Lost In Lucidity

Cold Tile

"There's Hot Topic, Claire. You wanna' go take a look?" Leigh asked.

"Nah, Hot Topic is for people who pretend to be goth."

I snickered, "Oh, and you're the real deal?"

Claireese smirked and bumped me with her shoulder, "There are nuances, Wes. You wouldn't get it."

"Well, we still have an hour or so." Leigh announced, " Wanna go to the food court and get some food?"

"Sure."

"Please. I am starving."

There's a long pause as we all turn to Val and await her answer. She's tapping away at her phone as we walk.

"Val?"

"Huh? Oh, um, sure, yeah!"

We started through the mall toward the food courts, and I fell back next to her as Leigh and Claire joked about a bunch of junk at a nearby kiosk.

"Everything good?"

Val looked at me with confusion, "Yeah, why?"

"You just seemed like you were distracted."

"Oh," She says, wrapping up a text and jamming her phone in her pocket. "Sorry! I was just texting some people back. I'm in this big group chat now that I'm part of student council, and there's almost always someone talking in there."

"Oh, that's okay. I just wanted to check. It's been a while since we've talked or hung out; I didn't know if something was going on that I didn't know about..."

I could sense some slight guilt in Val at my sentence, but she only acknowledged the second part, "Yeah, no, everything is good. Thanks for asking."

I nodded before pacing us forward to rejoin the others. By the time we reached the food courts, Val was back texting on her phone.

We split off for a few minutes to each go to a different restaurant. Huge wings of the mall had gone dead over time, but the cafeteria was the one place that was never without people. The Clackamas Town Center had a big selection, so it attracted a lot of people who just wanted to hang out and have dinner. One by one, as we each got our food, we made our way to a table toward the center of the court.

Conversation was slow but still present as we ate. It had been that way the rest of the hangout, too. It was our first time all being out together since the beginning of freshman year (well, Val and I's freshman year), and while we were still good friends at the time, the start of distance rot had already begun eating away at the group. Not to mention, one of us was occupied with her phone most for most of the time. That meant there were really only three of us to carry the conversation.

"It's really crazy how empty this place is." Leigh noted, "Our mom told us that it was still pretty busy when she was a kid. There were more shops and everything."

"I mean, it makes sense." Claire shrugged, "Anything you can buy at the stores here, you can find online. Why drive all the way out here for it?"

"It's still kind of sad in a way. Like this place meant for people was just kind of left to die by its creators." Leigh longingly looked around, "Such a cool building, too. Maybe someday someone will make something cool out of it."

"I wouldn't get your hopes up, sis." I told her, "There was that four-story mall in the middle of Portland that Mom told us about too, and even that one died. I'm shocked this one is even hanging on at this point."

Just then, Val let out a small gasp, "Oh my gosh." We all turned to her as she began pivoting her head around the room.

"What? What's up?" Claire asked her.