Captured by Mitchell Royel on iPhone in the Fashion District this morning, 10/25/26! We’re serving looks and living our best life while vibing to Think Later by Tate McRae. The vibes are everything, but sometimes it’s good to pause and soak it all in. Don’t overthink, just feel it!
I was ten the first time I walked through those sliding doors.
Ten years old, holding my mama's list in one hand and a crumpled twenty in the other. Bread. Eggs. Whatever cereal was on sale. The doors opened for me like they'd been waiting, and I swear that hum of the freezers sounded like a song I already knew.
Same store. Same doors. Same flickering light over aisle seven that nobody ever fixed.
Every day for years, I had the same routine. In through the left door, because the right one sticks. Past the flowers that are always half dead. Grab a basket, never a cart. Carts are for people with somewhere to be.
And at the end of it, register three. His register.
He knew my name before he knew my face had changed. He watched my voice drop. He watched me get tall. He asked about my grades, then my job, then my girl, then why I didn't talk about my girl anymore. I told him things I didn't tell my own family.
That's what you do with someone who sees you every day. You let them see you
But lately, something's been off.
I can't tell you when it started. That's the worst part. It's not a crack you hear, it's a draft you feel. A manager lingering at the end of an aisle a little too long. A security guy who suddenly needs to restock the shelf right next to me. Eyes that follow, then pretend they weren't following.
I told myself I was tripping. I told myself the lights were just too bright.
Every few days, I'd buy a pack of cigarettes. I know. I know. Don't start. It was the one bad habit I let myself keep, the one thing that was only mine. He'd slide them across the counter without asking. Like a secret between two people who trusted each other.
Until that night.
It was raining. Of course it was raining.
I set my groceries down. Milk, rice, a bag of oranges I didn't even want. I asked for my usual. He didn't reach for the shelf.
He looked at me. Really looked at me. Like I was a stranger who'd wandered in from the parking lot.
"Can I see your ID?"
Twelve years. Twelve years. And he wants to see my ID.
And here's the joke the universe was saving just for me: that day, that exact day, it expired. Midnight before. Like the clock had been in on it.
I slid it across anyway. He stared at the date. Then he stared at me.
"Sorry, man. We can't tell that you're over eighteen. Can't sell you these."
What?
"We don't know that you're over eighteen."
We.
Not I. We. Like there was a whole room of people behind him who'd been talking about me. Deciding about me. Like the boy he watched grow up had been quietly erased and replaced with a face he didn't trust.
You knew me when I was ten.
You knew me.
I wish I could tell you I took a breath. I wish I could tell you I picked up my oranges and walked out with my head high.
I didn't.
Something in me snapped like a rubber band pulled too long. I pushed him. Hard. He hit the floor, and the sound of it was so much louder than I thought it would be. And for one second, everything went silent. The freezers. The rain. My heart.
Then I ran.
Out past register three. Past the half-dead flowers. Toward the door that always sticks.
I didn't make it.
One of the stock guys came out of nowhere and hit me like a wave. Wet tile. Cold air. My cheek pressed against the floor where I used to wait for my mama to finish paying. He was yelling for the managers like he'd caught something dangerous.
And maybe that's what I'd become to them. Something dangerous. Something to catch.
I got loose. I don't even know how. I scrambled up and out into the rain, and I could hear them behind me, two managers in their pressed shirts and their name tags, chasing me off the property like a stray.
So I turned around.
And I gave them the finger. Both hands. High as I could reach.
And then my feet tangled. My grocery bag split. Oranges everywhere, rolling into puddles, bouncing under cars. I went down on the wet pavement, palms scraped, rain in my eyes, the store's sign glowing above me like it was laughing.
They just stood there. Watching from a distance. Not helping. Not leaving.
Just watching.
Like they always had. I just never noticed.
I think about him sometimes. The guy at register three. I think about how much it must have hurt to fall. I'm not proud of that. I carry it.
But I carry this too: twelve years of being known, wiped out by one expired card and one cold look. I don't know which of us broke first. I just know something broke.
And that was the last time I ever ventured into that grocery store.
And the last time I ever will.
-Mitchell +
Deck (of Mitch Leyor)