Troubled Souls // 5SOS

VII ∞ Blind

• Luke •

I'm currently wandering through the mall, headed to the t-shirt shop where I buy all my shirts. The interior of the shop is mostly black and gray with t-shirts and prints covering the majority of the walls.

I'm trying to avoid attracting attention, as usual, just walking around and minding my own business. I see a print on the wall that's black with narrow, white letters that say "Lost My Mind" and I know immediately that I need that shirt.

As I'm scanning the walls looking for the rack that contains the shirt, I feel someone's presence slowly approaching next to me. I ignore it, just assuming that they won't try to talk to me. Being a pretty tall guy dressed entirely in black and walking around with an expressionless look on your face tends to send people the "leave me alone" vibe, but whoever this person is, they're still coming towards me.

"Hi, can I help you find any ... Oh hey, Luke!" A familiar voice says. I turn to look at her.

It's Melody, an old friend of mine. I talked to her a lot more often before things took a turn for the worst, but I don't actually approach her much anymore. She still tries to talk to me every chance she gets, though, especially at school. She's really nice and I feel kind of sorry for her, still trying to strike up a decent conversation with a guy like me, so I never send her away when she shows up.

"Hey, Melody," I say half-heartedly. "I didn't know you worked here."

"Oh yeah, I started a couple weeks ago," she replies with a smile.

"That's cool," I say. I'm not very good at keeping up conversations.

She brushes a strand of sandy brown hair behind her ear, looking up at me with big blue eyes. She actually looks a lot like Annabelle, just shorter. Annabelle's tall and athletic-looking, but Melody's short and petite.

"Yeah, it's been a while since I've gotten to talk to you," she says, breaking the silence. "I always used to see you at my brother's little league games, but you don't come to those anymore."

I feel an aching in my chest. I haven't had a reason to go to the little league games or practices for almost two years.

"I don't really have much of a reason to go anymore," I reply. The whole thing feels too sensitive to talk about and I'd really rather drop the topic, but she doesn't know that. I've shut her out, like everyone else.

"I know," she says distantly. "I just miss seeing you there."

I nod slowly. I bite my lip ring, not knowing what else to do in the awkward silence. I don't have much to say.

"Hey, that's new," she says, looking at my lip ring. "When did you get that?"

I shrug. "Like, a year ago, maybe?"

"That's cool," she says with a little laugh. "My mum would never let me get anything like that. I had to beg to just get my ears pierced."

"Yeah, my mum didn't actually know about it until after I got it," I reply.

Her eyes widen. "Oh," she says quietly.

"Yeah," I reply.

We're about to fall back into silence when she asks, "So, uh, was there anything in particular that you were looking for? I saw you checking the racks like you were looking for something."

"Oh yeah, I saw something that I was trying to find," I reply, searching the wall for the print from earlier. I point to it once I find it. "That one."