Theo had been about half right. Freddie was feeling better again now, but he hadn't completely cheered up, not yet anyway. The dark clouds over his soul had parted, letting in some sunlight; but they were far from gone, and if the wind changed he knew they would overshadow him again in a matter of seconds. There was something peaceful about the familiarity of the store, the way the only thing that ever seemed to change here was the seasonal decoration; but sometimes it felt stifling. Like it was going nowhere, he was going nowhere, and in five, ten, twenty years both he and the store would still be the same except for the natural changes brought on by the passage of time.

"You're getting gloomy again, I can feel it," Theo's voice snapped him out of his thoughts. "I didn't bring you here so you could start thinking about how nothing ever changes and get depressed again, man."

Freddie's face heated up. "I didn't think that!"

"Sure you didn't." Theo studied him with a grin. "Then what were you thinking about?"

Freddie let his gaze roam around the store, desperately searching for a plausible excuse. "I wasn't thinking," he said at length. "My head was empty."

Theo poked his forehead. "Just elevator music going on up here, huh?"

"Just Linkin Park on loop," said Freddie.

Theo snorted. "Basically the same thing for you."

"That would be the best elevator," Freddie mused, cracking a smile. "I'd ride it all day if I could."

"And not panic if it gets stuck?"

"No," Freddie answered. "I wouldn't even press the emergency button. I'd just start living in it."

Theo laughed out loud. "You'd run out of oxygen though," he said. "You wanna land on the news, man? 'Local idiot tries to camp in stuck elevator and suffocates to death?'"

"Sounds like a good way to go out," Freddie retorted.

"Just so you know," Theo replied, "if you do that, I'm telling everyone I never knew you."

Freddie flipped him off, but before he could come up with a response his eyes landed on the record aisle, and all other thoughts abruptly vanished from his mind. Sprinting over, he scanned the shelves, searching for anything interesting that he didn't already have. Most of the CDs here were ripped straight from the charts, but there was one small corner reserved for the sounds that had shaped him, the sounds he had loved since his early teenage years. A depressingly small corner, and there was nothing new here. The records on this shelf hadn't changed in weeks.

"One day," he told Theo in an undertone, "it'll be us in there."

Theo smiled. "Hell yeah," he said. "And then over there. On the best-selling shelf."

Following a sudden impulse, Freddie threw an arm around his shoulders, hugging him close. Theo laughed and returned the hug, then leaned his weight against Freddie's side to not-so-subtly usher him out of the aisle.

"Hey!" Freddie protested, laughing and struggling feebly. "What are you doing? I'm not done looking here!"

"You're not here to look at records," Theo retorted, still pushing him away. "You're here for the food, man. Come on."

"I can do both."

Theo's eyes glittered with amusement. "That's what she said."

Freddie smacked him upside the head.

"Grow up," he said, still struggling. "Just let me look for two more minutes!"

"No."

"One!"

"Nope."

"Bully."

"Sorry, big guy," Theo answered, not looking sorry at all. "But I'm not planning to stay here all night waiting for you. We're just here to grab snacks and get out."

Freddie flipped him off, but he slumped in defeat. In the end, he knew, Theo was right; he could promise to only stay in the record aisle for another minute or two, and suddenly he'd have found himself there for twenty, going through the different CDs and rambling about artists and albums and special releases. It was the same reason why he was banned from entering record stores if he had to be anywhere in the next three to four hours.

"Okay," he said, letting himself be dragged away without further resistance. "You get the cookies, I get the marshmallows?"

Theo finally took mercy on him and let go.

"Now we're talking."

~ ~ ~

Around the same time, Clara was making her way past the cup noodles, watching in amusement as Giselle struggled to balance the growing tower of food and drinks on her arms without dropping anything. She wasn't doing a very good job of it. And Clara would take mercy on her in a moment, just a second, but first she had to tease her about it a little.

"'We'll just be in and out, no cart necessary,'" she remarked, imitating Giselle's tone. "Who said that again?"

"Shut up," Giselle remarked from behind the pile of snacks. "You should've known not to listen to me, I haven't eaten all day."

Laughing, Clara reached up, carefully taking the entire armful from her and setting it down on the floor, organizing it with a few decisive moves before stacking the entire thing on Giselle's arm once more. "Try not to eat it right away, we still need to pay," she remarked. "Should I get us a cart after all?"

Giselle sighed, carefully letting her shoulders droop without dropping anything. "Well, now I might as well carry it back to the car," she said.

"And the ice cream? We haven't even gotten there."

Giselle stuck out her tongue. "Maybe I like living life on the edge, you know."

"Just go cart surfing like a normal person." Clara smiled and rolled her eyes, then held up a hand. "Wait here," she said. "Be right back."

Turning on the spot, she sped back across the store into the parking lot, picking up a stray shopping cart and half running, half surfing back through the aisles of the store. A few people turned their heads as she scooted past, staring, but that only made the whole thing funnier. And she was pretty sure she caught one old lady smiling at her as she went, so honestly, who cared if a few others thought she was a weirdo?

Steering around a corner, she slowed, her eyes suddenly landing on the shelf beside her. She had somehow found herself in the music aisle, rows and rows of CDs stretching out ahead of her, sorted by genres and titles, new ones and old classics from her childhood or even her parents' youth. Her gaze drifted along the rows, through the shelves, browsing. Finally it landed on the small corner that reminded her of her teens: her edgy phase, as Giselle affectionately called it, and most of the time Clara agreed. Her music taste was more mainstream now, her love for heavier and edgier sounds taking a backseat; but it had never truly left her, she suddenly realized. Just faded into the background. But never left.

Should she grab a CD or two again? She already had most of these at home, back at her parents' house halfway across the state. But at the place she shared with Giselle, she barely had any CDs at all. And why should she? Everything was digital nowadays anyway.

But maybe, for nostalgia's sake—

"There you are!"

She jolted out of her daze. From one moment to the next, Giselle had materialized in the aisle, still holding the pile of food and drinks on her arms, and abruptly Clara remembered what she was supposed to be doing.

"What was taking you so long?" Giselle asked, dumping her entire armful of findings into the shopping cart. "I've been looking for you everywhere!"

Clara ran a hand through her hair, brushing it out of her face. "Sorry," she said. "I just…got distracted, I guess."

"Distracted?" Giselle furrowed her brow. "That's not like you. What happened, did you stay up too late last night after all?"

Clara shook her head. "I'm not tired or anything," she said. "It's just…" She cracked a small smile. "My shoes got soaked through today."

Giselle stared back at her in complete incomprehension.

"Someone was playing music on the way home," Clara explained, laughing. "That kind of music," she added, motioning to the nostalgic shelf. "So I stopped and listened, and I didn't realize I was standing in a puddle till my feet got wet."

Sighing, Giselle shook her head, steering the cart out of the music aisle. "I can't believe you," she muttered. "The last time you did that sort of thing was when you dyed your hair black!"

"What? It was a good time," Clara retorted, smiling and nudging her in the side. "Even if I looked like I didn't have eyebrows."

Giselle laughed out loud. "I still have the pictures, you know!" she exclaimed. "In case I ever need to blackmail you."

"I'm proud of these pictures, you know."

"Then I'm just keeping them for the memories."

"That's good too," said Clara. "Anyway—do we have everything?"

Giselle thought for a moment.

"Ice cream!" she exclaimed at length. "We still need ice cream."

Clara nodded. "Want to go get that?" she said. "I can get us some cookies in the meantime if you want."

"And jelly beans!" Giselle added at once.

"And jelly beans," Clara repeated with a smile. "Be right back."

Hands in her pockets, she walked off, making her way into the candy section and browsing the shelves. Last time she had found some incredible dark chocolate cookies here; maybe this time she could find something equally interesting. Or she could just take the same ones as before. Yeah, she'd just do that; a good, safe bet, and she wasn't sick of them yet. Neither was Giselle. Now, where were Giselle's inevitable jelly beans again?

A shadow fell over her from behind, just outside her field of vision, and just stood there, unmoving.

"Back again?" Clara remarked without looking up from the shelf. "That was fast."

No response. Oh, Clara thought, so Giselle was doing that again today. That was fine too; two could play at this game. "Don't think I don't see you lurking, by the way," she continued. "You can't rush me. At least, not by standing there staring holes at the back of my head."

Giselle still didn't answer or move. Clara snorted. Damn actress, expertly biting back her laughter in a situation like this. But Clara wouldn't surrender so easily; she would simply try harder to get her to crack.

"Yeah, yeah, I know," she went on. "Take the jelly beans and go already. Why do you like them so much, anyway?" She reached into the shelf. "It's bad enough that you already dress like a bag of—"

She turned around.

The person staring back at her was not Giselle.

Freezing up, Clara took a step back, nearly colliding with the candy shelf behind her. "Uh," she managed at length. "You're not…who I thought you were."

The stranger in front of her didn't say anything; he just stood there, looking just as uncomfortable as she herself felt. It was a guy around her age, messy-haired and wide-eyed and dressed in all black, just as slim as Giselle and another head taller than her. But otherwise, Clara had no idea how she could possibly have mistaken him for her best friend of all people.

"So sorry," she said, trying to smile and looking anywhere except at the stranger. "I wasn't talking to you, I promise. I thought you were my friend…who's…not around right now apparently." She looked around again, searching the area for Giselle, then instinctively held out the bag of jelly beans. "Here, uh…did you want this?"

The stranger took the bag just as automatically as she had held it out. Just so briefly their eyes met, then they both turned away and wordlessly hurried in opposite directions.

She didn't have any jelly beans now, Clara thought as she rounded the corner. But honestly, that was a problem for someone else to deal with, even if that someone was just her later self.

For now, she was just glad to leave the aisle and escape from this horribly awkward interaction.