Ten Minutes

She showed up every night. Two-oh-three in the morning, not a second off.

I would see her push through the glass door on the security monitor and think to myself: there she is. A faded navy hoodie zipped up to her chin, hair pulled back carelessly, always a few loose strands falling across her face. She never glanced toward the register. She walked straight to the aisle at the very back of the store.

I didn't need to follow her. I knew what she was reaching for: bottom shelf, last row. A 250ml carton of pure milk. The Yili brand, the one that cost three-fifty. Nobody else bought milk at two in the morning. Nobody else even went that far into the store. Our milk section existed because the supplier contract said it had to.

When she came to the register, she would place the carton on the counter and pull out her phone without a word. The whole transaction played out like a silent film. I'd scan the barcode; she'd look at her phone. But she wasn't scrolling through anything—her thumb just sat still on the screen, her eyes unfocused. I recognized that look. A roommate in college had insomnia. He would sit on his bed every night wearing exactly that expression.

"Three-fifty," I'd say.

She'd make a sound of acknowledgment, and the payment code would scan before I could even blink. Then she'd pick up her milk, walk over to the white plastic table by the window, and sit down.

She stayed exactly ten minutes.

I've worked the graveyard shift at this convenience store for a year and a half. Ten at night to six in the morning. There are regulars: the designated driver who shows up at one for peanuts and a Red Bull; the delivery rider at three-forty who borrows a power bank; the street sweeper at four-thirty who pours herself a cup of hot water and leaves after five minutes. But only one person came every single night at the exact same minute, stayed exactly ten minutes, and left.

She would tear the straw from its wrapper, punch it through the foil seal, and drink. Not casually—she approached the carton with a strange seriousness, as if completing a ritual. Every few sips she'd glance at the time on her phone. Sometimes her lips moved, just slightly, like she was counting under her breath or talking to someone who wasn't there.

Half the time she didn't even finish the carton. When the ten minutes were up, she'd cap it and leave it on the table.

The first time I found a half-empty carton sitting there, I hesitated before throwing it away. I shook it. Still plenty left. I tossed the straw, peeled open the spout, closed the lid back up, and set it next to the register. I thought maybe she'd notice the next night, recognize it, take it back. She didn't. She walked in, went straight to the back, grabbed a fresh carton from the shelf, and paid for it like the one on the counter didn't exist.

I stopped keeping them after that.

I thought about talking to her more times than I can count. A convenience store at two in the morning is the kind of quiet where you can hear the hum of the refrigerator compressor. She'd be sitting by the window, I'd be behind the register, and the space between us was just three aisles of silence. I rehearsed lines in my head: Long shift tonight? Is the milk any good? It's not that safe around here after dark. None of them felt right. Saying anything at all would have been wrong somehow.

Then I noticed something. When she sat by the window, she wasn't just looking out. She was watching a specific window in the apartment building across the street.

The building was called Elegant Garden Residence. Twenty-three floors, pale yellow exterior, a fruit shop on the ground floor. I traced her line of sight and estimated it led to somewhere around the fifteenth floor. A window with its lights never on.

About a month ago, at 4:57 a.m., the register froze while she was checking out. I crouched down to reboot the machine, and for maybe forty seconds, she just stood there at the counter. No phone. No staring out the window. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her finger tracing circles on the countertop. Her nails were cut short. There was a small callus on the side of her index finger. I notice hands in this job—scanning barcodes, making change, handing over plastic bags, you end up looking. Some people have ring marks. Some have dirt under their nails. Some have tattoos on their knuckles. Her hands were clean, apart from that callus. It sat exactly where a pen or a brush would rest. And it wasn't small. She wrote, or she drew. A lot.

The machine booted up. I scanned. She paid. She left.

That was the longest she'd ever stood at the register—just over twenty seconds. After she was gone, I stared at the spot on the counter where her finger had been, as if it might have left something behind. It hadn't.

Last night, she didn't come.

Two-oh-three came and went. Nobody pushed through the door. Two-oh-five. Nothing. At two-ten the driver showed up for his peanuts and Red Bull and asked why I looked distracted. I told him it was nothing. By three o'clock I was still running scenarios in my head: something happened to her, she moved away, she finally fixed her sleep schedule.

At three-forty, she walked in.

I nearly stood up. She was wearing the same navy hoodie, her hair even messier than usual, dark shadows under her eyes. She didn't go to the back for her milk. She came straight to the register, looked at me, and said:

"Do you sell anything that makes you sleep?"

It was the first time I'd heard her say more than three words. Her voice was softer than I'd imagined, rough at the edges, the way it sounds when someone hasn't spoken in hours and then decides to.

I pointed to aisle six. "Over-the-counter sleep aids. Melatonin and some herbal stuff."

She said thanks, walked over, and came back with a small bottle, no milk.

My fingers were slower on the keyboard than usual. I scanned the bottle and asked if she needed a bag. She said no. When I handed it to her, my fingers brushed hers. Cold. Like she'd just walked in from the wind.

"You're late tonight," I said.

She glanced up at me. The corner of her mouth twitched, almost a smile that never arrived. "Slept till three."

"Should've kept sleeping."

She didn't answer. She tucked the bottle into her hoodie pocket, zipped it shut, and hesitated—just a fraction of a second, the length of a decision made and unmade in the same breath.

Then she pushed through the door and was gone.

Tonight she's not here either.

It's 2:17 a.m. I've folded the counter rag four times. There are three cartons of milk left on the shelf—I put one extra out during the afternoon restock. I don't know why. Four looked better than three, maybe. The driver didn't show up tonight. The street sweeper came early, at two-thirty, and when she finished her hot water at the window table, she glanced back at me like I was strange, standing rigid behind the register staring at the street.

I've angled the security monitor toward the door.

Two-fifty a.m. The street is empty. Most of the windows in the apartment building across the road have gone dark, except for a few. And one that I don't remember seeing lit before. The window.

Two minutes pass. The glass door doesn't move.

It occurs to me that maybe she doesn't live in that building at all. Maybe she just lives somewhere nearby. Maybe she just got used to looking at that window, the same way she got used to walking into this store at two in the morning, the same way she got used to buying a carton of milk and sitting for ten minutes. Everything was habit. And habits, eventually, break.

I toss the rag into the sink, walk to the very back of the store, crouch down, and pick up a carton of milk from the bottom shelf.

Yili. 250ml. Three-fifty.

I tear the straw, punch it through, and stand there in the aisle, drinking in an empty store.

It's warm. I should've put it in the cooler.

If she walked in right now, she'd see me standing in her spot, drinking her milk, and she'd think: what's wrong with this person?

I can't help it. I laugh.

At 3:02, I toss the empty carton, wash my hands, and sit back down behind the register. On the security monitor, the outline of the office building next door is beginning to separate from the dark.

Nobody is coming tonight.