When the Rain Never Stops

Chapter 3

Lee's chapter

The car ride was rather quiet because conversation is awkward around Sarah's Dad. The silence was broken by the radio. Sarah's Dad always listens to a classic rock radio station and an Ozzy Ozbourne song came on, and Sarah's Dad is a man of many talents but being able to do a mean Ozzy Osbourne impression is one of the more shocking ones. He sang the whole song and hit just about every note, it's actually a bit scary hearing him sing in that voice. "Very good Mr. Williams," I cheered, clapping my hands. Sarah's Dad tipped his imaginary hat and went back to driving in silence.

Sarah and I made small talk in the car on our way to the mall. Since our town is small, we don't really have a shopping mall that's less than an hour away. Sarah's Dad tried to make small talk but it never goes far. "So you decided on a college yet?" he'd ask.

"No, I'm still considering my options," I'd respond. And so we'd all be back to silence. Sarah has never been close with her Dad, it's kind of sad. I'm close with my Dad because we always did things together, but Sarah's Dad never took time away from work. I think my Dad is kind of like a father figure to her since he spent more time with us than her Dad ever has. I know it bugs her more than she lets on. Her Dad is very much "tough love." He's not all that bad but the good times she had with him, end quickly. He guilt trips her into loving him and believing she's in the wrong. It's a cycle that can't be broken unless he does something about it. Sarah could never walk away from her father, as strained as their relationship is, something big would have to happen in order for her to actually walk away. Their relationship isn't even one of the ones where they talk too often and need time apart because all they have is time apart. They don't need an escape from each other because they never talk, and when they do it's not pleasant.

Finally, we arrived at the mall. The mall has been slowly dying for the past four years and somehow still hasn't kicked the bucket. It's this big old brick building that's horribly discolored from all the weather it's withstood. It's more of an eyesore now more than ever, when I was younger it seemed so magical. There were so many shops and endless possibilities, now there's always less than five people in the stores. In middle school, the mall was partially in its prime. All the popular kids would congregate at the mall and walk around window shopping in their groups of thirty. I always found it funny that some people actually peaked in middle school and were popular with big friend groups.

Today was no exception and the mall was barren. It was practically a ghost town. Usually you could at least hear conversations but today the only noise in the mall was the sound of your own footsteps. "Girls, I'm going to go run some errands while we're out," Sarah's Dad said as he turned to go the opposite direction. We nodded our heads in response and went our separate ways.

First stop was Auntie Anne's, of course we ate before we left but nothing beats their pretzels. The line was long and seemingly stretched halfway through the mall. I'm pretty sure most of the business the mall gets is from the herds of people the food attracts. By the time we made it to order our food, just about all of my limbs had fallen asleep and so I was walking on pins and needles, which is always fun. Then we sat down with our pretzels and our drinks of course and stuffed our faces full of food, sucked down our drinks in a breath or two, and finally threw some coins in the wishing well before walking away.

We just kind of wandered through the mall looking for stores that seemed worth our time. Finally we stumbled upon a thrift store, it looked a bit run down but then again most of the stores did. We seemed to have hit the jackpot, it seemed as though no shopped there so all the cute clothing was left untouched. I tried on a multitude of dresses while Sarah searched through the racks of clothing for flannels and sweatshirts. While we searched the racks we found some clothes that probably should've never existed. All the cute clothes seemed to be in the same pile as the ones that are cut too low, have sweat stains, and are made out of cheetah print. Cheetahs are very beautiful creatures but their print should stay on their bodies instead of being put onto human clothing.