JanTom: Complete Opposites

Chapter Seventy-Seven : Shopping Feelings

Chapter Seventy-Seven : Shopping Feelings 

  “Why are you so restless today?” 

I asked, eyeing as Star slumped on her table with her back hunched and her hair covering her entire face. She looks as if someone killed her pet—which wasn’t humorous in any way, but it seemed just like that.

  “This is unusual of you,” I added, tapping her back gently as she lets out a muffled groan. Is she tired? Did something happened to her or her family? Star has never acted this way..this  troubled.

“I can see that.”

“Do you want to cancel our shopping?” I reminded her. Two days ago, she chimed in that we should go to the mall and she’d assist me with picking the best gifts. Fast forward now, she’s as gloomy as the saddest man alive.

 I could do the shopping by myself, even though I do admit I might be bad at picking what my friends or relatives liked at all. All I knew was the latest horror movie or the for sale premium occultic statue. 

 “No..I’ll be fine,” she meekly waved a hand, dismissing me. “—I asked you out first. It’d be rude for me to let you go all alone.”

“But you’re…..” I struggle to find the right words to say. “…..sloppy. Well not sloppy like you’re incompetent, but you know what I mean.”

I furrowed my brows out of slight concern. I mean I might be mean spirited but I was still human. “Did something happen?”

She hesitates, then she lifts her head off the wooden desk with red stray markings etched on her face from planting it down. “Something did.”

“So mind telling me?”

She diverts her gaze elsewhere, a lock covers half of her face. “I..don’t know.”

My brows furrowed twice than before. “What do you mean I don’t know?”

“I don’t know okay?!” she raises her tone at me, laced with frustration and then her crashing waves of eyes widens at me, quite surprised by her outburst.

 She eventually composes herself. 

“Sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

I heaved a breath, not wanting to start a fight or argue with her. All I could do was respect her decision and give her time to tell me. 

“I won’t force you. So..do you still want to go?”

“Yeah.”

. . .

 “Do you think it will rain?” I piped in, breaking the suffocating silence that was consuming us. I brought my hand up to the skies and imagined that a single droplet of rain would drip down my palm.

  I hope not. We’d be drenched like rats under the harsh pouring rain with no shelter.

  “Maybe,” she casted a glance by the swirling dim clouds without a single ray of sunshine seeping through nor was the cold welcoming at all.

I lightly rub the sleeves of my cottoned coat, not knowing what to add in next. It feels uneasy and my eyes were darting all over the place. She’s too quiet it’s making me unnerved. Maybe we shouldn’t have went today.

 . . .

     We stepped inside the front doors, the bleak whip of the air condition  make me slightly freeze, clasping onto my coat tighter. Star hasn’t said a word ever since we came here and her eyes were prancing around, seemingly looking into a world I might’ve not known.