Chiara [PUBLISHED] ✔️

Twenty-three

A different kind of nervousness bubbled within me as I walked through the highly illuminated shopping mall. Before, I was nervous because I thought those moments with Chiara were fleeting. I thought I had to use them, because I got the chance to live through my unattainable fantasy.

Now, I was nervous because it was neither unattainable nor a fantasy.

Chiara was my reality.

I wanted her. And I was nervous because I feared she wouldn't want me back.

The thought ate me alive as my ankle-boots tapped on the tiled floor. People with shopping bags full of clothes and footwear and groceries and gadgets walked past me in a hurry. They ran after the biggest sales and store openings.

But I barely noticed them.

My eyes were fixated on the girl next to me, her honey-coloured hair, her green eyes and her wide grin. For the umpteenth time, I glanced over her square-necked white dress with thick, navy blue stripes. Everything else was fogged out. I barely registered Reina and Maggie.

"Christina is back together with Dominic and now I have to invite her to the party as well." Reina murmured, frowning at her phone. "When is she going to realise he doesn't want her?"

I vaguely remembered Christina as a girl who talked to Chiara at the first party, mentioning how she broke up with her boyfriend Dominic. For the fifth time, Chiara had said.

"Never." Chiara said. "He'll probably grow tired of her, but she'll keep on dating the same type of guys. Until one of them marries her, possibly the worst one."

"That shit's bleak." Maggie mumbled. She was on my right. Standing next to her, I realised just how tall she was. And she was wearing sneakers.

"She's just dumb." Reina typed on her phone, flipping her blown-out hair over her shoulder. Her boobs slightly bounced in her tight, yellow dress as she walked. Just enough to notice, but not enough to invite. "I should tell her she's not welcome."

"Oh, let her be." Chiara waved away with her hand. "Maybe she comes to her senses when she realises how he's behaving in front of his closest friends."

"Nah, he's only a piece of shit towards people he can't use later on in life." Maggie jumped in.

"Exactly." Chiara smiled. "She might realise he's treating her like shit compared to how he's treating us."

Everyone treated them like royalty. And I mean, everyone. Perhaps because they walked and talked and looked like royalty. People smiled at them, they were nice to them. Salesmen, doormen, cleaners, waiters, random people in the street.

"Oh, my God." Reina whined as we walked through the door of a seemingly nameless store. Bright lights and the fact we walked to the elevator surprised me. "Arlo wants to bring Mona. Hasn't he already fucked that?"

Ha! Mona was the STD girl that Bryan spat all over when she whined about smoking. There, I knew people too!

"Yeah, but that was before she got a boob job." Chiara said.

"W-where are we going?" I asked as we stepped into the plain, metal elevator. I immediately felt ugly under the neon lightning.

"We're going to shop." Chiara answered.

"But men's and children's clothing are upstairs." I pointed out. That much I knew about this giant, consumerist heaven.

"So are the private dressing rooms." Reina smirked. "You didn't really think we would be walking through the shops and picking the clothes by ourselves?"