Kylie picked up her brush again, but I could tell she was only pretending to get back to it. Her rhythm had been broken, and she was only staring at her half-painted canvas rather than actually working on it.
“I’m ready to go whenever,” I said. “Though traffic’s kinda rough right now. I wouldn’t have come right away if I’d realized it wasn’t anything critical.”
“I told you it wasn’t-” Kylie sighed. “Nevermind. I give up.” She brushed her hair back over her shoulders, inadvertently leaving a streak of white through it in the process. “I’ll get my other jeans and we can go. We can walk to the mall. It’s not that far.”
“The mall on the other side of town’s better.”
“How much do you honestly think that matter’s to me?”
I bit my lip and considered. “Somewhere between very little and not at all?”
“Bingo.”
I watched Kylie’s teasingly half-covered butt as she left the room. “Might want to grab a quick shower,” I called after her.
“Why?”
“Check the mirror.”
I waited, just in earshot, then smiled as she noticed the amateur highlight she’d given herself and let out a vehement, “Goddammit!”
****
Helping Kylie clothes shop was an interesting experience. I didn’t do it often, and as far as I could recall this was the first outing the two of us had taken specifically for that purpose.
Kylie walked close to me on the way there. She didn’t just stay by my side, but actually right up next to me depending on how crowded the sidewalks were at the time.
I tried to help by taking her hand and squeezing it reassuringly, but then she refused to let go afterward. Still, it got her focusing on me rather than people getting in her personal space, so it kind of worked.
Once we arrived at the mall, we ended up having to abandon the first and second stores we tried on the basis that Kylie thought there were too many other people in them. She accepted the third option, though it took some convincing.
As long as I stayed close, Kylie seemed basically fine to pick things out on her own. I tried to check out some different racks and help speed up the search, but she wasn’t having any of it.
I’d known that I’d essentially be moral support, but somehow I’d still hoped for more. Kylie was the only person I knew who actually valued moral support as a valuable and precious resource. For her, it could easily be the difference between functioning normally in public, and deciding that it was too much of a hassle and bailing on a moderately important errand.
“I might try these on,” Kylie said, holding up a pair of jeans she’d been carrying around, and another she’d only just spotted.
“Uh huh.”
She frowned and looked in the same direction I was staring. “Are you checking out that girl?”
I smiled sheepishly and averted my eyes. “Her boobs were jiggling while she was rifling through that rack.”
Kylie’s eyes shot daggers. “You’re s’posed to be here with me.”
“I am. And as soon as your boobs start jiggling like that, you’ll have my undivided attention.”
It was a risky thing to say, in some ways. Our recent interactions had pushed some boundaries, and I wasn’t quite sure where the new lines were. Still, I was quite correct in assuming that Kylie wasn’t about to make a scene.