted half the time, and Dawn asked me every time we came here to pick something out.
“The younger kids are easier. Fidgets are in, apparently.” Jasper mused, looking towards where said things were. All I saw were brightly colored, overpriced pieces of bendable plastic. I didn’t see the appeal of popping bubbles, or spinning a circle thing round and around. It made me dizzy just thinking about such things.
Jasper easily picked up a few fidgets, a mix of what looked like Christmas themed pop-its and bracelets that had the same thing of bubble popping.
“Have you tried these?” He asked, pointing to the small pile in the cart.
I shook my head, then flopped my hand back and forth, hoping he understood I had tried, but didn’t enjoy them.
“Yeah, I’m not sure what’s so great about them, but kids love them. And it gives theirhands something to do while they are working on learning a new task.” He moved the cart down more, tossing in a few other things, such as sets of pens, coloring pages, and some sort of plastic puzzle things.
“Alright, now for the older kids. Even though they like fidgets too.”
I trailed alongside Jasper, keeping my arms folded across my torso. My eyes glanced at the things we passed, but like all the other times I’ve been in this store, nothing caught my attention.
“What do you think a teenage girl would want?”
I shrugged. He was asking the wrong person that question.
“A better question,” he asked while putting a couple more items into the cart. “What do you want?”
Not this again, I thought. I shrugged. There wasn’t anything I wanted in this store.
“Have you tried puzzles? I know you read, and Dawn will let you buy whatever books you’d ever want to read on the tablet. Although I’d be happy to stop by the book section here anyways.”
Jasper failed to hide his laugh at the face I made. Puzzles were not my thing, at all. I hated them with a vengeance. It was too easy to lose a piece, and half the time, the pieceswere all the same shape or size and it just didn’t cooperate.
I’d stick to cooking treats.
“I’ll figure something out for you.”
I sighed through my nose, hoping not. He’d done more than enough for me already, as had Dawn.
I was tempted to tell him he could give me his sweaters. I had yet to return the one he let me borrow, and he hadn’t asked for it either.
After Jasper added a few more items to his cart, some that made no sense and I wasn’t going to ask about, like cookie cutters in shapes of animals and some sort of water bottle, he paid for and bagged everything before we left the store.
“Alright, lunch time. Since I know you didn’t eat breakfast.”
“Not that hungry.” My stomach was still a little knotty after the long night. Food really didn’t sound all that appealing.
“That’s fine. We’ll order something to take home then.”
“Kay.” I guess I wasn’t getting out of not eating, then. But that sounded like a better idea anyhow. At home, I could eat without having the fear of everything coming back up too quickly.
Jasper easily maneuvered his car out of the parking lot and towards the place we’d be going to eat at, well, ordering food from.
“I’m not sure if Dawn and you have gone to this place yet. But the food is good, and I know a few people who work here. They won’t make a scene about you not talking.”
Surprisingly, no place had. Sure, I’d had a few odd looks here and there, but no mean remarks to my back about my lack of talking. One person had assumed I was deaf, but it was better than rude and hateful comments towards me.
Jasper rattled off the restaurant, one I hadn’t been to. Dawn and I tended to stick to the same ones, knowing I wouldn’t have issues. But it wasn’t often we ate out anyways. Take out, on the other hand, happened weekly from different places.
