So I was watching Last Holiday and this happened.
"I look terrible! I'm a whale! You can actually see the rolls in my stomach!" the woman yelled, burying her face in her hands as she stood in front of the triple mirrors. Mercedes sighed and touched the woman's shoulders.
"No, you just need to try something else, okay? Fear not, you will turn heads when you go to this dinner party," she told her. The woman wiped her eyes and looked at her.
"You think so?"
"Yes I think so. Let me go get something else. I'm thinking blue, high waisted, low dipping collar." Mercedes left the swanky dressing room and went back out into the high-end store to get more choices. As she was putting dresses in her arm, she briefly looked across the way to the men's department and locked eyes with Sam, one of the guys that worked over there. He was the kind of guy people always went to for help in that section because they wanted to look like him, or they wanted their significant other to, as if clothes had magical powers. She couldn't blame them; he did look like he stepped out of an issue of GQ. That's why she figured her crush was pretty far-fetched. He smiled at her and she turned her attention back to the dresses before taking them back to her weeping customer.
"I look…"
"Perfect?" Mercedes finished with a big smile after the woman tried on one of the dresses.
"Oh my God!" she squealed, spinning around in the mirrors. "I'll take it!"
"Great! Why don't you slip out of it and I'll meet you at the desk." The woman nodded and went to change. Once she bought the dress and everything was all set, Mercedes' shift was over. She didn't leave right away, she walked by clothes racks stealing glances at Sam and whenever he would look up, she'd pretend to be searching for something. At some point she made it over to the men's department with her purse.
"Looking for something?" She jumped when she heard his voice from behind her. She spun around and looked at him with wide eyes. He smiled. "Sorry, didn't mean to scare you."
"No, it's okay…my mind was elsewhere," she told him with a nervous smile.
"Oh. I know what that's like," he said. "Mercedes, right?"
"Yeah, Mercedes. Sam," she replied. He nodded.
"It's amazing what you do over there, by the way. We can hear some of those ladies yelling all the way over here, and somehow they leave with a bag and a big smile," he said, laughing a bit. She tried to not stare at his mouth, but when he finished speaking, he licked his lips and made it harder not to.
"I just do my job," she said, smiling. They stood there for several seconds, looking at each other, then at anything else, then at each other again.
"Can I ask you something?" she asked.
"Yeah?" he responded quickly. She looked into his eyes and backed out immediately. He was too gorgeous, and this was too hard. She almost wanted to cuss him out for his looks. It was rude leaving the house looking like he did.
"Do I get my discount in the Men's section too? I wanted to get my dad cuff links," she murmured, looking down and completely missing him suck his lips in and look disappointed.
"Yeah, you get it anywhere in the store. Is it his birthday or something?"
"Yeah, it is," she lied. She'd been fiddling with her keys the whole time and dropped them.
"Let me," he said, reaching to get them.
"No, I got 'em." She bent down and picked them up, only to stand and hit her head on the metal clothes rack they'd been standing next to. She hit it hard and blacked out, falling to the floor.
"Oh my God! Mercedes!" he yelled, kneeling down and trying to wake her. When he couldn't, he tried not to panic and picked her up, taking her to the emergency area of the mall to get her checked out.
Mercedes opened her eyes to see Sam leaning over her, smirking and stroking the side of her face.
"I've been waiting to do this for a long time," he said, unbuttoning his shirt.
"What are you doing?" she murmured. He grinned and leaned in close so his lips were inches from hers.
"I'm about to make you scream my name, sweetheart."
"Mercedes? Mercedes? Mercedes can you hear me?" Her eyes snapped open and she was met with the face of a concerned Asian man.
"What happened?" she said, blinking repeatedly.
"You hit your head," Sam answered. She looked up at him and saw that he was fully clothed.
"I think we should do a CAT scan," the doctor said.
"Woah, is it that serious?" Sam asked, raising his eyebrows.
"We can't be too careful," he replied.
When Mercedes was all set to go, the man who she now knew as Dr. Chang told her to relax as the machine pulled her into the tunnel. He seemed seriously disturbed with the result and made her do it again. She didn't mind. It's not like she had anywhere to be. After the second go, he pulled her aside. He tried to explain to her what he found, but she couldn't understand it. She only heard one thing.
"In your case, it's fatal. You…you only have about three weeks to live, give or take."
The car ride home was silent in contrast to her usual belting to every top 40 hit on the radio. She just stared ahead and tried not to cry. Three weeks, that's all she had. She'd never break into the business and record an album. She'd never see her nieces and nephews go to college. She'd never get up the courage to ask Sam out, have a serious relationship, marry him and have his kids. She'd never do anything she dreamed about.
When she got home, she ate a TV dinner while watching the America's Next Top Model re-runs. She ended up going to bed early and crying herself to sleep asking God why her. When she woke up the next morning and was getting ready for work, she did a lot of thinking. She could spend the next three weeks depressed to hear that she was going to die, or she could do what anyone in their right mind would under the circumstances: whatever she wanted. First on the list was to stop working in a department store she couldn't even afford to buy things from under an asshole of a boss.
"Why aren't you working?" Jesse asked, leaning back in his chair. His office was right by the Men's department and she could see Sam in the window. She tried not to let it distract her.
"Because I need to talk to you," she said, standing in front of his desk.
"I don't actually pay you to talk," he replied, rolling his eyes.
"But I have to tell you something important…" He put his hand up and answered his phone when it rang. She stood there waiting as he dragged the conversation out until she got impatient and leaned over, taking the phone and cracking it on the desk. Jesse's jaw dropped and he stared at her in disbelief.
"That's company property! And it cost six hundred bucks that's coming out of your pay check!" he yelled.
"Holy shit, did you see that?" Finn, another employee asked, leaning over.
"Yeah…" Sam responded. He had no idea what was going on in there and no words. Though he was oddly turned on.
"I don't care. I was trying to tell you something," she said, folding her arms.
"What the hell do you want!" She was going to tell him about her condition and politely resign, but one look at his face and that plan went out the window.
"You know what?" she asked, taking the shade off of his desk lamp and unplugging it. "I am so sick of you treating me like shit when I am one of your strongest employees." She swung, knocking his work phone off the desk. He jumped and his eyes bulged. "As a matter of fact, you treat everyone like shit, as if we're just supposed to take it because it's such an honor to work under you." She swung again, knocking picture frames off the walls and his dumb Broadway figurines of the shelf. She then threw the lamp shade against the wall with a loud crash. Before he could speak, she put her hand up.
"You can take it all out of my paycheck. I don't give a damn." She picked up the mirror on his desk and fixed her hair before dropping it and walking to the door. "Oh, and if it wasn't obvious, I quit."
"You…you can't quit!" he managed after babbling for several seconds. "We're struggling in the third quarter and you're making sales!" She stared at him.
"Well?" he added.
"I'm sorry, I'm just really looking for a fuck to give, but I can't find one," she said before walking out. She walked past the Men's department, and Sam jogged up to her.
"Mercedes! Wait," he said, falling into step with her as she headed to the exit. "What happened in there?"
"I quit," she said simply. He laughed.
"You did a bit more than that," he responded. She stopped and looked at him.
"So I may have shown him how much I enjoyed working here too." That made him laugh more.
"Honestly, I wish I had the balls to do what you just did," he said. "I've wanted to quit for months."
"Why haven't you?" she asked.
"I uh…well there were some things I liked being able to see every day. Some people…"
"Oh," she said, biting her lip.
"Maybe I should quit too," he said after a few seconds.
"What?" she asked, laughing.
"I think I will! I have enough saved up to take a break…and I have plans, you know?" She just smiled at him.
"Maybe you should think it through," she told him.
"What are you doing now?" he asked.
"I don't know, actually."
"Wanna hang out? I think I should take a day off to consider my options," he said.
"Hang out?"
"People do that sometimes…you could come over or something…"
"Come over?"
"I don't find it annoying or anything, I just wanna know for future reference…are you gonna answer everything I say by repeating it in the form of a question?" he asked. She blushed and shook her head.
"Sorry, I just don't have a lot of friends, so hanging out is like a foreign concept to me," she told him.
"Who says I wanna be your friend?" he asked, his voice dropping an octave. She stared at him, unsure whether or not she should respond, because she could have dreamed it. She jumped when he laughed. "I'm kidding. Stay right here and I'll go get my keys."
She waited there and smiled to herself. This was turning out to be a good day. When he returned, he led her out to his car and opened the door for her before getting in himself.
"You want me to take you home to change?" he asked when he pulled out.
"No, I'm fine," she told him. He smiled and nodded, driving to his place. When they got there and he led her in, she hadn't known what to expect, but really liked his apartment.
"Make yourself comfortable," he said. "I'm gonna change." She simply nodded and sat on his couch. When twenty minutes went by, she began to feel awkward. Worried that something may have happened to him, she walked down the hall to his room to find the door open and him talking on the phone without a shirt on. Just as she was about to turn back around, he saw her and smiled.
"Stevie, let me call you back later okay? Yeah, bye." He tapped his phone to hang up and set it on his bedside table. "Sorry, I got distracted." She was distracted herself, having pictured him half naked on many occasions and seeing the real thing right now.
"Uh…it's fine. I was just wondering…you know." No doubt, she was looking at him like she was starving and he was the last biscuit, but she couldn't help it. He saw how dark her eyes were and cleared his throat.
"I know you said you were fine, but are you sure you don't wanna get out of those clothes?" he asked, looking her up and down. Her eyes widened when she heard him. He was coming on to her and she figured it was a fantasy again. To make sure, she slapped herself. He jumped.
"Why did you just do that?" He walked up to her with a concerned look on his face.
"No reason," she responded, looking up at him.
"Mercedes, you just slapped yourself," he said, raising an eyebrow.
"Honestly, I thought I was dreaming," she told him. She was still coming to terms with having three weeks to live. Last night was spend wallowing and sobbing until she passed out, but from today on, she was going to try and eliminate fear. Old Mercedes wouldn't have told him that. New Mercedes was honest.
"Really?" he asked, trailing a finger down the buttons of her shirt. "Me too, but I wasn't gonna try and stop it. Can I?" She nodded, and he unbuttoned her shirt, pulling it off her shoulders and letting it fall to the floor. He reached around, unzipped her skirt and pushed it down. Then he walked over to the bed and sat on it, smirking and leaning back on his palms. Old Mercedes would have tried to cover herself with her arms and avoid eye contact, but new Mercedes was over there in seconds, straddling him and crashing her lips to his. He returned it eagerly, lapping the roof of her mouth and squeezing her ass.
"I'm gonna die," she said afterwards as he leaned on his elbow next to her with his arm wrapped around her torso. His eyebrows furrowed and he looked at her.
"What?"
"I…am going to die," she told him. She'd just done something she wanted to do for a long time, and it hit her that she couldn't have something real with Sam. It hit her and made her sad all over again so she decided to tell him.
"What do you mean you're going to die?" he asked.
"Remember when I hit my head and Dr. Chang said I had to have a CAT scan? Well I did, and he said I have this disease that they didn't catch in time. I have three weeks to live…give or take." He was quiet for a moment before sitting up.
"Say something…" she said, sitting up as well and pulling the covers with her.
"Say what? You're gonna die and I can't do anything about it." He looked a cross between confused and upset. "You can't die."
"Well I can, actually…" He glared at the comforter.
"We just…" He sighed and ran his fingers through his hair.
"Okay."
"What? Okay?" she asked, confused.
"It's now my responsibility to make these three weeks worth it," he said.
"Sam, no it's…" He cut her off by cupping her face and kissing her with everything he had. When he pulled away, he kissed her once more and bit his lip.
"Don't argue." She licked her lips and nodded. "I'm gonna quit first."
"Sam, don't…"
"What's a stupid job if you're gonna die in three weeks. I can find another. I hate that place anyway." She sighed. No argument there. "I'll do that tomorrow. Now I'm just gonna be here with you for the rest of the day. Is that okay?" he asked, settling between her legs.
"Yeah, that's okay," she said, gripping the back of his neck and pulling him down for another kiss.
When the first week passed, she'd spent literally every day with Sam. He made good on his promise, taking her to weird restaurants neither of them had been to, breaking into song on the bus, cooking her favorite foods, taking her to graffiti a random building, and even breaking out the Kama Sutra.
The latest adventure found them at an airport.
"Where are we going?" she asked as he pulled a large suitcase with one hand and held hers in another.
"I don't know yet," he answered.
"You don't know yet," she repeated.
"Whatever the first plane out of here is," he said.
"Well I'm paying." He stopped and looked at her.
"It's not like I'm gonna need it," she explained. He sighed and nodded. He didn't want to talk about it anymore, as he hated being reminded that she was going to die. He walked up to the desk and smiled at the woman behind it.
"Hi, we'd like tickets for the first international flight out of here," he said. The woman raised an eyebrow but looked at her computer anyway.
"Paris, France," she said, smiling. Mercedes' eyes lit up. She'd always wanted to go there. Sam noticed and looked at the woman.
"Perfect."
As soon as they landed and made it to the hotel she booked while on the flight, they were out in the city. They spent hours just walking around hand in hand, looking at sites.
"I didn't know you could speak French," he said when they were back in their hotel room. The only one available last minute was the presidential suite, and Mercedes said they would take it without blinking.
"Well now you know," she replied, hopping onto the bed. He went over and playfully tackled her so she was on her back.
"It was really sexy," he said before kissing her neck and running his hand up her shirt.
Another week passed, and they both tried to pretend like they weren't counting down. They were still in Paris, and they seemingly got lucky every day. They got free tickets to a film festival, met more celebrities they ever thought they would, and went to a casino where Mercedes took away what would be ten thousand dollars back home. It was all too good to be true, but right now, as Sam sat behind her in the filled bathtub, his mind was only on one thing. He kissed her shoulder and linked his fingers with hers.
"I don't want you to die," he told her, shutting his eyes.
"Sam. Don't," she started, sighing.
"No. This is…this fucked up." She didn't have to turn and look at him to know that he was crying. She could hear it in his voice. "The time is just ticking away and we refuse to talk about it."
"Because we can't do anything to change it," she said, a few tears escaping her own eyes.
"You didn't do anything to deserve this. Assholes like Jesse St. James are walking around healthy as ever and you have to die? It's not fair," he said, tightening his grip on her.
"I know," she said quietly. He kissed her neck and stroked her hands with his thumbs.
"I love you."
"Don't say that," she told him, shutting her eyes to stop the tears.
"I mean it. I don't wanna let you go," he said.
"You have to."
The last week was spent in Lima, Ohio. Sam flew in with her, determined to spend every second he could with her until he couldn't. Seeing her mother break down felt like a blow to the stomach. Soon, her extended family was gathered in the Jones living room and somehow Sam ended up being held by her grandmother. He cried with her, unable to stop it. It left him drained, and as he watched her sleep, lying next to her in her bed, he thought about what it would be like if he'd asked her out years ago. He was mad at himself.
"You should sleep," she said, opening her eyes.
"You're awake."
"Yeah…I can't really fall asleep. Today was intense. I almost considered not telling my family, but I knew I had to." He nodded.
"I felt like a Jones, though," he said with a small laugh.
"Yeah, they do that. Especially with people who seem important to me. The fact that I brought you with me said a lot."
"Do you love me?" he asked. He'd said it to her, but she never said it back. She sighed.
"I love you."
"Really?" She scooted closer and kissed him softly.
"Really. I just…hate having to say it out loud because I'm reminded of how much I have to leave behind. It would be easier if I didn't love you. When I agreed to spend my last weeks with you, I thought it would be okay because people don't fall for each other in three weeks. But we've spent literally every second together, and I'm head over heels," she said smiling. "It sucks."
"I wanna spend my life with you." Her eyes got watery and she shut them.
"You have to stop saying things like that. It hurts both of us."
"I just want to make sure you know, okay? No matter what happens, I want you to know how I feel about you," he said, tucking a stray hair behind her ear.
"I know," she replied. She looked him the eyes, wordlessly asking him to make love to her. He complied right away, removing her underwear and kissing every inch of her.
The next day they found themselves sitting on the empty bleachers by the football field of McKinley high school with their fingers interlocked.
"How was it here?" he asked.
"Kind of sucked, actually. I used to get slushied on a daily basis," she told him.
"…slushied?"
"Jocks threw convenient store slushies in my face."
"What the hell?"
"Welcome to Ohio," she said, laughing. He shook his head and brought her hand up to kiss her fingers. They sat in contented silence until they were interrupted by Mercedes' ringtone. She pulled her phone from her pocket and answered it.
"Hello?" she said upon answering.
"Mercedes? Thank God. This is Mike. I mean Dr. Chang." She smiled.
"Hi, Doctor." Sam raised an eyebrow.
"I took the CAT scan and I got the same results. Same growths in the same places in my brain!" he said excitedly.
"I'm…sorry? Why do you sound happy about it?" she asked.
"Because that's impossible! It wasn't you, it was the machine! We had it looked at and you're fine. Clean. You're not going to die, Mercedes." Her jaw dropped and her eyes burned with happy tears as she let it soak in. Sam didn't know what was going on, but he saw her tears and squeezed her hand.
"Mercedes? Are you there?"
"Yeah, I'm here. Thanks Mike," she said before hanging up. She looked at Sam with a big smile and wiped her eyes.
"The machine was broken. I'm not dying," she said.
"What! You're not dying?" he said, wanting a confirmation before he lost his mind.
"Not dying." She grinned and he took her face in both his hands to kiss her passionately.
"I love you so much. Marry me." She laughed.
"Sam! We have time now."
"I don't care! I wanna make you Mrs. Evans." She smiled big and kissed him again.
"Whatever you say." He touched his nose to hers and grinned. After a few more minutes of sitting there and simply taking each other in, they decided to get up and go tell her family. They held hands and walked to the parking lot, stealing glances at each other and their smiles growing larger.
"You know what I just realized?" she asked.
"What?"
"It's a good thing I won all that money."