The back room of the Twenty4 convenience store smelled like sour milk and bleach.
June knelt on the grimy tile floor, sorting through a green plastic crate filled with expired sandwiches and bent cans of off-brand tuna. The kind of food no one really buys unless they're desperate or stoned. Half of it was sticky, some leaking onto the bottom of the bin, soaking into the cardboard dividers. The overhead light buzzed, flickered, and stayed on just long enough to remind her how grey her hands looked under it.
She held up a pre-packaged chicken mayo sandwich, squinting at the date.
"Yesterday."
She sniffed it. It didn't smell like chicken. It smelled like a dare.
Into the trash it went.
She picked up another, ham and cheese, corners curling, bread turning that weird translucent texture like it had started decomposing back into whatever chemical compound it had come from.
"Delicious," she muttered. "Chef's kiss."
Her gloves squelched slightly as she reached for the next. She didn't remember putting them on, but here they were. Muscle memory. Her hands moved on autopilot now, sorting what was no longer fit for consumption. A nice metaphor for her own life, she thought.
She reached for the milk crate next. Each bottle jiggled in its own sad way, and most were a day or two over the expiration. But Dreyfuss had a rule: "If it's not chunky, it's not expired."
She shook a bottle. It didn't sound chunky. Close enough.
She kept it.
The doorbell chimed faintly from the front.
June peeled off one glove and wiped her forehead. Then, reluctantly, she trudged out into the store, leaving the bin of expired goods for later.
The customer was already at the counter — a hunched old man with a baseball cap pulled low over his eyes. His jacket had seen better decades, and he always carried a faded plastic shopping bag with some unidentifiable bulk inside. He came in almost every night around this time. Bought the same thing: one banana, a tin of sardines, and a packet of those chalky heartburn tablets.
She knew his name was Mr. Merven, but he always seemed to forget hers.
"Evenin', uh... Jenny?" he said, squinting up at her like her face was a Sudoku puzzle he'd given up on.
"Close enough," she said, scanning the barcode on the banana.
"You new here?"
"Nope. Been here six months."
"That so?"
He smiled, revealing a missing tooth and what looked like half a piece of a cashew lodged between two others.
"Well, good on you. Not many stick around in this place."
Yeah. I wonder why, June thought.
She rang up the rest of his items and gave him the total.
He rummaged in his coat pocket like he was digging for treasure, eventually handing over a sweaty handful of coins. She counted them out, short by ten cents and didn't bother saying anything. She covered the rest herself and dropped the change in the till.
"See you tomorrow, Mr. Merven."
"You too, Jackie."
He shuffled out, bag rustling like dry leaves, leaving behind a faint scent of mothballs and something sadder.
Back in the storeroom, June resumed her sorting. The air was even warmer now, and the fridge motor throbbed in her ears like a dying heartbeat.
She thought about Merven forgetting her name, again.
It was funny, in a cosmic sort of way. She saw him every night. Probably more than she saw anyone else. And still, she was a ghost in his memory. Just like at school. Just like at work. Just like life.
Her mind drifted.
To that white lecture hall with the flickering projector and the coffee machine that always brewed something that tasted like wet pennies. Creative Writing 101. She could still see the rows of glossy plastic chairs. Still smell the mix of instant ramen and high-functioning anxiety. She remembered walking in with a folder full of her first manuscript, the one she wrote in high school about a girl who saves the world with a typewriter and spite.
The professor skimmed it, looked at her over his wireframe glasses, and said, "It's a little derivative."
She laughed back then. Because she'd written it from her soul. Because "derivative" sounded like a fancy way of saying 'you're trying too hard.'
She failed that semester. Then the next. Then she stopped going.
Not out of drama. No spiraling breakdown. Just a quiet tapering off, like a candle that runs out of wax.
Her parents didn't say much. Her mom tried, maybe. Said, "You have potential."
Her dad just asked when she was going to get a real job.
And now she was here. Expired sandwiches. Moldy tuna. Sardine guy. Life was linear after all.
She tossed another bottle into the bin and paused.
A candy bar had fallen behind the crate. Crushed, the wrapper torn at one end. Probably unstocked inventory. Possibly expired. She picked it up, flipped it over, the label had a smear of something brown, but it was chocolate, not the bad kind.
She stared at it.
Shrugged.
And slipped it into her pocket.
She stepped out the back door and into the alley behind the store. The sky was still overcast, the city lights smeared across the clouds like someone had smudged a painting. The wind carried the scent of piss and diesel fumes, but it was fresh compared to the storeroom.
June unwrapped the candy bar and bit off half in one go. It was stale. Maybe even a bit waxy. But it was sweet.
She leaned against the brick wall, chewing slowly, watching steam rise from the storm drain across the alley.
A cat darted out from behind a dumpster, black with a torn ear and eyes like tiny headlights.
June froze, holding the candy bar halfway to her mouth.
"Hey, buddy," she said softly, crouching.
The cat looked at her.
Paused.
And bolted the other way without hesitation.
Not even a hiss. Just gone.
She straightened, chewing the rest of the bar, bitter amusement curling in her gut.
"Even strays don't want to be near me."
She stood there a little longer, finished the candy, and flicked the wrapper into the trash. It bounced off the rim and landed in a puddle.
She didn't pick it up.
Back inside, the fridge had stopped buzzing. She moved to the cigarette shelf behind the counter and started restocking, Marlboro, Camel, the cheap no-name brands with the skull logo that teenagers thought were edgy.
The monotony of it was almost soothing.
Pull. Replace. Count.
She didn't look at the clock. Didn't need to. Time moved in its own strange way during this shift. Slower than molasses and yet too fast to ever hold onto.
Outside, a siren wailed in the distance. Faint. Not coming here.
At 4:10 a.m., she took a break and sat on the crate of unsorted snacks, arms around her knees, staring at nothing. Not thinking. Not feeling.
Just... existing.
That was the scariest part, sometimes.
Not the sadness. Not the loneliness. But the fact that you could get used to it.
That maybe this, the lights, the crates, the old men who forgot you, the cats who ran, maybe that was all she was going to get. And that maybe, maybe, it would never actually get worse.
Because it was already nothing.