Before I start, I’d just like to address the Newton tragedy. I was horrified when I heard about it; I was in the middle of class and I started crying, honestly. It was a truly terrible, inhuman, senseless act of violence. Those twenty children and six adults should’ve been at home celebrating Christmas with their families yesterday, instead, they are in heaven. I hope that all you Americans try to help, to push for stronger gun laws. My hands are tied because I am Canadian, but please, if you are American, do something. Contact you local government representative; start a petition, do something to help.
RIP <3
“This is heaven.” I said in awe.
We were standing in Rockefeller Centre and I felt as if I was floating through cotton candy clouds. There were shoes and clothes and everything I loved everywhere I looked. It was like Christmas had come early.
“Well start shopping! You’ve got a nice paycheck to spend!” Lily laughed.
“I don’t know where to start…” I said, looking around.
“Well I know. I’m going to Forever 21. Coming?”
“Yes!” I exclaimed, hurrying after her.
I immediately loved the stores’ décor the moment I walked in. There were cute chandeliers hanging over the clothing sections with beads on them. I adored it.
“I need some new crop tops. It’s so much warmer here than in England.” Lily said, flipping through the racks.
“I know!” I said, grabbing a couple shirts, “I need a lot more casual clothes. Maybe just some tops and a couple skirts.”
“You don’t need to get anything fancy? No dinner dates with Mr. Styles?”
“We haven’t actually announced our relationship yet Lily.” I said, walking around.
“Well he’ll take you out to a lovely fancy restaurant soon and there will be papparazi so you’ll have to look good!”
“I don’t really want our relationship to be in the spotlight; Harry doesn’t either.” I said.
“There will always be people taking pictures though,” Lily said.
“I know,” I sighed, “I understand that that will always happen, but I’m not going to let the media impact our relationship.”
“I give massive props to you; I could never date someone as famous as Harry, or even be best friends with them; I wouldn’t be able to take the rumors or the media.” Lily said, holding a black top to her chest.
“He’s just Harry to me. He’s still just that boy with big dreams.” I smiled to myself.
“You guys have such a real relationship. I want one like that one day.” Lily said.
“Your prince charming is waiting for you somewhere. You’ll find each other.” I said softly, my arms filled with different colourful tops.
Lily looked thoughtful for a moment, and then smiled and looked at me, “Let’s go try these on!”
“Alright then.” I grinned and we walked towards the dressing rooms.
The attendant lazily assigned us dressing rooms and counted our items.
“Here. There are two rooms empty at the end of the hall. Don’t leave anything in them.” She said, and went back to flipping through a magazine.
I decided against calling her out for being rude, and followed Lily down the hall and to the dressing room.
“Don’t take too long!” she said.
“I promise.” I responded and disappeared into the room, careful to shut the door behind me.
I hung the articles of clothing on the hooks and decided on trying on the skirts first, since I only had three. I slipped on a coral coloured high low skirt that I immediately loved. It wasn’t too long that it dragged and was short enough to be fun and summery.
I went through all the other pieces of clothing, deciding to buy most of them. All the shirts were loose and flowy, with bright designs or words on them.
“Took you long enough.” Lily said when I finally exited the dressing room.
“Sorry.” I replied, heading to the check out counter.
I piled the clothing onto the desk and waited patiently as the cashier scanned all the items.
“Where to next?” I asked Lily.
“I’m not sure; lets just walk around a bit and go wherever.” She said.
“Okay.” I said.
“Your total is seventy nine dollars and eighty cents. Cash or credit card?”
“Credit.” I said, handing the woman the shiny credit card I had obtained for US purchases.
She handed me my bag after she rang up my purchases and I smiled at her, “Thank you.”
“Have a good day,” she responded, and we headed out of the store.
“I need to find a shop with some good dresses,” Lily said, “it’s too warm over here to wear jeans all the time.”
“I bought a bunch at Westfield before I came, so I’m good. I need some shorts though.” I said after thinking for a moment. “I want to buy a snapback too.”
“Just borrow one from that boyfriend of yours. It’ll drive him up the wall.”
“But I want one for myself,”
“He’ll never want you to take the hat off because you’re wearing something of his. It’s something with men, I don’t even know.”
“How do you know about this?”
“I’m the only girl of five children, and also the youngest. My ears aren’t too innocent.” Lily chuckled slightly.
“Really now.”
“Really.”
“I have an older sister and a younger brother, it’s nice.”
“So you’re the middle child?”
“Yup.”
“That sucks. At least as the youngest I got spoiled.”
“My parents didn’t really treat us differently. Dad tended to spend more time with Drew some days doing those father son things, but overall they didn’t favor any of us.”
“I think my Dad was always stuck between favoring my brothers or me. I was always a Mummy’s girl though.” Lily said lightly.
I laughed and we continued talking, walking through the mall, stopping at several stores to purchase items. By the end of the day, I’d bought more pieces of clothing and accessories then I cared to count. My arms were weighed down by bags and my legs hurt. Surprisingly, for once, no one had stopped me for photos. I had thought I’d seen camera flashes a couple times, but I wouldn’t know if people had actually gotten pictures until I checked twitter.
“My arms hurt so much.” Lily groaned, rubbing her forearms.
“Mine do too.” I sighed, “I feel relaxed though.”
“It’s because of the spa.” Lily laughed as she stared out of the windows of the taxi, “Did you call anybody from security to tell them we’re heading back?”
“I don’t need security.”
“Yes you do. Those girls could hurt you if they wanted.”
“I don’t want security though.”
“It doesn’t matter what you want when it considers safety. I’ll call Paul and ask him to send someone down.” Lily said, pulling out her mobile.
I sighed, defeated. I pulled my own iPhone out and opened the twitter app, figuring I could check if anybody had gotten pictures of Lily and I today. I checked an updates accounts recent tweets, and groaned when I saw pictures with the titles of ‘Jenna with a friend at Rockefeller Center today.’ and ‘Jenna in Hollister today.’
I opened the pictures and mentally groaned at them. It wasn’t that they were terrible, but it was the fact I hadn’t actually seen the people that took them that irked me. I was understanding what the boys went through more and more now.
“They got pictures of us.” I stated.
“What?” Lily exclaimed, turning to me.
“They got pictures of us shopping.”
“Do I at least look good?”
I chuckled at Lily, “You look great. Did you get ahold of Paul?”
“Yeah. He says he’ll have Andy meet us at the back entrance to get us through the crowds. Well, you actually. I’ll be fine.”
“Okay.” I murmured. I hated not being able to fend for myself. I didn’t like having to rely on security so I could get through a crowd.
We reached the hotel shortly, and I went through the back entrance of the hotel with Lily. As promised, Andy escorted us through the crowd and back into the hotel without too many problems. It was the now normal thing I had gotten used to over the past weeks.
By the time we reached our hotel room, all I wanted was a nice, hot shower, and that’s exactly what I did.
I hope you all had a fabulous Christmas! I didn’t get anything huge, but honestly, I’m just happy and very thankful that I have my family with me. The events in the past couple weeks have made me think beyond the presents and made me appreciate my family more. I’m being really sentimental, I know!
Happy Holidays!
~Shakira