“Aren’t you excited for some back to school stuff, Elena?” My mom grinned, child-like. “What’d you think if I bought you a nice A-line skirt or something? Some nice shoes?” With that, she shot a discreet glare at my torn-up jeans and cheap, old sneakers, which I refused to replace until they could no longer hold my feet.

“I’m never wearing one of those dumb preppy skirts, Mom. I’ll look like a fuckin’ future Ivy League kid.”

She pursed her lips, eyebrows knit. James patted her on the back and sat down beside us. “A compromise might be nice,” he suggested, always the meditator.

I rolled my eyes, finishing my cereal.

An hour later, my mom and I were in Pleasant Grove Mall, forever arguing.

“I swear to God!” I exhaled, loudly, angrily. “I’m fifteen! I don’t have to wear that fucking garbage!”

“You have to look respectable for school, Elena, I can’t just let you start off tenth grade looking like a bum!”

“Why can’t you? It doesn’t matter!”

“Yes, it does! How can I be the mother of an infamous freak in another town? Do I have any idea-”

“Oh, so now I’m an infamous freak, okay! Fine! Fucking fine!”

Odd glares of suburban stereotypes flashed our way. I could hear whispers, and I knew my mom could, too. But only one of us cared, and it sure as hell wasn’t me.

“Control your daughter,” “Have some decency,” “Some parents really oughta discipline their kids a little more…”

“I don’t know about you,” I said, calmer, to my mom, “but I’m going to the thrift store, okay? I can pay with my own money if you won’t buy anything for me. I don’t care.”

“Young lady, if you leave this store-”

“What’re you gonna do?” I asked as I walked out, smiling. “Ground me? I don’t care.”

She sighed and followed me into the mall’s thrift store. I bought jeans and discarded T-shirts and whatever else I wanted with my own money, until I had hardly any change left.

At the checkout, the plump, grinning cashier smiled and asked how our day was going. My mom sighed and apologized for the passive-aggressive argument that had gone down over a shirt with a curse word on it.

It was the day of back to school shopping, apparently, because the mall was packed with teenagers, all buying pencils and shoes and crap like that. Girls with perfect braids and ponytails, guys with ironed pants and short-cut hair. The scene was more horrific than the last town I’d lived in, which I thought was impossible.

“Haven’t these losers realized it’s nearly the twenty-first century?” I whispered to my mom, as we passed a trio of girls with school uniforms clutched against their chests, giggling.

“I think they have,” she whispered back. “I think it’s you who thinks this place is Mars.”

I laughed. “This place is fuckin’ Mars. Look at me! I’m a goddamn alien.”

“Please don’t swear like that- it’s a Sunday, you know.” Then, she added, “And maybe, it’s your fault that you’re an alien here.”

I shrugged. We went on with shopping for school supplies, pencils and textbooks galore.

We got home at around six, to James unpacking groceries into the new kitchen cabinets. “How was shopping?” He grinned, ever happily, at us.

“Fine,” I replied quickly, immediately heading off to my room with my new clothes, and a couple items of shoplifted makeup.

It began to rain as the sun began to set. It seemed to rain almost everyday. Talk about pathetic fallacy…