The Summer Before Senior Year

Seth

"New Look or H&M." she said.

"How far is that?"

"According to my map, there's a mall that's just on the next street. Should only take us about 10 minutes." she said.

"Then let's get you some shoes."

Eight minutes later after some running and walking, we were at the mall a little sweaty, but at the mall. I gladly stepped inside letting the cool air from the air conditioning wash over me. H&M was the first we went to but Riley didn't spend more than five minutes there because she didn't like what she saw.

We then trudged over to New Look to get it and as soon as we stepped in, Riley had already found her prey. She found the pair in her size and tried them on for me to assess. Like I previously stated, shoes make the outfit look better so when I looked at Riley in those killer shoes, I knew she had to get them.

"How do they look?" she asked moving her feet around so that she could properly show me the shoes. "You feeling them or nah?" she said still looking down at them.

"Amazing." I said looking at her only because yes, she did look amazing. Cut-off shorts and heels are the new in.

"Come on kiddo, let's go pay for these babies." she said dragging me again to the counter. As she was fiddling with the shoes, I noticed that her face had fallen.

"I can't get these shoes Seth." she made a move to get out of the line on the counter before I stopped her.

"Why not?" 

"These cost two hundred and seventy-five dollars. I don't have that kind of money." she tried to leave again but I held her back.

"I do. I've got my debit card with me."

"That's your money Seth. You can't spend it on - "

"I want to." I gave her a reassuring smile. "Now hand over the shoes, I'm paying."

She reluctantly handed them over to me and I made the payment and we finally left the store. Truth be told, my parents gave me a crazy amount of money as my allowance and I barely used it most times. I'd even had a few jobs here and there for work experience and I found out that I felt better when I got my paycheck instead of just getting money for being a kid. When I asked my dad why he gave me that much money as an allowance, he said he was trying to see how well I managed money and I was impressing him. My mom also said that once I got to college, they'd stop sending me money so I'd better enjoy it now while I could.

"How do you want me to pay you back Seth? Yeah you cover for some of my shit at times but never this amount." 

"You want to pay me back?" I asked stopping in the middle of the sidewalk.

She nodded enthusiastically.

"Stop talking about it and let's move on."

"Done." she said and didn't bring it up again. Well, at least I tried to make sure she didn't bring it up by pinching her.

"So now that we're done, what do we do?" I asked.

"I, umm, wanna go catch up with Caleb and Kat." she said looking down at her toes.

"When are you gonna tell him that you don't like him?" I took the direct approach.

"Tonight. At the party. I promise."

"Yeah, Carson is still a douche. Have fun!" I called out to her as she began to back away.

"Caleb!" she yelled.

"And I still don't give a flying fuck." I yelled back and turned away from her but not before catching her flip me off which made me chuckle. I really had to find a way to get rid of that Edgars fucker and show Riley his true colors. On my way to the cafe where Nate, Adam and Skye were, a plan formed in my head and I slowly, albeit creepily, began to smile. Goodbye Edgars.