Cheerio

“Welcome to paradise,” Kurt introduced as we stepped through the front door of the mall.

I took a second to dwell in how pretty it all looked. So glassy and open. Inviting, even. It had been such a long time since I stepped into a mall, since I much preferred to stay in my house, hiding behind an LCD laptop screen to do my shopping.

“Alright, stop gawking.” His hand closed around my arm as he started marching through a crowd of people. “People are going to think that you’re weird.”

I snapped out of my trance and took my arm back. “Where are we going?”

He stopped suddenly, and I walked into him, almost losing my balance. After combing his eyes over me carefully (which would have made me totally uncomfortable if he was anyone but Kurt), he said thoughtfully, “You look like a Forever21 girl to me.”

“Uh, thanks?” I responded, but he didn’t wait to hear me say anything, instead moving forward to get to his destination. I sped my walking up a little bit so it was more like a scamper as I struggled to keep up with him. God, when he had a mission, he had a freakin’ mission.

“Wait, are you giving me a makeover or something?” I asked him as we walked through the front door of the place. All the walls were white, a stark contrast to the endless bursts of colors the shirts, pants, sweatshirts, and dresses that filled the place provided.

Kurt laughed as he started going through a rack of clothes that were marked as new arrivals. “I may be a sucker for makeovers, but you don’t need one, unfortunately. We’re just doing something fun. As friends.” He dropped a pretty floral print dress in my hands and moved on to the next display, without asking me if I liked it.

I wanted to say something, but I just shook my head, figuring that it would be easier to keep my mouth shut and go along for the ride than questioning anything.

Soon enough, I had enough clothes in my hand to clothe a small country. “Alright, go try everything on,” Kurt instructed me, pointing toward the back of the store.

“Okay,” I nodded. He was looking through something else, figuring that I’d just do what he said without argument.

Not that he was wrong. I made my way to the dressing room. The woman overseeing the whole thing took one look at me and rolled her eyes. “The numbers we have don’t go up that high.”

I gave her a sheepish smile and followed her to a stall, which she unlocked with ease.

Once I got inside, that giant mirror in front of me, I took a deep breath. It was so strange, how I was acting. I was almost…submissive. Which was the furthest thing in the entire world from how I usually was.

But maybe that was the point. I was trying to turn over a new leaf, and instead of being in everybody’s face, I retreated into a shell I didn’t even know existed, nervous to do or say the wrong thing.

As I pulled the original dress Kurt picked out over my head, I sighed. What I really needed was to find some sort of middle-ground between being Santana and being Tina. If that was the name of the silent Asian girl in Glee Club…

A little work was all I needed. At least, that was what I hoped.

“God,” Kurt’s voice came from outside the little dressing room stall, “How long does it take you to put on a freaking dress?”

Whoops. Who knew how long I had been in there, thinking about life instead of working to get myself together?

I opened the door and revealed myself, careful to keep my hand in the door to make sure it didn’t lock me out.

“Love it,” Kurt approved. “The cut’s super flattering on you. Though, you’re lucky that you have pretty much the perfect body for clothes.”

My head nearly combusted as I tried to contain myself from rolling my eyes and saying something to put myself down. The last thing I needed was to show someone else my self-image issues. Having Puck know was more than enough.

“Alright, hurry and try on the purple skinnies with the black and white striped top. I really want to see that one.”

He crossed his legs, and I hurried to do as he asked.

* * *

“You know,” Kurt voiced, ripping off a piece of his soft pretzel and sticking it into his mouth, “you’re acting really weird.”

“I know,” I sighed, leaning my head against my hand.

“I kind of miss the snarky thing you had. It made you fun to talk to.”

“I miss it, too. I guess…I’m subconsciously trying to keep myself from being mean. In Glee Club, right before break, it kind of felt like people were starting to accept me more, and I really want it to stay that way.”

“As long as you don’t start giving away vital club secrets, I don’t think they will. People are starting to realize that you’re not nearly as much of a bitch as you like to think you are.”

In spite of myself, a smirk started pulling at the corners of my mouth. “I hope so, anyway.”

“God, aren’t you hungry?” Kurt voiced, looking down at the simple bottle of water I had in front of me. “We got a lot of shopping done.”

I glanced down at the hundred bags that were splayed around the table from various stores. “I know. My mother’s going to flip when she finds out I ran so much money up on my credit card.”

“Will she really?”

“No.” Laughing, I took a small sip of my water. “My mom’s really great.”

After Kurt finished off his pretzel, he stood up, wiping any crumbs and salt from his pants. “Alright, you ready to get going?”

“Sure,” I replied, getting to my feet. It was a task, trying to get the bags settled on all available arm space between the two of us.

As we started down the hall, back to the door, I let out a loud laugh. “God, we must look completely ridiculous.”

Kurt chuckled, too, seeing the logic in my statement. “But people will have to be jealous. I mean, they don’t have this much money to blow on a shopping spree.”

“Thank God for whatever the hell my mom does for a living.”

“Amen to that!”

Outside, the chill of the Ohio winter air went straight to my bone. I let out a shiver, and my teeth immediately started chattering. “We need to get to the car,” I insisted, picking up my speed.

Kurt started hurrying to catch up with me, but it wasn’t long before I heard a loud, painful-sounding thud.

I turned to find Kurt sitting on the pavement, a look of shock and bewilderment on his face. Without thinking or asking if he was okay, I started laughing loudly. A real belly laugh. God, I couldn’t remember if I had ever done such a thing.

“Glad you’re enjoying this,” he muttered as he got to his feet, working to collect all the bags.

“I’m sorry,” I sputtered out between bursts of hysterics. “It’s just…oh, you should have seen your face!”

Kurt turned to me and smiled. “Damn black ice.”

I bit my lip to hide my smile as we finished our journey to the car. Kurt may be pissed about the ice, but I couldn’t help but thank it. It ended the shopping trip on a perfect note, and it made me realize something:

I actually had fun. And it was all because of Kurt.