My Name Is Carrie

Chapter 6

Chapter 6

When we get into the mall, Riley is still humming, and Mom's cleavage is still very present. I tried to pull her shirt up, but every single time I did, she would smack my hand away and pull the shirt right back down, all without saying a word and with me whisper-yelling that she would be forty soon and Riley uncomfortably looking away from my mother's parts-that-make-Riley-look-away. I've only just realized how humorous this situation really is.

We finally get to the only ballet store in the whole mall and I still have no idea why she couldn't just go to the mall closest to home. I don't ask, because I know how it will go; she'll give me some inexplicably brilliant reason why we just had to go to this mall, along with her unchanging patronizing smile, and I'll be left there feeling stupid. The cycle never changes.

Mom says she needs to get some "stuff" and that I should go shopping without her.

"What?" I'm shocked."Why?" She always shops with me, more like for me, whenever we go out shopping.

"I want you to be more independent" she answers. Oh, sure, a simple request for a driving lesson isn't acknowledged but suddenly you can trust me with money and actual real life decisions? She looks at me, awaiting my response, I nod, and she hands me some money from her wallet and walks away. Turning to Riley, I tell him he can look now, and he smiles awkwardly.
"I'm sure you'd like to, uh, go somewhere else now. I'll meet you in the food court?" He stares at me for a while, then says, "Nope", shrugging. I ask him if he knows that I'm going shopping for ballet stuff. He rolls his eyes and says he caught that already.
"Well, okay then" I say, and walk into the store.

It's beautiful, there are wooden floor boards and the walls are draped in soft pink curtains. Almost everything in this store is pink, even the cash register.

"So, what are you getting first?" Riley asks, startling me. I always forget he's around. He's so quiet, it's creepy.

"Leotards first" I say, tearing my eyes away from the beautiful décor in this store. If I wasn't going to be a ballerina for the rest of my life, I would be an interior designer. I would love to actually make something beautiful, with effort and precision. Yes, that does sound a lot like ballet, but the difference is that I would actually enjoy designing the interiors of buildings. I always try to tell myself to be optimistic, but it gets pretty hard when all your mother can talk about with you is ballet, homework and chores.

"Be positive. Be positive. Be positive. Be positive. Be positi-"
"Carrie? Are you okay?" Riley asks, looking concerned.
"Yeah, yeah" I say, walking towards the tutu section.
"I thought you were getting leotards first"
"Well, I changed my mind." I say, looking through the colourful tutu rack checking each one to see if it's my size.
"Hm. Nothing here really screams Carrie" Riley murmurs.
"And what, exactly, is it that screams Carrie?" I ask, amused.
"Blue" He replies, yet again, shrugging.
"That's my favourite colour" I smile. "Creep"
He chuckles. "Lucky guess."

I watch Riley as he looks through the various racks for something that 'screams Carrie'. He licks his bottom lip, simultaneously pulls his fingers through his hair, which, I have already elaborated is stupendously, adorably cute. His arms are quite toned for a fifteen year old boy. He keeps looking and finally picks a tutu that screams me. Holding it up, and smiling broadly, I cross my fingers behind my back, wishing he didn't notice I was literally just checking him out. Hmmm. Focus, Carrie. Focus.

"What do you think?" he asks, holding it up.
"It really does scream me." He smiles softly and I smile back but not so softly, because I don't really know if I should smile as softly as he did because it may mean something. Before I have any time to think about why he was smiling so softly, he asks in an authentic Batman voice:
"To the tights, Robin?" And he isn't even smiling. He's good. I try my best to stifle the guffaw that's about to escape my lips and manage an "Uhuh". He drags me to the leotards section and I can't hold it in anymore. I burst out laughing, and so does he, and well, once you get that kind of laugh out, the others just keep rolling out, also. Even when you should've stopped laughing about thirty seconds before.

We finally stop laughing and I realize the other customers must think we're crazy, but for some reason, I don't care. We sit down in the fluffy pink chairs with miniature blue ballerinas on it.
"What was so funny, again?" he asks, wiping a tear from his eye.
"Well, you did that Batman thing and your voice was-" I feel a giggle forming and maybe Riley feels that I feel it and clamps his hand over my mouth and says "Don't." I don't, but, I store that memory up in my head and remind myself to pull it out and laugh about it when I have my not-so-great moments.

At the end of the day, everything I got was blue. I was getting tired of all that not-nice-shade-of-pink ballet stuff, anyways. That night, I fall asleep thinking about why Riley had smiled so softly at me in the ballet store, and for the first time in an extremely, and I mean extremely, long time, I dream.

My dark abyss of sleep is replaced with colour and people and smiling and love.

Thank you, Riley.

A/N:
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