27. (Un)intended Adventures
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Once everyone’s emotions had gone down to more manageable levels, Erin wiped her tears one last time and everyone resumed their previous activities. Everyone quickly agreed that Erin’s emotions had been sufficiently rocked for the moment, and that it would be a good idea to go and look for clothes for both Sarah and Allison. Erin felt a bit of guilt at that moment, realizing that she had monopolized everyone’s attention during a significant part of the morning, but that idea was quickly squashed by both Sarah and Allison, who assured her they’d had a lot of fun and that she hadn’t been a bother in any way, shape or form.

Thus the rest of their clothes shopping was fairly uneventful. While Erin was at first a bit shy at the idea of actively participating in picking out clothes for the other two girls, their encouragements finally got the best of her and she managed to lose herself in the activity, content to look through the different articles of clothing and give her opinion when asked for it.

By the time noon was nearing, all three teens were starting to get tired from walking around the stores and decided grabbing something to eat sounded like a great idea. They paid for everything – Sarah paid for Erin’s clothes, despite her numerous objections – And they set off towards the food court, wanting nothing more than to sit down for a little bit and rest their legs.

Everyone settled for pizza, and soon enough Sarah, Erin and Allison were sharing a booth in the corner of a small but cozy pizza place, their bags safely kept under the table.

“That was pretty fun,” Allison said between two bites of pizza. “Any idea of what we should do next?”

“I’m down for pretty much anything, we don’t have to stay in the mall for the whole afternoon, that could get boring quickly” Sarah said. “We should probably end with a movie, though, I don’t think there’s anything that interesting to watch right now.”

“That sounds nice,” Erin said. “Maybe we could just look around for a while and see if anything looks interesting?”

“Ooh, window shopping, then? I’m all for it!” Sarah said enthusiastically, Allison nodding in tow.

“That does sound nice,” She agreed.

With that said, a comfortable silence settled between the three of them, everyone just enjoying the food and taking the time to breathe a little bit. Not only had their morning been physically exhausting, but Erin also needed a little bit of time to sort her thoughts, process her earlier reaction and try to understand its meaning.

It had just snuck up on her. One moment she was nervous and feeling horribly out of place, and the next here she was, bawling with Sarah holding her in the middle of a clothing store. It hadn’t been sadness, or at least it had been more than that, like she’d just needed to vent out something, and afterwards she’d just felt relieved, lighter than she’d been in…possibly her entire life.

Try as she might, she couldn’t think of any plausible explanations, and she knew she wouldn’t get to the bottom of this mystery while eating pizza with her two friends. Plus, the looks Sarah had given her had been very clear. They were going to talk about this later.

“So, how have you been, Sarah? I haven’t seen you in a while,” Allison said, breaking the silence and pulling Erin out of her thoughts.

“Really busy,” Sarah replied. “Like you wouldn’t believe the kind of stuff that’s been happening. I can’t tell you about everything, mostly because some of it just isn’t for me to tell others about, but it’s definitely been not boring.” She said, glancing at Erin while sounding very apologetic.

“Yeah, it’s mostly my fault, honestly,” Erin said, ignoring Sarah’s pointed stare. It looked like she didn’t approve Erin’s choice of words. “I’ve had a rough few weeks and kind of dragged Sarah into my problems. She’s been awesome, though, I don’t know where I would be without her.”

“You would have been fine, Erin” Sarah said, her tone exasperated but a small smile on her face. “And you didn’t drag me into your problems, I wanted to help. Plus, none of the things that happened to you were your fault, you were just super unlucky.”

“Really?” Allison asked, an eyebrow raised. “Well, now I’m curious. You don’t need to tell me anything” She hurried to add, seeing the worry in Sarah’s eyes. “I just hope things haven’t been too hard, for both of you.”

“Well,” Erin started, hesitant. She shared a look with Sarah, who nodded almost imperceptibly at her. If Sarah trusted Allison, then she believed she could tell her a few things.

“I’ve basically been having…identity problems for a while, and Sarah’s been helping sort through it all. I’ve also had problems with my parents, and they sort of kicked me out. I’m living with Sarah and her mom right now” Erin said, looking down at her plate. Sarah put a comforting hand on her shoulder, rubbing it gently.

“That sounds really rough” Allison commented, compassion evident in her voice. “I hope things get better for you, for what it’s worth.”

“Thank you,” Erin said timidly. “There’s also been this whole thing with the wolf that attacked our school a while ago, that was pretty scary.”

“Oh, right! That giant wolf story! It happened in your school, that must have been scary. Did you get to see it?”

“I’d say we got a pretty good look, yeah,” Sarah said wryly, glancing humorously at Erin, who returned the expression.

“I’d completely forgotten about that, it’s kind of crazy how quickly everyone moved on after a few days. Nothing worth talking about ever happens around here, you’d think people would be a bit more interested when a giant wolf attacks a school,” Allison said, completely missing the look Sarah and Erin shared.

“Anyway,” Allison continued, “We should probably get going if we want to do some more stuff. You guys are ready?”

With a nod, Sarah finished her last bit of pizza, and all three teens stood up, ready to go explore the mall some more.

- - -

“I can’t believe I’m actually doing this,”

Erin wasn’t sure how she’d gotten herself in that situation. Once they’d left the small pizza place, they’d simply proceeded to walk around and take a look at everything the mall had to offer.

Unfortunately, that turned out to be not that much. As big as the place was, very little was actually made for entertainment, and so after about half on hour of wandering around they’d decided wandering through the city would be more fun.

At first, everything had been going great. The sun was high in the sky, helping fight off the cold fall weather, and people were out in the streets, enjoying the last few weeks of sunny days before the cold truly arrived and settled. They’d taken the time to explore a little bit, lead by Allison, who knew the city better since she didn’t leave as far away as Sarah and Erin. They’d mostly been more interested in chatting with one another, enjoying the sights, rather than looking for something to actually do.

It was then that the three teenagers walked past a small piercing shop, at the corner of a street. Erin stopped to look at it, admiring the window shop and curiously looking inside when she caught a glimpse of Sarah in her peripheral vision.

Her friend was staring at her. Not only that, but she also had that glimpse in her eye, the one she got when she had an idea that she found herself driven towards. The sight honestly worried Erin, but she wasn’t sure why.

Seconds later, Sarah had somehow dragged her aside after having quickly asked Allison to “wait for just a second please”, and asked her a very simple yet unexpected question.

“Do you want to get your ears pierced?”

The question left Erin speechless. Where did that come from?

“What?” she eloquently asked.

“It’s fine if you don’t want to,” Sarah hurried to say. “I feel like I’ve pushed you far enough out of your comfort zone for the day, but I saw the way you were looking through the window.”

What was she talking about? She’d just taken a quick peek inside, hadn’t she? Getting her ears pierced hadn’t even crossed her mind, but now that she thought about it, she couldn’t bring herself to outright refuse to do it. She opened her mind to reply to Sarah, but no sound came out.

Did she want to get her ears pierced? Strangely enough, she felt curious. She also felt a bit anxious, but not nearly as much as she’d been this morning when she’d tried on the dress. After all, boys did sometimes get their ears pierced, didn’t they?

Thinking about it some more, she was almost certain she could hide the piercings with a bit of magic if she needed to. The bracelet now allowed her to do minute changes to her physiology, and she had a feeling that this would be within its abilities.

Plus, as much as Sarah was trying to hiding it, her eyes were practically pleading her to say yes. Sarah had been more than a good friend, and if this somehow made her happy then she didn’t really want to say no.

Still, some form of doubt lingered in her mind, a tiny little voice at the corner of her consciousness, telling her that this was all a joke, that Sarah was just joking, and that she’d never seriously suggest something like that, and so she needed to make sure that her friend wasn’t pulling her leg.

“Would…would that really be fine?” she asked Sarah, uncertainty tainting her voice.

Instantly, a radiant smile broke out on Sarah’s face, who grabbed her by both arms, daring to hope that she’d understood correctly. “Does that mean you’ll do it?”

Sarah’s reaction was enough to quell part of the anxiety within her, and so she simply nodded silently, smiling back at her. She also felt a bit proud of herself, for some reason she couldn’t quite pinpoint, like she’d just made a lot of progress.

Letting her happiness completely overtake her, Sarah gave a quick side hug to Erin before bouncing back towards Allison, catching her up on everything by talking nearly a mile a minute.

And that was how, only minutes later, Erin found herself sitting down in a comfortable chair, good naturedly wondering how she’d ended up in this position in so little time, a very nice middle-aged lady, covered in piercing and tattoos preparing a needle a bit further away in the shop.

“You know you really don’t have to do this, Erin, right?” Allison said, standing besides her with Sarah. “I know Sarah can get really excited about things, but we won’t be disappointed or anything if you back out now.”

Erin smiled a little at that. Even though she hadn’t known Allison for more than half a day, she struck her as a very caring and concerned person, in some ways very similar to Sarah, if somewhat more mild-mannered.

“I’m good, but thank you for worrying Allison, I think I want to do this,” She said, as the piercing lady came back, ready to start.

“Alright,” she said, needle in hand. “I’m going to start with your left ear, if that’s alright?” At Erin’s nod, she got to work, quickly and efficiently piercing both of Erin’s ears, who barely felt anything.

She then proceeded to insert a small stud in each of Erin’s ears, while giving her guidelines and advice on how to take care of them while the piercings healed.

All the while, Erin couldn’t stop smiling. When she finally got handed a mirror, she couldn’t stop staring at the result, looking at the shiny studs adorning her ears.

She felt strangely happy, and thought back on what Sarah had said earlier this morning, that she might regret not trying new things.

She wasn’t certain she would have regretted it, but she certainly was glad she’d decided to listen to her friend, and that was all that mattered.

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