Show Me What I'm Looking For

Slowly, Annie and I walked the paths of the mall. There was a big pretzel in my hand and a slushie in hers. We were having fun hanging out.

“So?” Annie said as I nodded my head. “Well, yesterday Amy was being so cure. She was making bubbles outside and giggling when they touched her. It was so adorable.”

Amy was Annie’s younger sister. She’s around three years old and is the cutest kid I had ever seen; besides Benjamin. “You should really come over to our house. Amy misses you and you never got the full tour.”

“I know exactly how your house looks.” I muttered to myself, but Annie heard me.

The look on her face was filled with confusion. I never told her that I lived in that house previously. I had a feeling that I was going to tell her though.

When I looked back up, Annie was still gazing at me with her perplexed expression. I sighed and took a bite of my pretzel with extra cinnamon. “How do you already know what my house looks like? That’s kind of creepy Carolina.”

A loud laugh then turned into a sigh after I finished the bite of pretzel. She wasn’t going to let it go. I could still feel her gaze on me.

“Before you moved into that house, it used to be where I lived.” I knew Annie was trying to interrupt, but I wouldn’t let her. “When I was over there at your house, I was overwhelmed with the memories. My mind couldn’t deal with all of it. The blood stain on your living room carpet came from my friend’s face that my dad kept repeatedly punching.”

Annie looked at me with wide and sorrow filled eyes. She was trying to put two and two together, but it was painful for her. She didn’t want to visualize that’s where the blood had came from. She was utterly speechless.

It was silent for a few more seconds, and then one of Annie’s favorite songs came on. As a coincidence, her favorite song just happened to be Angels by Nicholas Jonas. I laughed at the irony of the situation.

Suddenly, my phone rang. Annie looked at me quizzically and said that I could answer it. Without looking who the person was, I answered it. “Hello?”

“Hola senorita, ¿Cómo es usted?” I laughed loudly at Nick’s impersonation of a Mexican. People were staring at me for a few seconds, and then looked away. Annie looked at me as if I were crazy.

“You have one of the worst fake Spanish accents I have ever heard.” The smile on my face widened. It had felt like forever since I had spoken to him; when in reality it was only a week or so ago.

Annie looked at me with a her eyebrows raised. I held my finger up at her and asked her politely to wait for a second.

“I thought that was pretty good if I do say so myself. So, what are you up to today?” Nick asked. I was wondering what he was doing at the moment.

“I’m not up to much actually. Annie, my new best friend, and I are shopping right now.” I tried not to think of Nick being beside me. I didn’t really feel like crying in a very public mall.

Nick laughed at what I said. Its felt like forever since I’ve heard it. “Well you can tell Annie that I said hello.”

Looking at Annie, I said, “Nick says hello.”

Annie smiled, giggled, and told me to tell him hello back. I did as I was told to do.

“So guess what?” Nick gave up in a matter of seconds. “Okay, fine, be a party pooper. Angels came on just a second ago. Its your favorite.”

Nick laughed some more as I moved my voice up and down. “Well of course I love that song. I wrote it and it has a lot of sentimental value. I’m really really sorry to cut the conversation short, but I have to go now. Everything is hectic right now. I’ll talk to you as soon as I can. I’m sorry again.”

I sighed and tried keeping myself from crying. Once, the dial tone was playing I whispered “Forever in eternity.”

“So, whats up with the two of you?.” Annie asked as I quickly wiped a tear away from my eye.

Another sigh escaped past my lips. I needed to get ahold of myself. “Nick and I have been going out for a very long time, for teenagers at least. His parents are divorced and he’s been living with his mom, but his dad wanted them to have some quality time together. So he’s with his dad hiking in Europe. He doesn’t call that much and its really a burden on me considering that I'm carrying his child. Everything is exactly how I didn’t want it to go.”

“Does Nick even know that you’re pregnant with his kid?” I hesitated and shook my head lightly, not trying to meet her gaze.

Annie sighed at my answer. I could tell that she was disappointed in me as Kevin had been when I first told him. This was not going to be good.

“Seriously Carolina? This is not right! You can’t keep lying to him.” I didn’t need to hear another person telling me what I already knew, but it was going to be hard telling Nick the truth; not that I would anyways.

“Please don’t tell me what’s right from wrong. I’m doing what’s best for me and only me. I already have people telling me the same thing over and over. I don’t want to hear it from you Annie. You’re supposed to be my best friend and guide me through things and tell me everything is going to be okay; not the opposite.“

Tears were springing out of my eyes. I was really starting to get annoyed of these mood swings. Why couldn’t I just have the baby already? That would just be so much easier.

At a slow pace, Annie and I finally made it to the maternity store. My eyes widened as I looked at all the clothes. It was sad that they even had a junior section. Immediately, there was a worker coming to assist the two of us. “Hello ladies, how are you today? Do you need any assistance?”

The look on my face must have triggered something in the worker. Her grin dropped for a second and then lifted back up; she expected us not to see that, but we did.

Annie was the first one to speak up and she smiled at the worker. “Yes, actually. We would very much be thankful for some assistance.”

The lady must have taken it as a smart remark because she rolled her eyes. The pin that had her name read Jen.

“So how do you need my assistance?” Jen asked the two of us.

“My friend over here is having a baby, so we need to find some cute and fashionable maternity clothes, please.” It made it a little better than Annie asked her to please help us. The lady smiled an annoyed smile and ushered us over to the junior section.

The clothes were not half as bad as I imagined them to be; some were actually very cute. There were dresses that were making me really happy. “Do you see anything you like?”

Nodding my head slowly, Jen walked away from us and we squealed a little bit.

“These clothes are so adorable. I cant believe that they don’t have clothes like this for not pregnant teenagers?” what Annie had said kind of stung my heart. I know she most likely didn’t mean it in the way that I was thinking, but it still hurt.

When she looked at me, her expression fully changed. I smiled at her as if saying that I was okay. Slowly, I looked through the racks and found the cutest dress. It was a teal blue and had a beautiful flower pattern at the top. I was quickly falling in love with it.

From a side glance, I could see Annie trying on a eight month pregnant dress. She was laughing as she tried to keep it from falling. The sight was very hilarious.

Annie instantly looked at me and we were laughing very loudly. She looked at the dress in my hand and smiled. “That looks really pretty. You should try it on.”

“I will, but I’m going to look for some more stuff.” I told her, still looking as she twirled around. The dress suddenly fell and it grew silent. Annie picked put the dress quickly and put it back on the right rack.

After finding a few more things, I asked Jen if I could try the clothes on. She nodded and took me over to the dressing rooms. Taking a very deep breath, I took of my clothes and stared at my pruding stomach. I couldn’t believe that it was already getting so big.

When I finally had the teal dress on, it looked very stunning. It was partially showing that I had a belly, but at this point people were going to find out already. I would try to hide it as much as possible.

Following that note, all the other clothes I tried on fit very well. When I exited the dressing room, I saw Annie still trying on things. I was surprised that Jen didn’t ask her to leave yet.

Annie looked at me and grinned widely. I had a feeling that we were both thinking the same thing. With a smirk on our faces, we quickly grabbed a large portion of the nine month clothing.

I had a feeling that our laughs could be heard two stores down. It was fun trying on clothes that didn’t fit me. It made me feel a little bit better about myself.

There was a loud cough, which caused Annie and I to stop what we were doing. Jen had a furious expression on her face. “Get Out!”

We both looked at each other and I decided to speak. “Well, if we get out then you would be loosing a sale. So can I pay for some stuff and then we can go?”

Jen sighed while rolling her eyes. I smiled at her as she took the clothes out of my hands. Silent, Annie and I looked at each other. Jenn was tapping her foot loudly. I gave her the cash that Kevin had given me earlier today.

Once that was done, she told the two of us to not come into the store again and that we were banned from it. I thought that was a little harsh considering that I am the person who gives her money.

Immediately after we exited the store, our laughs filled the mall. It was hilarious, I had to admit. We laughed until we couldn’t anymore and we were both at peace.