Learning to Love

Chapter 5 - That Generic Shopping Experience

"So.... shopping..." Gerard said, awkwardly standing on the balls on his feet and swinging his arms back a forth.

I sighed and rolled my eyes, shopping was not my idea of fun.

"I've never really been shopping before," Zoe said, looking at the shopping mall in awe.

"You haven't?" Lindsay said in surprise.

Zoe shook her head, "I've never had any money before."

"Well if you see anything you want, anything at all, tell us and we'll get it for you," she said smiling brightly, "that's includes you too," she turned to me.

"Really?" Zo asked in disbelief.

"Of course, you're part of the family now," Gerard joined in.

I rolled my eyes. It's been two days, they're not my family.

Gerard saw my expression and shot me a quick look.

"What? I find shopping kinda tedious..." I said.

"What's tee-tee-us?" Bandit said, looking up at me in confusion.

"It means boring and repetitive small human." She giggled at the nickname and skipped around clapping her tiny hands.

"I luv shopping!!" She yelled to the sky.

"We know you do," Lindsay laughed and looked at her lovingly. You could really tell Bandit was their world.

"Shall we go then..?" Gerard started awkwardly again.

"Gee, you don't have to come if you don't want to..." Lindsay smirked at him.

"No no, it's fine," he said quickly, "just shopping... with four females..."

I laughed at him, he was ridiculous.

"Aww is poor Gerard outnumbered," I patronised him, smirking so hard.

"Shut up, Taylor..." he grumbled.

"If you two are finished bickering like children, shall we actually go do the shopping now?" Lindsay cut in, laughing at Gerard's sulking expression.

"Fine..." We both said as we trailed along behind the other three.

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Are we done yeeeeet?" Gerard moaned, trailing behind the rest of us.

"Trust me Gerard," I called back, "I feel your pain."

"No, we're not done," Lindsay said.

"But we have the decoration stuff!" He complained again, kicking at the ground.

"Yes but I'm thinking a trip to hot topic might be a bit of fun..."

Both Gerard and I perked up at the sound of hot topic, the one shop I could spend every hour of the day in. I'm sure Gerard shared my sentiment.

"Okay I'm sold, hot topic, here we goooo..." Gerard yelled as he ran to Bandit and put her up on his shoulders. She shrieked and clapped her hands with delight as Lindsay rolled her eyes, smiling lovingly at the two of them.

We rounded the corner of the shopping mall and walked towards the slightly darkened interior of the shop. The sound of Green Days's American Idiot blasted from one of the shop speakers, and I knew I was home.

If the choice of music and the dark atmosphere of the shop didn't tell you that this was Emo and Goth central than the clothes on sale certainly did. Every shade of black you could possibly imagine littered the clothes racks, along with tons of band merch, corsets, and amusing slogans.