Just My Type

Chapter 22- It Wasn't A Bomber Jacket and Combat Boots

Chapter 22- It Wasn't A Bomber Jacket and Combat Boots

(Unedited)

 

I was officially free! Well, from my parents at least. My mom and dad officially left for their "therapy vacation" an hour ago, leaving me and Aunt Anita alone with the twins. I knew she could handle them though. She had way more patience than I did. That's one of the things I loved about her. She was laid back and relaxed about everything. No very many things upset her.

And lucky for me, I get to spend the next three days with her.

"...so after I realized he was way more serious than I was, I had to let him go." She sighed and shook her head regretfully. "I really liked him, but marriage I can't do. Not yet." She looked at me and smiled. "Girl's like us can't be tied down, you know?"

I giggled at her, though somewhere in the back of my brain I knew I'd heard that "can't be tied down" story before. Thomas had mentioned that to me more than once.

Suddenly Anita jumped up from her seat and reached for her purse. "I'm hungry, why don't we go grab something to eat? I'll get the twins."

I smiled. She was always so abrupt. "Sure. Where did you have in mind?"

"What's good in this Podunk town?" she asked pulling out her car keys.

Anita wasn't used to our little town. Well, little to her standards anyway. She's used to traveling and residing in bigger cities. Currently she was living someplace in New Mexico. She'd mentioned it twice since she arrived.

 Last year when she was in New York she invited us to come and stay with her, but my mom declined of course. There is no way those two could live together. They barely got through their teen years without killing each other.

"Oh, I know!" she said. "Why don't we go to the mall? We'll eat at the food court." After a moment of silence she tilted her head to the side slightly, displaying a curious expression. "This town does have a mall, right?"

I laughed at her. "Of course."

She'd only visited it twice before. Poor Aunt Anita, so absent minded.

In fact, I'm pretty sure she'd taken me to the mall the summer before my sixth grade year. That's the same visit she paid to have my ears pierced. Talk about an angry mother; something about her rite of passage and Anita taking that from her. I don't know. I just know Mom was not happy about it.

"Then let's go," Anita said. "I have to get Cynthia's ears pierced and I promised Cody I'd buy him some new shoes."

Uh-oh. "Ears pierced. Does my mom know about it this time?"

Anita grinned "Not if you don't tell her." She dug into her purse and pulled out a fifty. She held it out to me and said, "Here, hush money."

My eyes grew at the large bill and I took it without thinking twice. "I'll take it and I didn't see a thing," I promised.

I knew it was wrong, buy hey, fifty bucks was fifty bucks.

At the mall we finished up our lunch and Anita made me go with Cynthia into one of her favorite stores while she took Cody back to footlocker. It was not my idea of a fun Sunday at the mall when I had to babysit my sister.

While she mulled over the friendship bracelet to get her and her best friend I decided to browse the shop. There wasn't much for anyone over the age of twelve in there, but it wasn't like I had the option to do anything else.