Fade to Black

Chapter 7: Adventures in the Mall

Evan eventually recovered after a few days of staying in the Med ward. The nurses started calling me Evan's "cure"
Because apparently he got a lot better after he vented to me. He hasn't had anymore night terrors, so that's good. He and I were just chillin' in our room when he randomly blurted out
" We should go to the mall!"
I turned to look at him and deadpanned
" Evan, I don't think they will let us"
" On Saturdays they let us go out!"
" Only if accompanied by a nurse."
" We could get Cassandra to go with us..."
" Still, you have to show serious mental health improvement before they let you set foot off the property."
Evan didn't reply. I thought maybe I had made him feel bad. " Sorry, I didn't mean-"
      I was cut off by Evan picking me up and carrying me like a little koala bear.
He carried me out into the main office and , while still holding me, started to request the a nurse chaperone.
" What are you doing?" I hissed in his ear. Evan snickered and said " I said that I want to go to the mall."
" Excuse me."
Our conversation was interrupted by the woman sitting at the desk. She smiled politely before continuing
" This  young man" She gestured to me. " Is he going with you?"
Evan set me down and looked at me with a hopeful smile. I couldn't say no to that face. I sighed dramatically "Oh, all right. I'll take a trip to the mall with you."
" Yaasssssssss!" Evan exclaimed as he threw his arm around me.
" Do you remember every going to a store called Hot Topic?"
" No...."
Evan's eyes widened in surprise
" The second we get to the mall, I am taking you there."
" Um.. Okay."
Evan was still doing a little happy dance when the receptionist interrupted  " I'm sorry but Miss Cassandra is not available at this time. Is it alright if someone else goes with you?" Evan inclined his head at me in a Is that cool with you?  gesture.
   "Yeah, that would be fine." I replied
" Great!" The receptionist beamed.      " We will be sending Miss Glad with you."
Evan and I waited in the main lobby for Miss Glad to show up.
" I'm disappointed that Cassie didn't get to come with us.."
" Same. Although this woman's name is Miss Glad, she has to be happy, right?"
Evan raised his lips in a smirk. " True. I bet you she's all sunshine and rainbows."

                     ---
     Miss Glad most definitely was not all sunshine and rainbows. She was a strict lady in her late sixties, who took one look at Evan's blue hair and glared. She quickly ushered us out the doors and into the vehicle. We could feel her gaze on us the entire time. The car wasn't very big, so Evan and I has to sit squished together in the backseat. Miss Glad was saying something about flowers, I think I caught the word unicorn somewhere in her endless droning. If I'm being honest I zoned out after the the first 5 seconds and before I knew it, we had arrived at the mall. The Shopping Center wasn't huge, but it wasn't tiny either. Evan was practically buzzing with excitement. Just another typical fangirl moment. The three of us walked around for a bit before Evan found what he was looking for. The sign that hung above the door read in bold print : Hot Topic. The store was dark inside and was playing "Throne" by Bring Me the Horizon. Hot Topic seemed a little creepy, but almost in a comforting way. Evan was about to walk inside when Miss Glad grabbed his shoulder and said in her sickly-sweet southern drawl
" Oh no sweetie, I can't allow you to go into a place like that. That's a store for devil worshippers. Come along, let's find you two boys a nicer store."
Poor Evan looked like he was about to go into cardiac arrest. He sulked next to me whilst we were lead around like stray dogs. As we passed by a store called Claire's, Evan stopped and got a devilish gleam in his eyes.
" Hey, Miss Glad? Can we look around in here?"
Miss Glad eyed Evan suspiciously
" I guess that would be alright."
"K, thanks"
Evan had already gone into the store with me, neither of us waited for her to respond. Evan and I messed around with some infinity scarves and sunglasses. We were taking stupid selfies on Evan's phone and laughing a little too loud. The staff members would give us dirty looks, but nobody stopped us. After we cleaned up the small mess we made, Evan decided to be respectful and actually buy something. He bought one purple sharpie and one black sharpie and a rainbow ring. As we left the store I looked behind me to see Miss Glad glowering at us. That's when I realized what Evan was doing. She had annoyed him, so he was trying to piss her off. Sneaky lil' devil I thought I just might have to help him.
Evan and I sat down in the floor outside of Claire's and proceeded to draw all over each other's arms with the sharpies Evan bought. We even drew cat whiskers on each other's faces. While he and I tattooed each other, we looked at Miss Glad. She was so miffed. Evan smiled evilly and wrote
PROPERTY OF EVAN in huge letters down my left arm, and I wrote PROPERTY OF KYLE in all caps down his right arm. True Friendship . We looked up again and Miss Glad practically had steam coming out her ears. We had filled up all the space on our arms with drawings, quotes and sarcastic remarks. So, since we were both wearing tank tops that cut really low on the sides, we decided to draw on each other's ribs. Miss Glad looked like she was gonna strangle us. We proceeded in our little rebellion, smiling the entire time. Every so often, We would glance up to see Miss Glad giving us hateful looks. Evan looked at her once and suddenly seemed tense. He tapped my shoulder and I looked up to see what he was looking at. Miss Glad was giving dirty looks to a lesbian couple sitting on a bench across from us. The young girls didn't seem to notice and she wasn't saying anything except muttering a few homophobic comments that only Evan and I could hear. Evan seemed personally offended by her remarks . He went back to drawing on my ribs and would leer in her direction every few seconds. When she turned to look at us, Evan leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. I honestly didn't mind, so I just acted like it was the most normal thing in the world. Miss Glad looked like she
was about to have a stroke. She actually had to sit down. Evan chuckled quietly and we continued drawing. She kept giving us a horrified stare. My god, Evan is so evil. I love it. We continued to tattoo each other and before long, we ran out of skin to draw on. Evan pulled out his phone and we took a jillion pictures. We looked so stupid in each one, he kept giving me bunny ears or playfully smacking me. So as my revenge, when he actually looked on point, I dug my finger into his ribs, which made him howl with laughter. In our last few pics we actually didn't look that bad, in the final one we decided to be like the people of Tumblr. I was kissing his cheek and he pulled a face of mock confusion. We are friendship goals.

----
After our little tattoo parlor was finished, Evan and I went over to Miss Glad and asked " Now can we go to Hot Topic?"
" JUST GO. I'm done with you two brats!" She followed us to the store, but wouldn't cross the threshold. Evan was so happy, he could barely control himself. His eyes lit up when he showed me all the cool band merch. I thought it was amazing that two teenagers covered in sharpie and have cat whiskers draw on their faces could walk into Hot Topic and nobody would question it. We looked around for a while and finally we both bought one hoodie and one shirt. (Tbh we just end up stealing each other's hoodies in the future.)
Alas, the time had come for us to leave the glorious Hot Topical and go back to the hospital.
---
Evan and I returned at about 8:00pm and we just sat on Evan's bed and looked at all our pictures, and scrolled through his Tumblr. We were both pretty wiped and I was about to fall asleep on Evan's shoulder when I remembered something that struck me as interesting. I poked Evan's shoulder.
" Hey Evan, can I ask you something?"
"Sure, what's up?"
" Why did you seem so offended by Miss Glad's homophobia?"
Evan paused for a second, as if thinking over his answer.
He looked me dead in the eyes and said
"It's because I'm extremely gay."

My only response was "okay cool, I'm extremely bisexual." Then I promptly curled into him like smol kitten and fell asleep.
I'm so happy I went to the mall with Evan that day.