Shifting

Amber

So we went shopping. Yep. My mom decided we couldn't wear the same clothes every day, so she gave us $400 to buy the two of us new clothes.

The morning went normally. Well as normal as it could be. Matt and I went downstairs to find my dad reading the paper like we were in the fifties. My mom was making breakfast in the kitchen. I sat next to my dad. On the table sat a small box. It was cardboard and seemed to have been something that was mailed.

"I see you noticed your present." My dad said without looking up.

"It's mine?" I asked him

"Well, Yours and Matts." My mom said joining us at the table.

I reached my hand for it and hesitated for a second. I grabbed it and opened it. Inside the box were two smaller boxes. I smiled as I read the label. My parents had gotten us each a phone.

"You guys..." I looked at them.

"Oh you can and you will." my mom told him. "Besides it was 'buy one get one half off'."

I remember her saying that about anything and everything she thought was not a big deal. You tripped and fell? That's all right these knees were buy one get one half off. Broke the picture frame? They are selling these right now for but one get one half off.

"Thank you guys so much!" I hugged them.

"Alright get eating and get dressed." My dad told us. I quickly ate five pancakes and ran upstairs to take a shower. I crawled into my clothes that I have been wearing for like three weeks with only water to clean. Matt did the same.

"Ok, that's it. We are taking you to get clothes." my mom said after seeing us wearing the same clothes for the third day.

/ / / / /

So I don't know if you have ever been shopping with your parents that you only recently got back in contact after 8 years and your kinda-sorta maybe-boyfriend, but it gets really awkward. I didn't know my size and neither did Matt. I didn't know my style, and Matt looked uncomfortable in anything that wasn't the dark colours he had been given since he was a kid. So we got him blacks and dark blue shirts, and jeans that weren't ripped at the knee. But that wasn't the awkward part. The awkward part was when my mom suggested a shirt with a low back.

"What about this one? It's even got a fun back." She said picking out a simple deep purple shirt. until she flipped it around. My eyes darted from my mom to the shirt, I was suddenly really interested in the stitching in the pants I had found. "What did I say, Rach?"

"She...She has scars on her back..." Matt told her.

"Sweetie we all have scars, but we don't have to hide them."

"You don't understand mom. It's not a short little line from a bike accident. They are huge, and long covering an 'X' on my back. It's something I have to hide." So that's when they learned about the scars all of them, even some of Matts, but I knew he kept some secret. (ODP:12/12/17)