Connor sat up and peeled himself off of his bed. He turned to the mirror on his dresser, ruffling a hand through his short hair. I should grow my hair out, he thought. Maybe his dad would try to get him help if he started to look like the teenagers his dad complained about so much.
Flinging open his closet door, Connor scowled at the expensive clothes his mother had bought him. He didn't want anything she tried to buy for him if she couldn't even help him with the school bullies, if she couldn't even stand up to his dad. Connor went downstairs to grab a big black trash bag, then back up to his room to shove all the clothes in the bag.
What now?
Now Connor didn't have anything to wear, which could be problematic. He knew there was a Salvation Army kind of close to his house. He didn't have much money saved up, though. He blew a lot of it on the roses. He figured that this one time he could take a $20 bill from the cookie jar his mother kept housekeeping money in.
Dragging the bag behind him, Connor walked to the Salvation Army store. The $20 from the housekeeping jar and another $15 of his own money lived inside of his pocket. He had donned the cheapest clothes he could find in his closet, wanting to give away as much of his parents' "generosity" as he could.
He walked into the huge thrift store and plopped his giant bag of clothes on the checkout desk.
"Where do I go to donate all this?" he asked the lady at the desk. She looked at him inquisitively. She peered into the bag.
"You want to donate all this? There's a lot of brand new designer clothes in here," she said, eyeing the name brand shirts he had thrown in the bag.
"Yup. I don't want them anymore," he said.
"All right. If you're sure," she said reluctantly. "I'll just take them to the back for you."
He nodded and started to walk around. He hadn't ever been to a thrift store. He never needed to. The atmosphere was very interesting. People of all different types were in here. He spotted a mother with three children who was just trying to keep her growing children in clothes and eating food. He saw a few artistic types who were looking for interesting vintage clothing. He also saw people loaded down with odd clothes. Perhaps they were going to rework them to make a costume. He overheard some girls at his school talking about making costumes from old clothes. It seemed interesting enough.
Where did Connor fit in? He wasn't buying clothes out of necessity. Well, he was now since he had given all his clothes away. But even if he turned around now and asked his mother to buy him more clothes, she would. He wasn't looking for anything particularly interesting or vintage, and he hoped that he wasn't just looking for a costume.
He figured he would find a pair of shoes. After all, shoes are the most important part of any outfit. Or was it accessorising? He didn't avidly read fashion magazines. Only every once in a while. He picked through the men's shoe section, not impressed with some of the worn out tennis shoes he saw. As he was about to give up on finding a good pair of shoes, he saw a beautiful pair of combat boots.
He grabbed them and checked the size. They were his size, sure enough. He shirked his shoes and checked the size of the new shoes. They were perfect. He didn't want to take them off. Connor decided to leave his old shoes with the rest and just tell the lady that he was buying the shoes on his feet.
Connor was pretty sure he knew what he was looking for now that he had found these shoes. He wanted something dark, but not too dark as to be "punk" or "emo." Just enough to make a statement. He wandered around the store, looking in the guy's section and then, unfortunately, the girl's section. He wound up with quite the load of grey clothes. He walked up to the checkout desk. The same woman was still there. She removed the hangers from all his clothes and tapped their price in the ancient cash register.
"That'll be $45.69," the woman said. Connor grimaced. He thought thrift stores were supposed to be cheap. Then again, he was buying an entire wardrobe in one purchase. It could be a lot worse.
"I only have $35," he said. The woman paused for a second.
"You donated a lot of expensive clothes today. I'll let you slide today," she smiled at him warmly. He smiled sadly at her. Again, his parents were providing for him in the wrong way. They could get him discounts at thrift stores, but they couldn't get him an appointment with a therapist. The woman bagged up his clothes and Connor dragged them back to his house.
