(Just so everyone's clear: taking this seriously may cause permanent damage to your faith in humanity.)
The Idyll in the Parking Lot and the Epic in the Third-Story Food Court
Introduction: The Happiness of a Young Girl
The mall: nothing brought Cosette more joy than seeing that towering brick complex appear on the horizon. She would squirm in her seat and her chattering would increase in pitch while her papa frowned intently at the road ahead. All teenaged girls loved the mall, but it meant something more to Cosette. It meant a respite from the monotony of her life; it meant freedom. The house she shared with her papa was quiet and secluded. She was home-schooled, and she didn't have any friends her age. But when she was at the mall she could watch the other girls who swarmed by in every direction, taking note of their hair and clothes and accessories. She could talk with store clerks about perfume and the weather. She could imagine herself at a slumber party surrounded by friends or eating ice cream in the passenger seat of her boyfriend's car. Things suddenly became possible.
"You'll call to check in with me in two hours?"
"Yes, Papa," Cosette answered distantly. She was watching the girls who crowded around the entrance with cigarettes in hand.
"And whenever you want to come home, just let me know?"
"Yes, Papa."
"Alright," he said, having run out of reasons to stall. "Have fun, my dear." He surreptitiously slipped a few bills into her handbag.
Cosette bounded gleefully toward the revolving doors, pausing but briefly to look at the familiar sign taped to the glass. It displayed the grainy black-and-white photo of a man, under which the words were printed:
24601
CAUGHT SHOPLIFTING
DO NOT ALLOW INSIDE
IF SIGHTED, REPORT IMMEDIATELY
Copies of this notice were posted throughout the mall. Cosette felt peculiar each time she saw the man's sad expression, almost familiar to her, but she shrugged it off as a cute pair of sandals caught her eye.
We have said that all teenaged girls loved the mall, but we must amend this statement. There were those who experienced quite the opposite of Cosette's euphoria. It wasn't that they lacked a love of joy and liberty; but for these unhappy girls, such things were not to be found at the mall. Observe, a dark and noisy alcove looming ominously beside the sunny food court. Inside, you will find one such girl, for whom the mall represents drudgery and an endless barrage of emotional torment. The dark place is Hot Topic, and this girl is the cashier.
The manager approached, slim, pale and sneering. "Make yourself useful, won't you?" he growled. "That is, unless you'd rather go and work over there." He gestured toward the store across the way, whose dimly lit entryway the girl had just been staring into. Flustered, she immediately snapped her attention back to the powdered face of her superior. How could she be caught gazing at Abercrombie & Fitch – again?
"And turn that shit down," the manager added before returning to his duties.
"But this is my song!" the girl groaned, casting another glance at the far-off shop display.
Cosette, too, found herself enamoured with that particular spot in the mall. She, however, did not hesitate to enter and rarely could she resist browsing their selection of jeans. Oh, she had always liked the store, indeed, but only in the last few months had it acquired a special meaning for her; the reason she was continually drawn to this spot, why she continued to journey to the mall at all.
For Cosette had fallen in love for the first time in all her fifteen years.
He was not like the other Abercrombie models. Oh, sure, he was nude and indolent as the rest, but Cosette knew there was something essentially different within his soul. He had none of the arrogance that the others exuded. His blue eyes (monochromatic in the photograph, of course, but in Cosette's mind they were a bright indigo) betrayed sensitivity, innocence. She even thought she could sense a shyness, which made sense to her; what kind of person could avoid feeling slightly embarrassed by inflated images of their exposed flesh being distributed across the country? Yes, the faintest blush seemed to grace his smooth cheek, mirroring the one that came to Cosette when she saw the way his dark curls lingered just above his shoulder, as if they were as desperate as she to reach out and touch.
Now Cosette spent as much time outside the store as in, because His picture graced the entryway, and it was better to gaze at him than to pass him by.
Presently, she heard the unmistakable whirring of a scooter. Oh no! It was that mall cop with the muttonchops, come to yell at her for loitering again! She lovingly looked back one more time before scurrying along to buy a smoothie and calm her nerves.
Unbeknownst to Cosette, she was being watched from the parallel corner of the food court. How could she have realized that as she sipped her smoothie a young man's entire world was crumbling to dust and rebuilding itself again?
"Marius? Alright there?"
"Uh." The boy spun around on his stool and faced his friend, who was working behind the counter. "Sure. Yeah. Look, I should go check in at the hotel, my room is probably ready. Call me when you're done with work, okay?" And without waiting for an adequate response, Marius disappeared, heart pounding.
Thus, we begin our tale.