Mixed Feelings of Elation

Neon sighed as she walked through the aisles of the super center; Wal-Mart to be specific. She was looking for a new microwave to replace her old one. Preferably the same brand.

She had grown rather fond of her old school microwave that spazzed out on random occasions. It had been around since before her parents passed away, standing up against two children and a father that didn't know how to cook.

No microwaves on the shelf resembled her old one. Not in the slightest. Of course the brand wasn't sold anymore. It must have been discontinued years ago. But she really wanted that microwave. She knew how to work that microwave.

Looking at the microwaves on the shelf, she realized she would have to spend weeks figuring out what the buttons did. That's not how she wanted to spend her weeks. She wanted to spend them moping in her room or on her couch.

Everyone around her seemed to have other plans for her life, including the microwaves that stared at her with their unnecessary buttons.

Neon grabbed the least complicated looking of the microwaves and placed it in her basket. It would have to do.

She still had a few more things to get on her list. One of which being fish oil pills so her hair would look healthier for the interview. The relapse had started only a few weeks ago and her hair would likely start falling out some point in the following weeks. But it had lost a bit of shine, something the interviewer would pick up on. All the fans would too.

It wasn't that she was completely unhealthy. She gained about two pounds over the past few days. All the cake and Ben and Jerry's ice cream was affecting her body. Her body mass index was still underweight but not anorexic. Not yet. If she could manage to avoid eating, she could get back to that. The challenge itself was not avoiding food; it was avoiding the food her band mates offered her.

That would hurt them, as well as hurt her body. Not that she cared much about her body.

She realized this stint of anorexia was simply to mar her body, to destroy it so no one would be attracted to it. She felt as if she were no use to a man because she couldn't have kids. So why attract a man, taking him away from so many able women? It wasn't healthy thinking, she knew that. A woman wasn't measured by her ability to give birth in this day and age. Not every man wanted children in the first place. Logically, she shouldn't have been ruining her body even further.

But that's all she ever wanted. Ever since she was little, she wanted to be a housewife. She didn't want to go to college, though she did have the brain for it. She never wanted to have a career. Neon Lowry, successful lead singer of RxN, had only one aspiration as a child and that was to take care of children of her own.

Yeah, she was one of those girls.

That wasn't to say that she wasn't happy with her career now. It kept her busy and that's what she needed. Even if she never messed up her ovaries, she still would have created the band. She just would have had a child by now. She could never go back to the idea of being a homemaker but she still wanted kids.

Neon sighed again, grabbing a bottle of fish oil pills as she passed them on the shelf. Diet pills were somewhere in the same aisle. She wanted to avoid stopping to look at them.

Neon walked to the side of the store where the food items were. She needed coffee, both decaf and normal. They were a necessity for her life. She couldn't live without her coffee and neither could her sibling.

One of their growing number of similarities.

She hummed to herself as she walked through the food section, adjusting her sunglasses. She left the house in "disguise." Though it was mid-July and sweltering, she had on her oversized hoodie. A plain one, completely void of design to keep from giving her away. Her sunglasses were perfect for the outside whether, where the sun was beating down on the land without restraint. No one would be able to tell who she was and that was what she wanted.

Today just was not a day to deal with fans. She loved them, she did. But it could be too much to handle. It was more likely for the men of RxN to get bombarded by screaming teenage girls but it happened to Neon on occasion. Arpeggio had the calmest set of fans, all of which idolized her for strength that Arpeggio was never aware she had. Jazz seemed to get a lot of male suitors. Neon's fans could be so outgoing it hurt to talk to them or so shy she had to pry what they wanted out of them.

Either way, she wasn't in the mood.

Neon's eyes wandered the large expanse known as the Wal-Mart coffee aisle. She had forgotten just how large the coffee selection the super store had was. On tour, they stopped at various family-owned grocery stores or cafes for their coffee. At home, Neon normally didn't go to Wal-Mart. She preferred the store that was down the street from her house owned by an Italian family that got little business. The reason she didn't go there today was not because she was searching out a new microwave but because she would have seen Alex there.

She wasn't ready to face him yet. She didn't know what she would say to him. Apologizing required her to appear weak and she was trying desperately not to come off that way. But she knew she had been in the wrong.

Unless she had been right about her accusation. Just because Dante said Alex had like her since high school didn't mean he was right. It was possible that Alex just slept with her because she was there.

They needed to sit down and talk. Neon couldn't hold anything against Alex until then.

Neon spotted her favorite brand of coffee on the shelf. She smiled, grabbing it and shoving it into her basket. Arpeggio's favorite decaf coffee was near it, waiting for her to grab it and place it in the basket. Neon did just that. She looked up, smiling that her shopping was done, only to see a familiar brown haired male signing autographs just outside of the aisle.

What the fuck was Alex doing there?

Neon turned her basket around as fast as she could manage without drawing attention to herself, nearly hitting another woman in the process. She mumbled a "sorry" and speed walked out of the aisle. She rushed to the woman's clothing section, ducking behind a large rack of clothes.

Alex was not supposed to shop at Wal-Mart; he was supposed to shop at the grocery shop where the cute, little, Italian woman greeted everyone with a smile.

Though he never did leave there with food. He would bump into Neon on her weekly run to the grocery store, help her fill her basket, and help her put her groceries in her car. The Italian woman who rung up their groceries would always smile at them with a far-off expression in her eyes. But never would he buy something for himself while she was there.

Oh god, he really was stalking her.

Neon watched, hunched over behind the rack of clothes, as Alex passed. He had a disgruntled look to him, his hair a mess, face unshaven, eyes full of exhaustion. He was a mess. Jack was right, there was something wrong with him. Neon was so concerned she almost exposed herself from her hiding spot to ask him what was wrong.

But she didn't. She just watched him pass and stayed crunched over for thirty minutes after he did pass to be sure he was gone.

When the thirty minutes passed, she straightened up and prepared to take her items to self-checkout. Seeing Alex and hiding took too much energy out of her. She needed to get home and sleep.