Letting Go

The Food Seeks Me

Walking inside the cool air conditioned mall is such a refreshing feeling, like the other hundred times I have been to this mall. Something about the mall is very therapeutic to me. It takes me far away- far far away from the worries and doubts in my life, and puts me in a place where I feel glamorous and invincible. (A/N: DOES ANYONE FEEL THIS WAY CUZ I SURE DO)

When I enter the mall, I immediately forget Chris is with me. We enter through the Nordstrom section of the mall, so I'm immediately greeted by a full section of rows full of tightly packed clothing racks to my right. I wasn't looking for anything specific this time, except for a couple of basic pieces that I could mix and match with a thousand different outfits. I shuffle through the racks, and the swishing sound of the hanger sliding against the metal bar occupies my mind for a while.
I'm too entranced by the clothes hung on the rack that I don't notice when Chris walks away. I crane my neck high above the racks, but he is no where near my sight.

I sigh and return my attention back to clothes. I didn't care, he was a grown man and he could very well take care of himself. I wasn't his mother.

But then minutes pass and I feel extremely icky, the same feeling you have when you think you left the stove on back at home when you are already miles away. So I search for the idiot. I walk around the area but I don't see Chris anywhere. A little part of me gets a little angry bit by bit, since he's robbing away my precious time into finding him. When I'm just about to give up, I see a blond head peeking up from the corner of the store. I immediately recognize that hair and walk towards it, ready to unleash my fury when I get a hold of him. But what I see when I get closer makes me stop in my tracks.

He is standing next to a sunglass stand, with four sunglasses on his head- one over his eyes, the other two balancing on his hair and forehead, and the last one hanging off his ear, resting on the back of his neck. He looks absolutely ridiculous, but what makes me literally laugh out loud, is that there are two young girls, standing in front of Chris, talking to Chris, and flirting with him. They are fluttering their eyes, twirling their hair, one of them has her hand on his shoulder, and  the other is very indiscreetly looking him up and down like a piece of meat. They look about 14 or 15. I mean, Chris is definitely good looking, but at this moment he looks like a kid, an absolute dork with 4 sunglasses attached to his head. Right now, he is like the crazy man at the mall that my mom always told me not to go near him when I was younger.

Chris's body is stiff, his smile is forced and unnatural, and his whole body language screams uncomfortable. His awkward step backwards whenever one of the girls would get too close tells me that he is not in favor of this situation.
I let him suffer for a little bit by staying silent and just watching him, but when it gets too much I simply can't hold it in; I let out my famous hyena laugh and double over. My vision gets a little blurry from my happy tears, and I'm laughing so hard till the point I have to grab the pillar next to me for support. Chris sees me and scrambles to put all the sunglasses back into their original slot, and the girls look at me like I'm some psychopath. You see, right now, I'm that crazy woman at the mall that my mom used to warn me about. But that doesn't stop me from laughing, in fact it makes me laugh even more.

He quickly walks over and turns me around, guiding me towards the exit by slightly pushing me on the shoulder while his arms were around me. He probably wanted to walk as far away from the girls as possible.

My laughter is suppressed into a giggle by the time we get out, and Chris looks very distressed. When I finally return to my normal state, I shake my head at him.

"Chris, you idiot." I chuckle and walk ahead of him in search for a new store to rummage through.
He lets out a big sigh and trails me behind. I never lost him after that.