Unconditional Validation

Chapter 7

"It's okay, man," Justin smirked at me for being all flustered.

He looked down at my phone. Apparently I forgot to exit out of the page where I was looking at shoes! I quickly locked my phone, so he doesn't see it anymore.

"Looking for new shoes?" Justin asked me curiously with a smirk.

"Y-Yeah!" I stammered hoping he wouldn't figure it out. I was bad at covering it up because he did figure it out.

"That's cool! I gotta head to my next class!" Justin smiled at me.

Before he could fully walk away from me, he turned around for a second, "By the way my shoe size is fourteen" He winked before turning around again.

I stood there, pretty shocked from what had just happened. Almost forgetting to go to class, I shook off the state I was in and booked it down the hall. I started texting my sister and our friends if they wanted to go to the Garment District in the city after school to do some shopping. As always, they told me they wanted to come with me.

Once the school day was finally over, I headed out to the parking lot to meet Skyler at her car. We were going to meet America and Meghan over at the Garment District so there was no need to wait up for them. As I was about to walk out of the building, I bumped into someone that I didn't want to. Thank the heavens it wasn't Killian this time. It was our other sibling, Ryder! My eyes widened because people would totally recognize that we look the same!

"I'm sorry! Skyler and I will meet you at home later," I whispered to Ryder.

"Yeah. Whatever," Ryder scoffed, rolled his eyes, and sulked away.

As I made it to Skyler and her car, I couldn't stop feeling bad that we kept putting Ryder in our shadow. I really wanted to invite him to our hangout, but I knew it still wasn't the right time for people to know. Skyler and I headed over to the Garment District as quickly as possible. As we were driving neither of us stopped to think about telling our parents we were heading out for the evening.

As we arrived Skyler parked the car in the parking deck, and the both of us headed towards the Adidas store. That's where I told America and Meghan to meet us. Fingers crossed that's where I'm getting Justin's present at. The Garment District is basically where a lot of clothing shops are in the city. It's a whole area right by the Hudson River.

"Oh my god, heyyy!" America exclaimed while hugging me and my sister as we walked into the store.

"We just saw you at lunch," Skyler rolled her eyes and laughed. The rest of us laughed with her.

I parted from the group to go look for the shoes I'm getting Justin. They were the new Y-3 Gendo Superstar shoes from this year in the color of cream and black. I'm hoping that they still have them in his size. As I was looking for the shoes, I started to panic because I couldn't find them! However, I saw the last pair in the size fourteen right behind the register! I walked up to the check-out area to see if I could buy them.

"Um, excuse me?" I started asking the employee that was there who was facing away from me.

"Yes?" the young woman turned around, and low and behold it was Brianna! I almost fell from the state of shock I was in.

"Oh h-hey Brianna," I stammered while rubbing the back of my neck awkwardly.

"Oh hey Tyler!" Brianna exclaimed with a big smile.

"I didn't know you worked here! No offense, I didn't know you had a job," I said awkwardly.

"It's totally fine! My parents wanted me to understand money more, so I have an after-school job! Well, besides being a cheerleader," Brianna explained to me.