Saving Me

Chapter 16: Nothings Into Somethings

Chapter 16

Nothings Into Somethings

As could be expected by my "I Wanna Change My Appearance" attitude I had acquired in the little dress shop, I didn't want to go to any fancier places. I requested to go to the more casual side of the mall. Annabel had probably assumed that I would rather be in the kind of clothes that I was used to before my experiences on Earth, but she soon found out she was wrong. Our large paper bags became filled with high-waisted jeans and cute t-shirts and, my personal favorite, black lace-up shoes. The clerk who checked them out for me called them combat boots. When she said that I smiled, thinking Michael would probably like them. 

Annabel only brought him up once during our spree. We passed a store that seemed exclusively for men's wear, and she asked if we should get Michael anything. 

"For when he comes back," she said. 

"He's not coming back, Annabel."

I stopped walking so I could face her, just a few feet from the store that reeked of too much cologne. 

"And before you say it, even if I planned on going to him, I wouldn't know where to start looking. Michael could be anywhere."

Annabel looked back with the same determination I had. I'm short, but she was shorter, and her firm gaze had to look up at me. "You two will cross paths again," she said. 

"What makes you so sure?"

Though she paused for a minute, she never broke her stare. Then she shrugged one creaky shoulder. "I just know. And if you want to be empty-handed when you meet, be my guest."

She smiled sweetly, patted my arm, and began to walk again, very sure of herself. 

Old ladies are so stubborn.

********

I was the one who brought him up the next time. 

We were in another store specializing in t-shirts. I was flicking through a rack when I happened across one advertising Metallica. It reminded me of how someone I knew illegally obtained his cell phone. 

I smiled and picked it up. 

"What would I have gotten him, anyway?"

"What was that, dear?" I could only see Annabel from the eyes up over the top of the clothes rack, but you could see in their brown that she knew darn well what I had said.

I hadn't meant to speak it aloud. 

"Um nothing." The shirt was hastily put back on the rack.

She made her way around the line of clothes to me, wrinkled smirk in place.

"Well good. Because I have no response for your nothing. The only one who can answer your nothing with a genuine something is you."

"What?"

"Nothing," she smiled in mock sweetness again, then her eyes saw the t-shirt I had just put back. "Metallica. Good band."

Then she left.

Old ladies are also strange.

********

Later that day, after I had modeled all of my new outfits for my friend and had her help me cut one lonely slit in each shirt, I thought about what she had said with the nothings and stuff. I knew what she meant: that in order for it to be meaningful, if I were to get Michael a gift I would have to be the one to choose what said gift was. Ergo, she had no answer for me. But I started to think maybe she meant it for more than my hypothetical shopping dilemma. Perhaps it was Grandma Talk for