Fast food, although atrociously unhealthy, was always quick and easy to obtain, especially when having too much fun to actually care. After debating the superiority of different condiments and fighting over the last fry, Richie and I were left with nothing to do. In an act of desperation, we decided to head over to the nearest mall in hopes of finding something interesting there.
I hadn’t gone to this mall in over a year and it changed drastically since the last time I saw it. I was surrounded by stores I had never heard of and various stands with useless products and somewhat amusing trinkets. We walked around the mall, playing with toys meant for children half our age and poking fun at the outrageous fashions displayed in some of the store windows. I was even able to convince him to get into one of those photo booths with me and take a few pictures.
I was having the time of my life.
“You know, I haven’t had this much fun in a long time,” I admitted to him as we were waiting for our pictures to print.
“Really?”
“Yeah. This is the kind of fun girls have with each other when they go to the mall. I don’t have that many friends that are girls, so I never really had the chance to do things like this.”
Richie looked at me with his gentle, brown eyes and raised an eyebrow. “What are you saying?”
I laughed, realizing the implication of what I had just said. “What do you think I’m saying?”
“I’m afraid to answer that,” he responded, rubbing the back of his head. “Hey, I think they’re playing one of your songs.”
Sure enough, a song of ours was playing over the mall speakers. I frowned as soon as I realized it was “Beautiful Eyes,” a song that always brought up mixed feelings for me. Before this song, I never fully realized how strange it was to play in a band that sang songs about one of its own members. Nat had always written songs for me, and I found each of them flattering but never anything more. However, when he wrote “Beautiful Eyes,” I realized how much he mattered to me.
It wasn’t a romantic jealousy. I think I was more hurt to think that Nat was keeping a secret from me. The thought of Nat having a girlfriend was not as upsetting as the thought of him feeling the need to hide a girlfriend from me. My worry was relieved when I found out that the song was written for me, but the song was never easy for me to hear or perform.
It always reminded me of how much it hurt to know that a secret was being kept from me.
I then realized how Nat might have felt about me. Now that I was in high school, he could never be sure of what I was telling him and what I wasn’t. Even now, I was keeping Richie a secret from him. Although I had only just met Richie and we were only starting to get to know each other, I worried about how Nat would react to the thought of me having a male friend, considering that my new friend was also the one whose picture was once in headlines with mine.
My cheerful mood was quickly shattered, and now I just wanted to get out of there. “Hey, Richie?”
“Yeah?”
“Would you mind taking me home right now?”
He seemed skeptical. “No problem,” he said with uncertainty, “but why? Is there something wrong?”
“I’m just not in the mood for anything fun right now.”
“Would you rather do something more boring? We could do that, too, you know.”
I flashed him a small, half-smile so that he wouldn’t worry about me; I doubted that it worked. “No, that’s okay. I just want to go home.”
“Alright. Let’s go,” he shrugged.
I was grateful that he didn’t press any further for answers and dropped me back at home without question. After exchanging our goodbyes, I walked back into my room and fell onto my bed, once again left to start at the floating dust bunnies.
Throughout the whole time I spent with Richie, I had completely forgotten about everything else. I was careless. I never even thought of any possible cameras or reporters that may have caught me. I didn’t even once think about the band until the very end. It was as if I never had to worry about those things in the first place.
It was as though I was living a normal life, and now I wasn’t sure what to think of my day.
