Me, Myself, and Her

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty: We Were Happy

Starcourt Mall was a dream come true to Annie. If anything captured the 80s and the life she wished she had outside of Hawkins, Starcourt Mall was it.

And she wasn't the only person who was there almost every day. The people of Hawkins, especially the young crowd, loved the mall. If they couldn't drive, they rode their bikes or the bus.

Annie, Holly, and Meghan rode the bus since not all of them had bikes, none could drive, and Steve was already at work so they couldn't use him for a ride. Sometimes she'd come up to the mall with Steve when he was opening Scoops Ahoy, but other days she didn't want to get up that early.

"Guys, come on, I wanna see if I can find any new soccer shoes and ask my parents to get them for me!" Meghan said, and the girls walked over one of the many shoe stores. This one was specific to athletic shoes. The other was more up Annie and Holly's ally. But, they'd go through all of these aisles with Meghan as she looked for what she wanted.

After a couple minutes, she couldn't seem to find anything. "I'm gonna ask just to make sure." The girls nodded and followed Meghan as she walked over to an employee. "Excuse me, do you guys have any girls soccer shoes?"

The employee, some teenage boy, looked at her and shrugged. "Probably not. Cause this is an athletic shoe store."

Meghan's face dropped and she crossed her arms.

"Oh no," Annie whispered, Holly shaking her head, agreeing with Annie.

"I'm sorry, you must not have heard me. Do you have girls soccer shoes. This is where I'd find them, no?" she tried again, her patronizing behavior making Annie worry they'd have to leave soon.

The teenager rolled his eyes. "Yeah, we don't have any. Go to some other store to find your girly crap," he answered,

Meghan took in a deep breath and was going to step forward if Annie didn't put a hand on her shoulder and pull her back.

"Come on, this dipshit isn't worth it," she said. There was no arguing as the trio left the store, Annie having to hold Meghan's arm down so she wouldn't flip the employee off.

"Jerk, who says and thinks like that," Holly said with her arms crossed in a huff.

Annie nodded her head in agreement, but Meghan sighed. "Most of the teenage male population it seems. But that's fine, I'll just show 'em when I get on the Hawkins High soccer team," Meghan said, pretending to crack her knuckles with the last sentence.

This made all three girls laugh as they made their way to Scoops Ahoy to grab a cone of ice cream each before Holly and Meghan had to leave.

The each got their favorite flavors: Annie got strawberry, Holly got vanilla with rainbow sprinkles, and Meghan got two scoops of cookie dough. Even though they didn't have to, the girls still paid. Annie felt bad for tonight anyway, though she wasn't going to tell Steve about that yet.

They wandered the mall as they ate their ice cream, passing time until the bus Holly and Meghan needed arrived. As the bus started pulling up, the girls got ready to go on. "Have fun with Max tonight," Holly said, with Meghan adding some eyebrow wiggles.

Annie scoffed and smacked her arm lightly. "It's the whole Party, not just Max," she said, but her cheeks were already pink. Obviously they knew that, they just loved teasing her about it.

However, Annie had to be relieved that Max was typically a boy name, because then the strangers around them simply thought Annie was being teased about liking a boy, not a girl. Made the evil glares go down quite a bit.