Chapter 33
“All teens hung out at the mall,” Iris told me. “It’s a core part of growing up, so we’re going.”
I would have protested, but I knew it was futile, so I just begrudgingly got dressed and waited outside for her to pick me up, which she did, just after two.
She wore a long, silky brown skirt and a soft brown sweater.
Her hair was pulled back in a braid, with sunglasses perched on top of her head like she’d just walked out of a coming-of-age movie.
After she parked, I walked ahead of her and held the door by the mall entrance open.
Loud music met my ears. I was already regretting letting her boss me around and making me come here.
“This is your worst idea yet,” I said as we began walking past the different stores.
“That’s what you said about sushi,” she replied.
“Yeah, and then I’m pretty sure I choked on raw tuna and almost died.”
“Dark humor seems to be your defense mechanism. Why don’t you tell me more about that.”
That shut me up. She smirked. I gave her the middle finger behind my back.
“I saw that,” she told me.
“Good.” I sounded like a petulant child, but I couldn’t stop the laugh that followed from bubbling up in my chest.
We walked past the food court. It smelled like orange chicken, credit card debt, and too much cologne. I was halfway through pointing out the broken massage chair when Iris grabbed my wrist and said, “We’re here.”
I followed her gaze. Build-A-Bear Workshop.
“Oh.”
“We’re each making one,” she said, already walking toward the store.
“You’re aware that I’m an adult, right?” I jogged to catch up with her.
“By age maybe.”
She giggled and dodged when I tried to swat at her arm.
Once we entered the store, I found that it was like happiness had thrown up in here. Other than the teen employee, who looked like she hadn’t slept since Christmas, everything was so cute. Iris handed me a bear skin without hesitation. “This one looks like you.”
I stared at it. It had lopsided ears and what looked like to be a weird belly button. I thought his eyes seemed haunted and I said so.
“I think he’s adorable,” Iris redirected.
“I feel seen,” I grumbled, making her roll her eyes and laugh at me again.
“Now what?” I asked.
She smiled. “Now we bring it to life.”
Iris made me go first. I picked up a red heart from the bowl.
They told me to make a wish before I stuffed it inside my bear.
I wished that once I was gone, Iris would find time to work on her own list of goals.
I looked up to find her watching me, knowingly.
I hated it so I stuck my tongue out at her.
I was pretty sure she gave me the middle finger behind her back too.
“Naughty,” I told her. Her cheeks flushed. Then we watched as the machine puffed my bear full of synthetic joy. The worker stitched him up with quick, sure strokes, talking like a Disney princess the entire time.
“What’s his name?” she asked me.
I looked down at the bear.
“Regret.”
Iris choked back a laugh.
“And yours?” I asked as the worker finished hers—a golden-brown bear with bright button eyes and a sparkly hoodie.
She considered briefly. “Joy,” she finally told me.
“How original.”
“She’s healing your inner child. Regret needs friends.”
We stood at the register with our bears in boxes.
“You know people are staring at us, right?” I muttered.
“Good. Maybe it’ll inspire them to unpack their trauma with teddy bears too.”
We got ice cream next. I went simple—mint chocolate chip in a waffle cone.
She got some weird raspberry sorbet in a cup because she’s a monster who doesn’t like chocolate and I told her so.
She made me taste her concoction off her spoon.
I felt myself stiffen up in my pants as she fed me, and I had to make an excuse about not wanting to eat while standing so I could sit down and will it away.
We sat by a fountain in the center of the mall. Kids tossed coins in. A couple kissed on the bench across from us. The air smelled like sugar and chlorine. Iris set Joy between us. I placed Regret face-down.
“You don’t like him?” she teased.
“I like him too much,” I said. He was my very first teddy bear, but I wasn’t about to tell her that, although I figured she already knew. She didn’t laugh or judge me. She just licked her spoon and leaned against the back of the leather bench.
“This is nice,” she said quietly. I glanced at her. Her face was soft in the golden overhead light. She looked peaceful.
“You do this often when you were growing up?” I asked.
She shook her head. “I wasn’t allowed to go to the mall alone. Too many temptations.”
“Boys?”
“That and books at Barnes and Nobles. Tube tops. Bras from Victoria’s Secret. Anything that made me feel free or pretty.”
That hit harder than I expected. Her words made her feel real and less perfect in my mind, which made me like her even more. She looked at me then.
“I’m so happy you’re here. You showed up for yourself today.”
“Don’t make it weird.”
She smiled. “Too late.”
I stood, “Come, it’s my turn to take you shopping.”
She blinked, surprised. “Danny—”
“No. This is important. I can’t fix most things, but I can fix this. Come on.”
She laughed, stumbling after me. “Where are we going?”
“To commit an act of holy rebellion,” I said, dragging her straight into the lingerie store. The place was pink and way too warm. Lace and silk and satin were hung everywhere. I immediately regretted my confidence.
“You don’t have to—” she started.
“I want to,” I said, already blushing. “I’ve never bought a bra before, but I feel like I’m gonna be amazing at it.”
She smiled, eyes shining. “You sure?”
“I don’t have much,” I said, quieter now. “But I do have money. And I want you to have things you weren’t allowed to have before, just like you want that for me.”
Her smile faltered just slightly. In a good way.
We walked through the store, browsing. I pretended not to notice how close she was to me as we stood looking at the wall of bras.
She kept holding up different options. I made stupid comments like, “That looks like it would fit you well,” or “that color matches your eyes.” She rolled said eyes but didn’t stop smiling.
Then Iris picked up a matching bra and underwear set, pale lavender with little embroidered flowers.
“This one’s kind of soft and romantic,” she said.
“Sold,” I choked out.
I was suddenly imagining her in it. She looked at me. She knew. My face burned. She made me hold it while she looked through the sale basket. She was right, it was soft and silky. I’d never touched a woman’s underwear before. Did she know that too?
I happily swiped my card at the register.
“Thank you, Danny,” she told me with an almost shy smile. I felt her thank you swell up in my chest. Then we walked to the bookstore. She made a beeline for the romance section and immediately picked up a dirty book.
“Really?” I asked. Her grin was mischievous. “You said books and bras.”
“I thought we were doing, like, Little Women, not… Hot Vicar of Lust Village or whatever this is.”
She held it up. “Healing comes in many forms.”
I stared at the book about two hockey players who fall in love.
Then at the pink bag holding her new underwear.
Then over at her. And I realized I was strung the fuck out on her.
Not just in a “wow, she’s beautiful” way, but in a I might never recover from this way.
In a Holy shit I think you may have actually changed me way.
“Buy all the sex books,” I stumbled over my words. We both blushed.
“I’ll read them to you,” she promised.
“I know how to read, just Iris,” I grumbled.
“Sure you do.”
Later, we went on the carousel. It was her idea.
Of course it was. It creaked and groaned like this may be its last ride before it croaked, and the horse’s paint was chipped in many places.
But it was mostly empty, and the music was soft and nostalgic.
She picked a white horse with roses painted on the saddle.
I picked the black one behind hers—mostly so I could watch her.
She turned in the middle of the ride to say something but stopped when she caught my gaze on her.
The look she gave me was soft, amused, and curious.
It made something inside of me tilt. The horses rose and fell, and I couldn’t stop staring.
She laughed at something the operator said.
Threw her head back. Her braid swung like a pendulum.
My grip on the pole tightened. I’d only wanted a few things in my life and being around her had become one of them, and I felt like I was drowning in that realization.
I didn’t know if it was good or bad yet. I didn’t know if I ever wanted to know.
We stepped off the carousel slowly. Our footsteps echoed through the mostly empty second floor of the mall.
“Do you think Regret had fun?” she asked, cradling her bear.
“He’s traumatized.”
“Match made in heaven,” she quipped as we walked toward the doors to leave.
We reached the parking lot just before sunset. Iris unlocked the car but didn’t open the door yet. I turned toward her; Regret still boxed under my arm.
“I’m not good at… this,” I said.
“This?”
“Whatever this is.”
She didn’t ask me to explain myself. Instead, she reached into her bag and pulled out a tiny T-shirt. It was meant for my bear. Pale blue with white letters: YOU ARE ENOUGH.
“Joy has one too,” she said, showing me. I swallowed hard. I looked down at the bear in my hands, a lopsided, patched-up, weird little thing.
“He’s kind of like me,” I said. “Kind of a mess.”
She looked at me, eyes steady. Then, without skipping a beat, she smiled and said, “Guess I’m stuck with both of you then.”
And something inside me crumbled in the best possible way.
I didn’t say it out loud. Of course I didn’t.
But I knew, at that moment, that I wanted to live long enough to give her more of this.
More laughter. More ice cream. More bears with trauma names and carousel rides under dying mall lights.
I wasn’t ready to say I wanted to stay alive for much longer than that, but I was starting to hope I’d still be here at least by next week.