Learning to Love

Chapter 26

"What are you doing Harold, can't you see you're scaring her?" "Well, if she was ours, she would be in big trouble and not getting a new stuffed animal, that's for sure." "She's not ours, Sweetie, where are your parents at uh?" I shook my head at the lady I didn't have parents, and I didn't know where Abbie and Gabby had gone because I couldn't see them anymore, they weren't where they had been standing when I left. Did they leave me? Decide I wasn't worth the trouble? I could feel myself starting to freak out slightly and I quickly took a great big breath. I couldn't get a hold of my tears though and they were getting heavier by the minute. The lady sighed, "Come on, let's go up front so they can page for your parents." She reached out her hand and I tilted my head at her, why was she offering me her hand, she hadn't raised it like she was going to hit me, although the guy she was with certainly seemed like he wanted to hit me.

"Can you hold my hand please? I want to make sure you don't get lost on the way to the front." Oh, that's what she wanted, I slowly put my hand in hers, watching her body language just in case. "Good girl, come on, let's go up front, you just tug on my hand if you see them sweetie." I tightly held my teddy and the new pink one in one hand while I let her walk me towards the front of the store. We were walking and all of a sudden, a loud noise came booming through the store, "Attention all shoppers, we have a lost child in the store, little girl wearing a pink dress and clutching a teddy bear, if you see her, please wave down a team member." I let go of her hand quickly and curled into a ball on the floor, wrapping my teddies into the middle. "Oh, sweetie what happened? Was that too loud for you?" I didn't acknowledge her at all. "Harold, can you go up front and see if her parents, or whoever she came with is up there and bring them back? I don't want to pick her up and freak her out even more." "I think she's just playing you; the little brat just needs some discipline." I heard the lady gasp, "Harold! Just go upfront and find her parent!" The lady sounded really angry, and I immediately started having a panic attack, zoning out whatever was happening around me.

The next thing I was able to sense was that I was suddenly picked up and someone started talking to me, rocking me back and forth. "Shh, breathe baby girl, in, out, in, out, there you go breathe with me baby." I gave a great big breath, then shuddered, I smelled Abbie, she came back for me. "Shhh, there you go baby, all better uh?" I gripped Abbie's shirt tightly with my free hand, and buried my face into her chest, where I could take deep breaths of her smell, I found that it helped me calm down. Abbie started patting my back and talking to the people who had found me. "Thank you so much for finding her, we were worried sick that she had wandered out of the store." "I'm glad we had actually decided to go down the stuffed animal aisle because she would have fallen and hurt herself, she had climbed the shelf I'm guessing so that she could reach one of the animals she must have liked, thankfully my husband was fast enough to catch her before she fell." I heard a big gasp, "Oh Cali, you didn't? I'm so thankful you were there, we only just received custody of her, and we aren't too sure of all of her quirks yet, she hasn't spoken a word to us yet. This trip was to get her some supplies we have noticed we need so far." "Aww poor thing, may I suggest you pick up a stroller or even one of those kid leashes?" I happened to look up at that moment and saw Gabby look at me, she gave me a soft smile, "That's not a bad idea, guess we will look at both while we are here."

The next thing I knew, we were walking towards the back of the store. Gabby was pushing the overflowing cart, they seemed to have gotten a whole lot more stuff while I was looking at the stuffies, I hadn't noticed all that in the cart before. When we reached, I guess the strollers, Abbie put me down, but held onto my waist as she squatted down in front of me. "Okay Cali, please do not ever scare us like that again please. If you see something you want to look at, please let myself or Gabby know, okay?" I nodded, that was scary when I thought they had left me here, and then that mean man, I thought he was gonna beat me. "Good girl, what did you see that you wanted earlier baby?" I held up the pink teddy and gave her pleading eyes. "You want another teddy? Sure, Baby we can get the teddy." I brought the teddy back to my chest and gave it a squeeze and a huge smile spread across my face. Abbie stood up and brought me up into her arms. "Oh, baby I love that smile on your face." "Hey Abbie, what do you think of this stroller?" Abbie turned to look at Gabby, "Oh I like that one, let's set her in it and see what the baby thinks." She walked towards the stroller that Gabby had brought onto the floor and lowered me into it. "Aww do you like it Cali?" I sat for a minute thinking about it, I guess it was okay, I didn't know what they wanted it for, but I nodded anyways because I figured it would make Abbie happy at least.

"Alright stroller shopping done, let's look at the kid leashes before we head out, I'm going to leave her in the stroller, and I'll just wheel her through the store in it for now." "Well at least you can test it out anyways." Gabby laughed. Abbie went behind me and all of the sudden the stroller started moving, I gripped the bar in front of me quickly, letting the teddies drop in my lap, I let out a loud screech which I didn't even really realize was me until the stroller stopped and Abbie was in front of me. "Are you alright Cali? Did the movement shock you?" I looked at her with wide eyes and nodded. "It's alright baby, look I will move it a little bit while I'm in front of you." She moved the stroller back and forth and I relaxed a little bit, it wasn't so bad once I got used to it, I guess. I nodded to her; I was okay now. "Better? Alright let's keep going." Abbie stood up and walked around to the back of the stroller again, and Gabby peeked in at me, and gave me a soft smile. Once we stopped again Abbie came around to the front of the stroller and reached in to pick me up. "Alright baby, lets pick a backpack for you." I looked at the wall of backpacks and noticed a pink puppy in the very back, I could only see an ear and an eye, but I pointed at it anyways. "Which one baby?" Gabby started picking up all the ones in the front of the one I wanted, I kept shaking my head as she was picking it up, finally Abbie must have noticed the one I saw, because she suddenly reached into the very back of the shelf and brought it forward. "This one baby?" I nodded yes and reached for it. "Alright let's try it on you then baby." Abbie put me on the floor and turned me around, she slid my arms into the front part of the puppy and then did up some sort of buckle. "What do you think baby? Do you like it?" I nodded, it was comfortable, and I was carrying a puppy on my back! "Alright we will get this one, let's go before we spend all of Josh's money." Gabby laughed, "I don't think it's possible for either one of you to run out of money honey."

When we got up to the front of the store, I put my new teddy up on the counter, I watched as it took a ride down a moving thing and then the cashier scanned it and handed it back to me. I smiled widely and hugged it tightly. "Oh, I have to pay for the backpack as well, can I just rip off the tag for you?" "Oh yes ma'am that's fine, it doesn't have an anti-theft device on it." "Come here Cali, I need to take the tag off the backpack." I turned to face her and noticed she was holding something that was leading to me, I looked behind me, but didn't see anything that she could have been holding. I walked closer to her, and she turned me around and I felt a tug then a rip noise, "Alright thanks baby." I turned back to look at her again and I saw her handing the tag to the cashier.

We headed out the doors and I felt a tug suddenly on my back, I stopped and looked behind me, what stopped me? I gave a questioning look to Abbie and Gabby who had stopped to look at something. I tugged on the leash that Abbie was holding and felt it tug on my back, that's what it was attached to? Oh no way, I wasn't a dog, I didn't know that's what it was for when I picked out the pretty pink doggy. I tried to undo the buckle, but I couldn't undo it, it was the same buckle as my car seat. Deciding that was a waste I tried to wiggle out of it, but I couldn't get out either, well what was I gonna do? I sat down in a huff, I hugged my teddies and contemplated how I was going to get out of this thing. All of a sudden, I felt a tug. I looked up at Abbie and they were both walking towards the car. They apparently hadn't noticed that I was sitting on the ground. There was another tug then Abbie turned to look at me. "Cali baby what are you doing? Come on, let's go home." I shook my head no and hoped that my face portrayed my feelings of betrayal, I couldn't cross my arms because of my teddies.

Abbie sighed and came over to me, she squatted down and picked me up, "Oh baby do you need a new pull-up?" I blushed I hadn't even noticed I had used it, but I guess if she thought that's why I had stopped walking it was better than getting in trouble for throwing a fit over a leash.