Chapter Eight: Stuck In An Endless Loop

It was a usual Tuesday morning, another day at work.

Callie was manning the returns counter. Eli had just survived another round of “No, ma’am, I can’t give you full price for a broken slow cooker you purchased in 2011” and needed air.

He wandered toward her station, sipping from his reusable water bottle and watching her tap furiously on the register, glaring at the frozen screen like it had personally betrayed her.

“Let me guess,” he said, stopping beside her. “System update? Or ghost of BuyMore past?”

She didn’t look up. “If I vanish in the next twenty minutes, tell the others I went down fighting.”

“Heroic. Want me to write the eulogy?”

“You’d turn it into a bit.”

“Absolutely,” he said. “Full musical number.”

That got the tiniest twitch at the corner of her mouth.

Progress.

The store was unusually slow that day—midweek lulls always hit hard—and they ended up paired for endcap duty in aisle twelve, rearranging a discounted pile of microwavable Tupperware sets and questionable lunchbox containers.

“So,” Eli said, stacking plastic lids, “do you ever think about leaving?”

Callie looked at him. “The aisle or the store?”

“The store.”

“Once a week. Sometimes twice on Mondays.”

He chuckled. “What stops you?”

She shrugged. “Same thing that keeps most people. Bills. Life.”

“But you could do anything.”

“That’s a weird assumption.”

He turned. “You’re sharp. Organized. You actually know how this place works without needing to check the handbook every five minutes like I do.”

“You’re romanticizing retail.”

“I’m romanticizing you.”

Her brows lifted.

He realized what he’d said and added, “Your work ethic. You know. Not—romantic romanticizing.”

Callie stared at him. Then, miraculously, didn’t throttle him.

“Anyway,” he muttered, adjusting a label on the shelf, “I just think it’d be cool to see you run something bigger than this place. That’s all.”

“Not all of us get to chase big dreams, Eli.”

There was something in her voice. A drop in tone. Just enough to make him wonder.

But before he could respond, Brenda shouted from two aisles over: “HEY, LOVEBIRDS. CUSTOMER SPILLED JUICE IN HOME GOODS. CONSIDER THIS YOUR DATE NIGHT.”

Callie groaned. “Perfect.”

They didn’t finish the conversation.

But Eli didn’t stop thinking about it either.

That Friday, rain hit the city hard. The kind of all-day drizzle that soaked through shoes and made the store smell faintly of wet cardboard and resignation. Half the staff called in. Callie didn’t.

Neither did Eli.

They ended up covering extra shifts, sharing the same breaks, the same complaints, the same slightly soggy granola bar from Brenda’s emergency snack drawer. By the end of the night, Callie looked like a thundercloud in a ponytail.

Eli followed her into the breakroom, where she collapsed into the plastic chair near the vending machine.

“No way you’re still standing without caffeine,” she said.

“Actually,” he said, shaking out his wet sleeves, “I have this fancy tea packet from the free sample bin. Smells like flowers and capitalism.”

He offered it to her.

She stared. “That’s the weirdest peace offering I’ve ever received.”

“Try it.”

She took it. Made no promises.

As the kettle heated, he sat across from her, twirling his lanyard. He could feel the shift between them. Like something had softened. Just a little.

He’d been thinking about what she said earlier—about not being able to leave. About life, bills. And he wanted to understand. Wanted to know her in a way that went deeper than aisle assignments and inside jokes.

But asking outright felt wrong.

So he didn’t.

At least not then.

The next morning was when it happened.

Callie was running late. For her, that meant arriving at 8:05 instead of 7:50. Her hair was in a messy braid, and she didn’t have her usual coffee. Eli noticed the difference instantly.

“You okay?” he asked as they passed in the back hallway.

“Didn’t sleep.”

He didn’t press.

That afternoon, while helping restock clearance toys, she left her phone on the bottom shelf and wandered off to argue with Marcus about pricing guns.

It buzzed.

Once. Twice.

Eli didn’t mean to look.

But the screen lit up just as he leaned down to reach a box of plush dinosaurs, and he caught it—just a glance.

Reminder: Balance Due – Emerson Tuition Plan – Final Installment

He froze.

The message blinked and disappeared.

And suddenly, things made sense.

Later, when they were cleaning up an aisle of overturned picture frames (the latest victim of Brenda’s aggressive endcap restaging), Eli didn’t say anything at first. He wanted to, but the words felt delicate in his mouth. Fragile. Like glass.

Callie crouched next to him, brushing glass shards into a dustpan.

“You ever think about going back to school?” he asked casually.

She tensed.

Slight, but enough.

“Why?”

“I just figured—you seem like the kind of person who’d kill it in college.”

She was quiet for a second. Then, “I was. Once.”

Eli glanced at her.

Callie dumped the glass into the trash and stood.

“Double major,” she said. “Business and lit. Scholarships paid for most of it. The rest was loans and… favors.”

“Favors?”

“My sister took out a private loan in her name to cover my last year. Said she’d help until I got a job lined up.”

Eli stood too, slower.

“She bailed two months before finals. Left the country. The account defaulted. And it’s in my name now.”

Callie grabbed the broom again.

“I had a choice,” she said flatly. “Drop out and get a job. Or let the debt snowball. I dropped out.”

He opened his mouth, closed it.

“You’re the first person I’ve told here,” she added, sweeping faster now. Like the motion would burn it away.

Eli didn’t know what to say.

So he said the only thing that felt real.

“That sucks.”

She stopped.

Looked at him.

That simple, honest sentence—without pity, without solutions—made her shoulders drop. Just a little.

“Yeah,” she said. “It really does.”

After the shift, they walked out together.

Rain had started again, soft and misty.

Callie zipped her hoodie. Eli shoved his hands in his pockets.

“I used to want to open a bookstore,” she said suddenly, like the words had been waiting behind her teeth all day. “Coffee bar in the corner. Book clubs. The kind of place that smells like cinnamon and old paper.”

Eli smiled.

“That sounds amazing.”

“I still think about it sometimes.”

“You should.”

She shot him a sideways glance. “With what? Monopoly money?”

“Doesn’t have to be now.”

“Doesn’t have to be ever.”

A beat of silence.

Then Eli said, “If you ever open that place, I’ll be your first customer. Or your barista. I make a mean latte.”

Callie snorted. “You couldn’t figure out the espresso machine in the breakroom.”

“I’ve grown.”

She smiled—real and unguarded.

They reached her street corner.

She turned to go.

Paused.

“Thanks,” she said.

“For what?”

“For not pretending you have answers.”

He shrugged. “I’m more of a questions guy anyway.”

She hesitated again. Then nodded.

“See you tomorrow, porcupine,” he said softly.

She didn’t groan this time.

Didn’t roll her eyes.

She just walked away, rain clinging to her braid, and something lighter in her step.