“What is this, second grade?”
“Adrian,” I said slowly, my patience wearing thin. “I cannot stay cooped up in this house or your house or school for the rest of my life. I understand the danger, but I’ll be with five girls in a mall bursting with security guards and video cameras. I’ll have my phone. I’ll have pepper spray. It’ll be the middle of the day. Unless there’s some critical piece of information you’re withholding from me, nothing is going to happen.”
He lay back against my bed, scrubbing his hands over his face.
I stared at him, puzzled. “Are your eyes glowing again?”
He sighed in an annoyed sort of way. “Yeah. They do that whenever you worry me, which is all the time.” He sat up before I could respond. “Listen, will you promise me that you’ll stay with all of them—all of them—at all times?”
I held up my right hand. “I promise.”
He shook his head. “This is a bad idea.”
I leaned my chin against the back of my chair. “If it makes you feel any better, I’m not above biting people. And screaming really loud.”
He smiled a bit. “I know that first hand from sledding. The screaming part, not the biting part.”
“It’s not my fault if you steer like a maniac.”
“Did we hit anything?”
I rolled my eyes. “Noooo.”
“Thank you.”
“Whatever. Now, did I mess anything up on my homework?”
He winced. “Only a few things.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Be honest.”
“Why don’t we go get you something to eat before we tackle this?”
“Tackle it? I thought I was getting better!”
“You are; this is definitely better than last time.”
“But it’s not good,” I grumbled.
“Caitlin, you’re not going to magically understand algebra. It’ll take time.”
I sighed at him. “Y’know, maybe it’s a good thing all this happened. Otherwise you’d never have felt obliged to tutor me, and I’d be failing.”
“You wouldn’t be failing—you’d just not be passing.”
“You’re so encouraging.”
“You told me to be honest.”
“Earlier, not now!”
“Come on,” he said, dragging me out of my chair. “Snack time.”
*
Thanksgiving passed by in a blur of food. As soon as dinner was over I waddled up to my room and passed out from all the turkey voodoo that makes you sleepy. Adrian told me the next day that it was called “tryptophan” and I told him “Gesundheit.” The day after Black Friday, he drove me to Stephanie’s, and only said, “Be careful,” before kissing me on the cheek—in front of everybody, of course—and driving away. We loaded up into Stephanie’s mom’s Suburban and headed out to Queensbury. To my surprise, Jenny came along—she never said anything to anyone at lunch or raised her hand in class. I honestly forgot she was there half the time. If it was possible for someone to be more of a loner than I was, she was it.
When we finally arrived, the mall was packed, and it took us twenty minutes just to find a parking space. We headed in through the food court and I realized it had been over a year since I’d been shopping.
I actually really liked shopping. A mall was like a giant Pinterest board where I could soak in design ideas and simultaneously feel good about myself, knowing that I’d created clothing that was higher quality than what could be found in many of the stores.
It was good to be back.
“Welcome to Aviation Mall,” Stephanie said cheerfully as we stepped inside. I didn’t talk to her much (actually, I didn’t talk to anyone much besides Trish), but she was the definition of cheerful. A little plump and shorter even than me, she always had a pair of woolen mittens hanging around her neck that gave her the appearance of a Good Christmas Spirit.
“Where to first?” asked Laura, another girl I’d barely spoken to since coming to Stony Creek. She was very practical and oddly stern, dressed in sensible winter clothes in various shades of brown. She already had a little spiral notebook in hand, and I would’ve bet money she had a list of every store she needed to go to with exactly what she wanted to buy.
“Why don’t we just wander around?” asked Meghan—Laura’s antithesis in every way. She was wearing a red plaid miniskirt over faded black skinny jeans, a pair of black combat boots, a red shirt with wide sleeves, and a black corset, half covered by the knee-length Victorian coat she wore. She was the one who’d wanted to be a slutty bunny for Halloween.
Stephanie looked back and forth between them, and I could sense her powers of mediation bubbling to the surface. “We could always split up and meet back at the food court for lunch?”
I panicked and said, “No!”
Everyone stopped and looked at me.
“I mean, it would be better to stick together. Safety in numbers.”
“Uh, Mystic?” Trish said. “We’re in a mall.”