"Don't you have to be 21 to be Forever 21?" I ask Christina.
"It's just the name of the store Tris, calm down." she says. I look around and almost everyone in here is either of high school age or like 30.
"There is a lot of people that aren't 21 in here."
"It'll be okay Tris." she says looking through a rack of dresses. She looked through a few, gasps, and then pulls one out. "Ooh this one is super cute. You have to try it on." She shoves it at me. It's black, sleeveless, and looks like it's supposed to go to the middle of your thigh, but with my height it probably would go down to my knees. She gives me the puppy eyes and starts pleading. "Please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please!" I try to ignore her, but it's hard when she's all up in my face saying please over and over again.
"Fine, I'll try it on," I say with a laugh, "But it doesn't mean anything. I'm not going to buy it." I grab it from her and head towards a dressing room. It takes me a few minutes for me to find an open room, because I need a worker to open it but a worker is never there. And then it took the worker a minute or two to find the right key. Then it took me a while to get the dress on. I almost forgot how to put one on, I hadn't worn one in so long. I never went to prom or homecoming and even at my graduation I wore pants. I was struggling to get it over my head until I realized that there was a zipper. I unzipped it and made things a lot easier. I had to smooth my hair down because my struggle made it stick up a little bit. Wearing a dress felt so odd chills went up my arms and I was starting to get goose bumps. I didn't even bother looking at myself in the mirror before darting out of the room to show Christina. I figured she knows more about fashion than I do.
"Ta da!" I say as I walk out, posing for Christina.
"It's about time!" She says, her back to me looking at some shoes, and then she turns, "Oh my gosh Tris I love it! You have to buy it." she comments.
"You've got to be kidding."
"What you don't like it?"
"I don't know I didn't look, but I'm just not a dress person."
"Oh, whatever. Every girl is a dress person deep down. You have to get it, you look amazing in it. It's like it was made for you." she says. I roll my eyes and turn to go back into the room to look at my reflection. Now I know what she was talking about. The dress wasn't too tight, but it wasn't baggy either. It hugged my body so it looked like I had a figure, instead of what I usually wore which made me look like a ruler. I hate to admit it, but I actually kind of loved it. I shut the door and started changing back into the black tank top and the shorts. Re-dressing took at lot less time than putting on the dress. At this point there was no point in saving my hair. It was all frizzed up so I just threw it up into a bun with a hair tie I always keep on my wrist. I look in the mirror one last time before I check out. I look like a whole new person. Hell, I feel like a new person and I've only been in college for like five hours. I grab the dress and shove the door open.
"I guess I'll get it," I say but quickly add, "but it's just to make you happy. It's not like I like it or anything." I say, not telling the whole truth. Christina smirks.
"You're lying, I can tell! You love that dress. You want to take that dress out on a date, buy it a nice dinner, and marry it. That's how much you love that dress!"
"Okay, first of all, no. Second of all, NO! And third, how did you fricken know?"
"My mom believed in telling the truth all the time and she taught me to tell when people are lying."
"Sounds handy." I say.
"It actually is. You have no idea how many times that has helped me. Now, go pay for that dress, and then we are heading to Sephora." she announces.
"What in the world is Sephora?" I ask. She smiles devilishly.
"Make up." She says and drags me towards the check out counter. The checkout lady gives me a look like, 'what kind of planet have you been living on?' but I just ignore her.
"No amount of make up is going to make me pretty." I say with a sigh.
"Who cares about pretty? A lot of girls who wear make up aren't pretty, even with it on. I'm going to make you noticeable. Like as soon as you walk into a room everyone looks at you."
"Well, good luck with that. I could ride a T-Rex on a tight rope into a room and I still wouldn't be noticed" I say.
"I don't need luck, it's my talent. Next time you walk into a room people will be all like 'Who's she? She looks cool, lets go be friends with her!'" She says. I roll my eyes and laugh at her as I swipe my credit card and sign my name on the pad thingy. The check out girl prints the receipt, tears it off, shoves it in the bag, and then shoves the bag at me all in one swift motion.
"Have a nice day." She says.
"You too." I say and we head out the door. As we walked Christina babbled on and on about all the good stores we passed.
"Here it is." Christina said when we reached the store. She was smiling and gesturing to it. "What are you waiting for? Go in!"
"All right, all right. Give me a second, I need to bask in it's glory."
"Damn right you do, but you can do that later. Let's go!" She said. She grabbed my wrist and pulled me into the store. Honestly, I had never seen so much makeup in one place. My parents wouldn't buy makeup for me and my mother only wore a little bit of foundation. There were things in this store I never knew existed. My mouth was wide open in shock. I was never one for makeup but this store was astonishing. I loved it.
"Ooh, come here!" Christina said to me. She was holding a pencil thing. I'm pretty sure that it's eye liner.
"What are you going to do?" I ask suspiciously.
"I'm going to put it on you, what did you expect? Now, come over here!" She said. I saw a ton of tester products and if that was what she was going to put on my eye, it would be kind of disgusting.
"No! Do you know how many people have used that? That's gross!"
"Oh, calm down. I already bought it for me, but I want to see what it'll look like on you. Now, will you come here please." I thought about it. I mean, really, what's the worst it's going to do? I shrugged.
"Fine." I gave in. I walked towards her slightly fearful and let her put the eyeliner on me. It felt really weird and I didn't know what to think of it but before I could think about it anymore it was over. I opened my eyes and looked in the mirror. The eye liner makes my eyes brighter. If my parents saw me with eye liner on and saw all of the clothes Christina made me buy today they would have a heart attack.
"What do you think?" She asked. She was smiling.
"I really like. I feel like a new person." I say, grinning. Christina laughs.
"See? By the way, I think it makes you look striking." She says tilting her chin up and smiling. I jokingly stick my tongue out at her.
"Come on, now I got to buy some of this stuff too." I grab a pencil and go to the cash register.
"Is this all for you today?" The register person asks.
"Yep."
"All right, here you go. Have a nice day." She hands me the bag and quickly runs to the other side of the store. I guess there was an issue with some nail polish. I think someone dropped one and now it's everywhere. I feel someone grab me and pull me away. It was Christina.
"Let's go Tris." She says, rushing out of the store. She looks panicked.
"Dude, what's the problem?" I ask.
"It was me. I turned around and my purse hit some of the nail polishes." I started to laugh.
"Great going Chris." I say.
"Shut up! Let's go." She's clearly embarrassed, but I'm still laughing. After we couldn't see Sephora anymore she started to calm down.
"It's not that big of a deal." I said.
"Some got on my pants." She says looking down, pointing at where she got hit. It only makes me laugh more.
"You'll be fine. Honestly, it makes you look edgy, you know with paint splattered pants." That made her smile.
"Shut up." She said, pushing my shoulder lightly with a laugh.
"Okay, so even though I loved our time at the mall, can we go now?" I ask.
"I guess, especially now that I was publicly embarrassed in one of my favorite stores. Let's go." She said.