The store is frozen in that strange, fluorescent stillness that only exists after midnight.

Ben is halfway down aisle four, restocking cereal boxes he’s already memorized by shape and weight, when Matt laughs too loudly somewhere near the freezers and Berry knocks over something he definitely wasn’t supposed to touch. Sharon is asleep at the register again, cheek pressed to the counter, breathing slow and even.

It’s 3:07 a.m.

And then the automatic doors slide open. Ben looks up without thinking.

You stumble inside like you’ve taken a wrong turn into the wrong reality.

Designer coat slipping off one shoulder. Shoes that cost more than his rent, scuffed and crooked. Your hair is a mess—beautiful, but clearly wrecked by hands running through it too many times. Mascara streaked down your cheeks. Lipstick smeared like you forgot to care halfway through the night.

You sway. Catch yourself on a display of crisps. Miss.

“Whoa—” Ben mutters, already moving.

You laugh breathlessly, the sound breaking halfway through. “I’m fine,” you say, absolutely not fine, pointing at nothing in particular. “I just… needed milk. Or wine. Or—do you sell… time?”

Ben stops a safe distance away, voice gentle without trying to be. “You okay?”