When I Came Around

She was a fast machine she kept her motor clean
She was the best damn woman that I ever seen
She had the sightless eyes telling me no lies
Knocking me out with those American thighs

The mall we went to was pretty damn big. I mean, not just big, I mean huge. If you walked the entire mall, Adie said it was quite the workout. Jakob kept rambling on about the playground there, and he kept asking me if I could take him there. Jake had really taken to me. We already had plans to go to the park tomorrow morning, and to the beach the day after that. Joey was still distant, Billie told me he didn't like the idea of his dad having a child, no, a girl child before him and Jakob. Especially since I wasn't Adie's daughter.

We got to the mall and met Tre, Mike, and Estelle in front of Dillard's, as we had planned.

"I'm gonna go get my hair cut, if ya wanna come, Tre," Billie offered, and Tre accepted. Billie obviously thought Adie was going to take the kids somewhere.

"What about the boys?" Adie asked. "I am going shopping, I do not want these mini-Billies tagging along."

Mike giggled (oh my gosh Mike totally just giggled, it was the cutest thing ever!), "I take them to the play area, Adie, it's no big deal."

I suddenly realized I was becoming a third wheel. Well, maybe fourth wheel...Tre and Billie were doing their own thing, Adie was doing her's, and Mike was taking the kids... "And I'll go with you, Mike." I didn't want to be left all by myself in this huge place.

We split up, agreeing to meet back in front of Dillard's before 5. Jake insisted I give him a piggy-back ride, while Stella held her father's hand, and Joey walked in front of me. I could tell he wasn't going to enjoy being in the play area. After all, he's 11, he's practically grown up... The kids went in the play area, Stella talking with a group of girls, Jake playing with some boys, and Joey hanging with the older kids. Mike and I sat on a couch by the playground.

"Stella is so beautiful, she's very nice and polite," I say to Mike.

"She gets that from her mother."

I smile, taking my cell phone out, checking for messages, but of course I have none. Mike swipes my phone and begins to play around with it. I roll my eyes, taking out my iPod and scrolling through all my music. I stop on Green Day, turn on She and turn the outer speakers up. I start to sing along quite loudly, before Mike takes my iPod and turns off the music.

"Honestly, you and Tre are probably long lost twins somehow," Mike said as he looked through my music. He plugs my earbuds in and begins to nod his head to a song. I take the other earbud and find that he has discovered my stash of Tom Petty and is listening to American Girl. Tom Petty came from my hometown. I hear my phone vibrate in Mike's lap, so I take it. Mike apparently added Tre's number to my phone and decided to have some fun with it.

"Me": omg is this like tre Cool's number? Cuz I am like a super huge fan!
Tre: Um, no, I'm sorry, my name is Frank.
"Me": omg it is Tre Cool! Cuz I think like ur real name is frank omg omg u know billy joe!
Tre: .....

"Mike! What the hell?" I look over at him, but he continues to bob his head to my music. I quickly text back.

Me: Tre I'm so sorry, this is Karen, Mike took my phone and wrote all that shit!!

I glare at Mike, taking my iPod away from him and he gives me a pouty face. I roll my eyes and push my straight hair back from my face.

Mike scrunches his eyebrows and asks, "What's that on your wrist?"

I look down at my bracelet-clad left wrist... the scars. I hold my wrist in front of Mike and he tentatively takes my hand and pushes back the bracelets, revealing my many faded scars.

"I'm sorry," He said.

"It's okay, I was... not in a good place." I feel my phone vibrate and take it.

Tre: Sorry, I'm not Tre, and who is Karen?
Me: Stfu Tre, u know who u r, and u know who i am.

"Everybody's got scars, I guess, some just not visible." Mike said. Before I could ask him to elaborate, I felt someone take a chunk of my hair and tug on it. I looked behind me and saw Tre. He grinned.

"Stfu? What is that?" He asked, getting the epic eye roll from me.

"What's up, man?" Mike asked.

"I got bored at that damn hair place, apparently the dude cut Billie's hair wrong and he has to do it all over again, and I ain't waiting for that. Can I steal Karen, Mikey? Pwease?" He asked, like he was little boy begging his mother to take him to the bathroom.

Mike sighed, as if making a monumental decision, then says, "Sure, go ahead, just don't scare her to death."

"Yay! Get up, we're gonna have fun!" Tre grabs my hand and yanks me up, dragging me away from Mike. I look back at him and he gives me a thumbs up and a toothless grin. I laugh and smile back at him. Tre takes me to the huge arcade, and asks me if I know how to play Skeeball.

"Do I know how to play Skeeball? Do I know how to play Skeeball?" I ask, faking shock. "Actually I kind of suck at it."

Tre sticks his tongue out at me. "Well, I will show you all my tips and tricks, I actually wrote a book on the subject."

"Oh, we'll see about that," I say, as Tre gives the machine money in exchange for tokens. We go to the Skeeball machines, and Tre hands me the little ball. It doesn't look too hard, you just throw the ball into the hole. I attempt it, but the ball doesn't even make it in the 10 ring. Okay, I don't just suck at this, I murdered it.

Tre stands behind me, and takes my hand in his, and shows me how to throw the ball. He speaks into my eye, I feel my skin tingle when his breath touches my neck. Okay, this is getting heavy. We stay like this, him behind me, showing me what to do for almost ten minutes. Then we use the rest of the tokens and I whoop his ass at Skeeball. I earned over 300 tickets, so I traded them in and got a little pink cat.

"Let's name it Kevin! he'll be our pet!" Tre grabs Kevin and hugs him, making me laugh. We spend the rest of the afternoon messing around in the mall, causing an "accident" in Sears just so we could get the sales people away from the mattresses so we could jump on them. We made fun of the boob mugs and talking penis in Spencer's, and tried on shes at Journey's. It was a pretty kick-ass day. I couldn't help but to sneak little glances at Tre everyone in awhile, he was even more stunning in person than in magazines or interviews. Maybe I have a little crush on him? It's possible, but ts probably nothing. However I couldn't shake the feeling I had gotten when he hugged me before we left the mall.