The mall was louder than Taylor remembered. She was starting to remember why she never came here anymore.
“Earth to Taylor, can you hear me?” A pair of bright green eyes entered her field of view, accompanied by a smirking, freckled face. “If you’re gonna zone out, we can just leave. I don’t need to go shopping that badly.”
“It’s fine,” Taylor said automatically, watching as a group of laughing teenagers crossed the path in front of them. “I just forgot what it was like in here.”
“Kind of overwhelming, isn’t it?” Lisa said sympathetically. She hooked her arm around Taylor’s, pulling her along. “Just stick with me and you’ll be fine. Promise. I just want to see if a jacket I was looking at is on sale. We can leave right after, if you want.”
Nodding, Taylor let herself be pulled along, focusing on the back of Lisa’s head instead of the chaotic throng around them. It was Saturday so the mall was packed full of people off of work or school. That made it a little difficult to walk.
The last time Taylor had been here felt like a lifetime ago. She let her gaze wander as as Lisa pulled her through the crowd. A lot had changed. Didn’t that store use to sell CD’s? And that one used to be a part of the store next to it.
There were a few familiar sights, but it felt like she was waking through a warped version of the past. Reflections of what used to be that didn’t quite fit with the present. Things were the same yet so much different since she was here with...
Taylor stopped the thought, but the emotion it pulled up washed through her anyway. It was an ugly thing that knotted her throat and made her eyes burn. Her fingers clenched around Lisa’s hand.
Lisa glanced back at her, green eyes full of concern. “You okay?”
Was she? Taylor wasn’t sure.
“I’m trying what you said,” Taylor swallowed, the words dancing on the tip of her tongue only to be yanked back into her throat. “Its hard.”
“The most important things usually are,” Lisa said, and Taylor knew there was some truth to her words. It sounded like something her mom would say, back when she was still alive.
Melancholy swelled. Taylor pushed away the emotions but kept the dregs, letting the phantom of pain linger in her chest like the ghost she used to want to be.
Lisa gave her arm a gentle squeeze, then tugged her forward. “Come on. I’m actually kind of hungry so we can get something to eat afterwards. You’re paying.”
“Why me?”
“Because I get the feeling if you don’t, all that money I gave you is just gonna sit under your mattress,” Lisa suddenly paused. “Oh, you actually hid it there? Man, we’re gonna have to take you through Villain 101 if you’re gonna make it in this business.”
Her words made Taylor pause. That was right; she was a villain now, wasn’t she? An Undersider.
The thought made her feel strange.
They moved through the crowd, Lisa navigating the throngs of shoppers like they weren’t even there. The blonde seemed to know exactly when to speed up, when to slow down, which gaps in the foot traffic would close and which would open. Taylor just tried to keep up, her longer legs proving surprisingly useless in the packed space.
The store Lisa led her to was one of those trendy boutique places that Taylor never would have set foot in on her own. Racks of clothing lined the floor, organized by color in a way that made Taylor’s head hurt Soft music drifted from hidden speakers, and there was a flowery fragrance coming from somewhere nearby.
Upon stepping foot in the store, Lisa immediately made a beeline toward the back where a seemingly random selection of clothing had been put on display. She stopped in front of one piece in particular, gazing at the price tag and clicking her tongue. “Only ten percent? Like anyone else could afford to spend that much money on a piece like this. Whatever. I’m taking it.”
She was pulling it on just as Taylor walked up behind her. It was a nice jacket, Taylor supposed, though her sense of fashion had never been the best.
“What do you think?” Lisa turned and fanned her arms out, waiting for a verdict.
“It’s nice,” Taylor said.
“Just nice?”
Taylor just shrugged, not sure what to say. Lisa pouted.
“I’ll buy it anyway,” she decided, and headed toward the register, hanger in tow.
Taylor trailed behind her, hands shoved into her pockets. The store was warm, almost uncomfortably so, and the music was the kind of bland inoffensive pop that played in every retail space she’d ever been in. She found herself studying the other shoppers—a woman with a stroller arguing on her phone, a pair of girls who couldn’t be older than twelve whispering to each other over a rack of tops, a tired-looking employee refolding the same stack of shirts for the third time.
None of them spared her a second glance.
It was... nice. Being invisible in a crowd. No whispers, no pointed laughter, no sticky notes left on her desk. Just the anonymous shuffle of strangers who had no idea who she was and no reason to care.
Lisa was at the register now, chatting with the cashier as he rang her up. Taylor caught snippets of the conversation, and marveled at just how easily Lisa managed to connect with people. Was it part of her power, or was that just how she was?
Taylor shifted her weight from one foot to the other, before wandering over to a stand full of sunglasses. She found a pair and slid them on, catching her reflection in the small mirror mounted on the stand.
The girl staring back at her looked... tired. Her skin was a shade too pale and there were dark circles under her eyes that were evident even from behind the sunglasses. Her hair looked messy. That probably hurt the most.
Is that what I look like now?
The thought brought with it a familiar pang of self-loathing and she let it sit for just a moment before it trickled away into the void. The girl in the mirror looked the same as before, but something in Taylor’s chest felt the smallest bit lighter.
She put the sunglasses back.
Lisa appeared at her elbow, a shopping bag dangling from her wrist. “You ready? I’m starving.”
Taylor nodded, letting Lisa lead her back out into the mall’s crowded walkway. Lisa kept up a steady stream of commentary as they went, pointing out stores she liked, making snarky observations about the mannequins in the window displays, gossiping about the people around them. Taylor found herself listening and nodding along every now and then.
It was strangely easy, being around Lisa. She didn’t expect anything of Taylor that Taylor wasn’t able to give. In the beginning, during that first week at the loft, Taylor wondered what the girl’s motivations were. Was she just a charity case, a way of making Lisa feel good about herself? Now she knew; Lisa was just a good person. Better than she thought she was, at least.
They ended up at a pretzel stand in the food court. Lisa ordered a giant soft pretzel and a lemonade, while Taylor got a bottle of water. They found a small table near the edge of the court, far enough from the crowds that the noise wasn’t as bad.
Lisa tore off a piece of pretzel with big salt crystals and popped it into her mouth. “So... How are you doing?”
Taylor considered the question. “I don’t know.”
“That’s fair.” Lisa took another bite. “I’m happy you agreed to come out with me. You’re more present than normal too.”
Present. That was one way to put it.
“I’m trying,” she said.
“I know you are.”
Taylor took a sip of her water, letting the cool liquid ease the dryness in her throat.
“Why are you doing this?” she asked suddenly. It was a question that had been bothering her for a while.
Lisa tilted her head, a piece of pretzel halfway to her mouth. “Hm?”
“Hanging out with me. I mean—” Taylor fumbled for the right words. “I know I’m not... easy. To be around. I don’t talk much. I don’t really do anything anymore. So why do you keep—”
Taylor cut herself off, the words strangling themselves to death in her throat. She’d let her mind get ahead of her and now her chest was a roiling storm of emotions that she couldn’t handle and didn’t want to. Anguish and Dread feasted on the mass of self-loathing until their was nothing left, and Taylor felt normal again.
Across from her, Lisa frowned deeply but didn’t comment. Taylor was thankful.
“Because I like hanging out with you,” Lisa answered her question with a shrug.
Taylor stared at her. The words didn’t make sense. They were English, certainly, and she understood each one individually, but together they formed a sentence that refused to make sense to her.
“Why?”
“What do you mean, why?”
“I mean...” Taylor’s hands wrapped around her water bottle, the plastic crinkling under her grip. “Why would you want to hang out with someone who’s so...”
Broken.
She trailed off, unable to say it out loud. Lisa picked up on it anyway, like she always did. Her eyes softened, and she out her pretzel down, focusing entirely on Taylor.
“You’re not broken, Taylor.”
“I’m—” Taylor started to protest, but Lisa held up a hand.
“You’re hurt and dealing with things the only way you know how. Sure the way you’ve found isn’t healthy, but that doesn’t make you broken.”
Lisa’s words hung in the air between them, and Taylor didn’t know what to do with them. She didn’t know how to tell Lisa that she felt like half a person sometimes and the shell of one the rest.
“You don’t know what it’s like.”
Something blinked behind Lisa’s eyes and she leaned back.
“Maybe not exactly,” Lisa conceded. “But I know what it’s like to feel like you’re drowning in your own head. Compartmentalization is part of the job, but you can’t throw away everything that makes you who you are just because it hurts. Coasting isn’t living, Taylor.”
Taylor couldn’t respond. The words Lisa was saying were too close to things she didn’t want to think about, feelings she didn’t want to acknowledge. She stared at the table, at the water bottle in her hands, at anything except the girl across from her.
“Hey, look at me.”
Taylor didn’t want to, but Lisa had asked, and somewhere in the hollow space inside her chest, Taylor found that she didn’t want to disappoint her.
Taylor looked up and into Lisa’s eyes which were green and earnest and filled with a pain that Taylor wasn’t sure she was even responsible for.
“I know it hurts,” Lisa said softly. “With your power, it’s probably easier to shove it all away and pretend you’re empty. But you’re not empty, Taylor; you’re just scared, and that’s okay.”
Taylor opened and closed her mouth, searching for something to say. Emotions swelled inside of her and fell away as she fought to keep it together.
The noise of the food court swelled around them like white noise. A child squealed somewhere behind them, followed by a hush from their parent. Life continued on, oblivious to the fact that Taylor Hebert was sitting at a small table in the middle of a mall, trying to remember how to be a person.
For a second, Taylor thought she might cry. The feeling surged up from somewhere deep, pressing against the back of her throat and burning at the corners of her eyes. It wasn’t sadness, or at least she didn’t think so, but it was too much.
Lisa chewed on her pretzel, watching Taylor as she sent the emotions away and got ahold of herself. After a moment, she stood up, popping the last of her pretzel into her mouth.
“Come on,” she said around a mouthful of bread. “Let’s walk. I want to check out the music store before we go.”
Taylor nodded, and stood, tossing her water bottle into a nearby trash can, and followed Lisa back into the crowd.
The somehow felt busier, but Taylor knew that was because they’d just come from the food court where fewer people were. Taylor kept close to Lisa, her shoulder occasionally brushing the other girl’s as they navigated the press of bodies.
They passed a window display of dresses that Taylor barely glanced at, a store selling overpriced phone cases that Lisa made a snide comment about, and a kiosk peddling miracle skincare that was way too strong. Taylor found herself relaxing, just a little, as Lisa kept up a running commentary on everything they passed.
It was nice.
The thought came unbidden, slipping through the cracks before Taylor could catch it. She let it sit for a moment, turning it over in her mind like a stone in her palm.
It was nice. Being here with Lisa.
The thought spurred something else. She held onto it, letting the warmth settle inside of her just like she had with her dad, feeling it in its entirety. Melancholy and contentment mixed in equal measure, a cocktail of pleasure and pain that sat like a rock in her heart.
It was terrifying, but Taylor kept it all the same