When Troy enters 8th grade, no one ever stopped. The pain goes on and on, and he still finds himself crying and in his mom's arms, like a child. He thinks he should've matured enough by now. He promised himself he would. But maybe that had been a promise he couldn't keep. The pain keeps shooting through him.

All his bullies have cool clothes on, he notices. There are all these chains and hats and slick jeans. Oh, and the shoes are always shiny. Everyone adores them. He scoffs all the time about it and recalls how that was supposed to be the girls' jobs.

But he figures that being cool gets people to like you. And Troy had enough of the pain for now, ever since he was a little kid. He's sick of it. He's sick of being hurt. He'll do anything he can to finish it off.

So the next day, he goes to the mall. It's not that far a walk from his house. It is a small town after all. He finds himself in awe at his town of Oakwood's mall. He'd never really been to one, and he feels better and independent knowing that he was let off by himself. And sure enough, he finds the same cool kids at school. They're all guys by the way, and Troy still comments on how this should be a female thing. But he goes along with it, nevertheless.

They all enter a NIKE store, and he immediately notes that as a "cool" store. He watches them from behind a tall tree just big enough to shade him off. He's still able to peer through the window without anyone seeing him. And it's like time doesn't even pass, because soon enough, all of them are walking out with new pairs of shoes, bags full of them (and he still doesn't get why on TV they show women as the shoe-lovers).

Once they are all gone and out of his sight, he slips himself into the store, the hood of his red sweater hooked onto his head. He gets slightly intimidated by the amount of older, teenage boys scoping around the store. He feels short, and weak.

But soon enough, his eyes land on a nice pair of shoes. They're red hot Nikes with the logo printed orange, and they're as shiny and slick as the boys at school's shoes. He rolls out the crumpled up cash and coins stuffed into his pocket. It's a total of $15.42. He groans internally. This was the one time he felt that he could be stopped from all the mental torture. Maybe people would like him. And he thinks about how cool those shoes would look on him. He looks around to be certain that no one was looking at him.

So he takes them off of the display and shoves them into his abnormally large pullover's pocket.

It's only a slight bulge, surprisingly. When he turns around, one of the store workers asks him if he needed any help. He says he's just looking. When the worker walks away, he's sure enough that he'd make a swift exit. So he stalls out the door, his hood still on.

And when he's at the entrance, the alarms go off right away.

He hears the manager calling, "Get that boy!" right away. So he darts off out of the store, hoping to make a sweet escape. He can't, of course. One of the security guards that always stand around the mall had blockaded him quickly. He was caught.

Seven minutes later (he can remember the exact amount of minutes), his mom rushes into the mall, frantic for her son. When she approaches him, his head is down. He feels himself crying again, but less this time. The shame fills in for it.

It's safe to say that the first time he went to a mall alone, he shoplifted.

He's sent to the security office of some sort with his mom, and he gives up the red pair of Nikes. His mom has her head rubbed against her fingers. He feels at his worst, and he knows because his mom is probably really disappointed. It's killing him inside so much. It only added on.

On the car ride home, his mom doesn't stay silent like he expects, weeping silent tears of sorrow. Instead, she gives this long, wistful lecture that Troy wants to zone out of, because he's done with this subject and hates it. But he respects his mom, so he listens to his mother's lecture.

She says "Troy, you're better than this."

That stabs him most of all. He knows that it's a lie. He doesn't deserve this. He deserves something much worse.

The next day at school, the kids have already heard about his story, and it spreads like wildfire. The kids have a bigger excuse to pick on him. He hadn't changed anything. He just made it worse.