Broken

| 8 | Hide the Affection

I walk into school wearing short sleeves. For the first time in forever, I'm wearing short sleeves to school. This kind of stuff never happens to me. A weird feeling of unknown confidence. Last night's talk with Tyler has me feeling better about myself. Something I haven't felt in awhile. I know the feeling is temporary, but I am going to enjoy it while it lasts.

I start walking to my locker, and I'm still getting stares like I was yesterday. I guess it's going to take awhile for it all to die down.

Tyler stands there at my locker waiting for me. It's getting to be a normal thing, him always being there. Strange thing is, I kind of like it.

"Morning. I see you're wearing some revealing clothes today." he says eyeing me with a small smile.

"Maybe because a certain someone last night told me I was beautiful." I say with a grin, and he steps closer to me making my entire body get goosebumps.

"The presentation is in a couple weeks. Do you think you're ready?" he asks me. I feel my heart rate speed up in my chest.

"No! I'm not even a little prepared. Look, I'm getting used to loving myself, but not this whole thing about getting up in front of the class. I have to stand in front of everyone, and I know they'll laugh at me." I ramble on and he shakes his head and closes his eyes.

"How do you know they'll make fun of you?"

"Because it's happened before.. multiple times. They make fun of what I wear because they think it's ugly clothes and they don't think I dress good or look pretty at all."

"That's bullshit. We're going shopping next week. Me and you. You're gonna get something that makes you feel pretty, and I'm gonna buy it for you."

I laugh and shake my head at him. Here he goes being impulsive again. He doesn't need to to do any of this.

"I can't ask you to do that."

"Why?"

"Because you shouldn't spend money on me."

"I don't care, Grace. We're going."

"You're crazy, you know that?" I say to him as I open my locker and put my things away. He smiles at me and gets down real close to my ear. I actually feel my heart stop beating in my chest just at the slight feeling of his lips just centimeters away from my ear with his breath sending chills down my neck all the way to the bottom of my spine.

"You love it."

Nice, Tyler. Thank you for making me choke on air.

~*~

We're driving to the mall right now. He picked me up a half hour ago, and we've been quiet since then. I don't really shop a lot. Not like this at least. Not with my crush buying me cute clothes. This is new territory.

"You ready?" he asks me as we pull up into the parking lot. Thankfully, there aren't a lot of cars, so there won't be a lot of people here to see me make a fool out of myself.

We get out of the car and walk up to the big double doors pushing you straight into Macy's. I've never been a big fan of the mall. So much stuff going on in one huge building. It triggers my anxiety and the panic attacks start. It used to be really bad in middle school, but it's gotten somewhat better throughout the years. Having said that, it has been a couple years since I've been to the mall.