Mable's Marvellous Sweetie Shop 3

Part 1 here and part 2 here.

The gazebo, the lake, the windswept park, were all as distant and vague as a daydream. Far less real than the sweet tangy drop melting on her tongue and ushering warm scenes.

Rea found herself wrapped in the memory of her Year 3 science presentation. Her teachers had been so impressed with it. She couldn’t remember what her project had been on, only that she’d worked hard for months. Her school selected her to represent them at the local level. She’d won.

The heady, giddy glee of that moment when her name was read out bubbled in her chest. She wanted to whoop, to laugh, to scream in joy and vindication and a defiant mocking of everyone who ever doubted her.

At the time that feeling had been deflated by seeing the presentations of the years above her. Each escalating winner chipped away her pride as her offering seemed increasingly inept. She’d thrown it all away when she got home. Stuffed the prize rosette into the wardrobe and soon forgot the whole thing.

But the vision faded before that oppressive parade began, leaving her standing in the gazebo with a huge grin on her face. Each roll of the sweetie around her mouth brought fresh waves of bumptious joy. She felt like she could take on the world. Like she had taken on the world, and won. Like nothing could-

The last of the sweetie dissolved into tangy slurry on her tongue and the feeling dissolved with it, allowing the feckless depression of the day to resurge.

Rea gulped, blinking back tears. The whiplash was too much. Her daily drudge was so familiar as to be invisible until this cast an unforgiving light.

Without thinking she fumbled another sweetie out of the cone. The moment it rolled over in her mouth the unrelenting world fell away again.

Dylan. Fuck Dylan. Acted like being bigger than everyone else and having a doting mummy who’d enrol him in any club he wanted meant he was better than anybody else. Like the fact you’d been doing this for years was irrelevant and you should queue up to kiss his butt.

She’d shown him. In front of everyone. Crushed him so hard at archery he’d ran off crying. The true victory was how everyone gathered around her not him. How hands pounded her shoulders and there were grins on every side and for a moment it felt like everyone there was her friend.

That rush had lasted longer but it still faded. Within a few weeks having won an argument with a stuck-up dork who’d never picked up a bow before was no longer interesting to everyone else. She still did archery but never managed to stand out again.

But here the rush of that first moment kept going, sweet and intoxicating and tangible. Until the sweetie fell to nothing.

Rea grabbed the third sweetie. Eight left.

Part 4 (the end) here.