The friendship, the pact, or a few clothes, my self-appearance… I stood looking, admiring the fabrics, the textures, as the pact replayed in my head.
But our friendship was over, wasn’t it? Hadn’t it been ended by her, herself? But with these clothes I knew any friendship remaining was set to be terrorized and demoted to a state of acquaintanceship.
I admired the clothes, a chance to look nice even if I didn’t feel nice, maybe it would be a cold shock to her, but she had left me all alone…
“Do you like this one?” My mom had asked picking up one of the t-shirts with printed flowers bordering the edges of the pink cloth.
I nodded my head, I couldn’t answer out loud, I was speechless. I couldn’t say no that would be a lie, I did like the t-shirt. While my head kept nodding I remembered our friendship, the times we had spent just laughing, playing, and being carefree, and the day we had made the pact.
“Do you like any of the others?” my mother asked, indicating the two for twenty sale. I examined the row of t-shirts all screaming the standards to which we had boldly promised to stand against.
I picked up an orange t-shirt, which had a shade so rare in nature I had only seen it in a few squash blossoms and sunsets. A sense of summer surged through my veins and I tried to block out the murmurs of the pact ringing through my ears:
I promise never to buy or support in anyway the designer clothes industry. This includes all clothes with labels brightly advertised on you, claiming your body as their source of free advertisement. Aeropostle, Abercrombie, American Eagle, Hollister, Nike, or Addidas shall forever forward be banned from our wardrobes.
These shirts didn’t have the obvious obnoxious labels though I told my nagging conscience, as if this would make it any better.
Another tank top, blue floral print, with a tie around bow in the back, a double layered necklace, constructed of ivory tinted seashells, and a medium sized rainbow colored bracelet, just added to my guilt.
We walked to the check-out counter, and took a spot in line behind a mother, her daughter, and son. The daughter acted bratty, stuck-up, and ego centric, whining to her mother, while not even bothering to take her eyes of her cell phone. It was what we had stood against, those attitudes, what we had vowed to never become a part of.
The clerk spoke in a perky, high-pitched, friendly voice, whose slight annoyance helped me to drown out the murmurs of ethics, my sense of right and wrong, this moral dilemma I had not beat. The clerk put all my new belongings in a bag, as my mother swiped her credit card, and I just looked on palely with a sense of regret, as I murmured, “Thanks…”
I walked out of the store with my bag in my hand, a brightly colored advertisement for the entire world to see.
Would I finally fit in, would my troubles all cease and mute? One thing was sure for now; the newest challenge wasn’t going away anytime soon.
I tried on the clothes when I got home, but inside I knew, I was still the same girl who had been ditched by her best friend, whose height was to small, and whose voice was to quiet, I was still the same…