A Different Kind of Therapy (Open)

[Amanda Joy "AJ" Lane]

One thing that always made AJ feel better besides buying a bunch of new books to read (which she'd already done, seeing as she was carrying a full bag from Barnes & Noble), was buying a new dress. It was getting warmer outside, which meant that maybe it was time to ditch the sweaters. She wanted a new summer dress and her paycheck from the Book Nook was going to allow for it, although it wasn't as if she bought very expensive things.

She sifted through the rack of dresses, a purple lacy one with a high neck catching her attention. She pulled it out from the rack of clothes to look at it. It was simple and pretty and would go super well with her many pairs of ballet flats.

With everything happening lately, her breakup with Travis followed by discovering Oliver was at Hammel and had been for the past year...she needed some sort of therapy that wasn't in a stuffy office. Retail therapy was already proving to be a good choice. It was for her. She wore the dresses for her. She found them to be comfortable and loved the simplicity of pastel colors.

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Angie was feeling a bit cheeky today. She’d worked a few extra hours this week which had given her a slightly larger than normal paycheck. Was it too sinful of her to want to spend it on herself for once? She hadn’t bought herself something new and pretty in a dog’s age, God would forgive her just this once if she spent her extra earnings on herself instead of putting it away for her boy’s future, right? Oh, sure he would, Angie didn’t even know what she was fussing over.

She’d been going through the clothes at one of the stores she frequented yet tried to curb herself from buying from too often(it was really hard not to). Angie only had enough for one thing, so she had to be a little bit picky on what she got.

Angie found something and smiled. She plucked it out of the rack and held the dress up to her front. “What do you think? Too much?” she asked a young brunette girl nearby. “The one you got there is nice enough, too. You should try it on!” The southern woman giggled and sent her a friendly smile.

[Amanda Joy "AJ" Lane]

AJ whirled around, dress still in hand, to see a blonde holding a dress up to her body and asking for AJ's opinion. She'd never been too good at that, shopping with others and telling them what looked good and what didn't. Honestly, she kind of failed at those social interactions. She'd had a few friends from home who were girls and when they went shopping together, AJ felt more as if she was tagging along than anything and they gave her more direction in what to buy than she did for them. Mostly, her friendship with Oliver was prominent...

And look how that turned out.

AJ scrutinized the dress that the blonde held out. "The pattern is very strong..." she mused. "So I'm not sure. I think you'd have to try it on to know for sure." She then turned to look at the dress in her own hands. "Yeah, but I tend to always buy the same thing. Lacy, high neck, in pastels. I love them, it's my style, but I always wonder if I should venture out." Speaking of, she loved the sundress the woman was currently wearing. "I like your dress. I'm a sucker for floral patterns."

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“You think?” Angie asked, looking down at the dress. Well….guess it did make her look more like a mayan princess than just a casual mom. Angie wanted to find something that other people were going to like too, so if this girl thought it was too much, then maybe she’d go for something else. Something a little bit less…noisy. “I for one think you look good in what you have. If the style works for you, why not stick to it?” It takes a person a while to find their own style. If this girl had it already, then more power to her. Angie, on the other hand, liked dresses with an open neck. It make her feel a bit more…free.

Angie squeezed the noisy dress back in the rack and started shuffling again. “I know! I love flowers. I’d put them on everything if I could.” She giggled at the idea of decorating her entire residence in floral wall-paper, a floral patterned couch, from top to bottom nothing but flowers! Her boy would have a fit if she did, though.

[Amanda Joy "AJ" Lane]

"Yeah, it's a little too...intense in the pattern," AJ told her. She shrugged at what she said next. "Guess I really didn't know if it was working for me. I never asked anyone, but it's what I like to wear." Maybe it was a little conservative, but it was classic and she loved that.

However, maybe there was such a thing as too many flowers. Dress still in hand, she sifted through the rack for another dress for the blonde.

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“You mean you never had a boy just come up and say you were cute or pretty before when you was dressing up?” Angie smiled and shook her head. She honestly believed that the girl was a cute little thing who had her own style. Just because she didn’t wear flashy outfits, low necks and short skirts didn’t mean that what she had wasn’t attractive. “Surely a pretty girl like you has caught the eye of one or two boys around town.” She snickered then followed up with, “Or girls,” as if to correct herself. After all, maybe this girl preferred them.

Angie paused a moment before extending her dainty fingered hand out to the girl to take in an equally dainty handshake. “I’m Angie. What’s your name?” she asked. They may as well introduce themselves if they were going to be chatting like this. Angie just loved making new friends of all sorts!

[Amanda Joy "AJ" Lane]

AJ laughed, a mix of nervous and awkward at Angie's question. "I mean," she stammered, thinking back to Oliver telling her how nice she'd looked on several occasions throughout late middle school and early high school, especially on the night of the dance the two attended when everything went south. "Sorta, I guess." But did it matter now? And sure, Oriel had made his fair share of comments about her looking good, but not in the way Angie was talking about. "If I'm eye catching, it's not because I'm trying to be." She shrugged her shoulders. "I wear what's comfortable and what I like. After all, clothes just accentuate what we already have, right? It's a social construct..." She was really rambling. "Oh my god, I'm sorry." Her face became slightly flushed.

"Im AJ," she decided to stay instead, shaking the woman's hand, probably not in as dainty of a way. That's not how you shook hands in Minnesota.

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“Exactly, and that’s all that matters, I think,” she said with a smile, looking the girl briefly up and down. “I think you got that kind of natural beauty, where you don’t need anything particularly special to stand out, you know.” Angie smirked and re-pulled the loud, horror dress she picked out earlier. “Betcha could even wear this kind of thing and people would only see a pretty girl.” Not just a girl in a horrendous dress.

“AJ, now that’s a nice name,” she commented as she retracted her hand. “That stand for something hun?”

[Amanda Joy "AJ" Lane]

"Thanks," AJ said, a little delayed. Mostly because she found it hard to reply to compliments. "It's a good thing too, because I really don't like to make myself stand out." It was true. She didn't want to draw attention to herself and she liked simplicity, acting or dressing any other way would just be dishonest. She looked at the dress again that Angie picked up and tried not to cringe. "Yeah, I'm not so sure about that one... I think the dress would overshadow me." That pattern...

"Amanda Joy. I don't really feel like an Amanda," she told her.

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Angie liked giving out compliments, especially to those who obviously deserved them. They just kind of fell right off her tongue. Though when they were sent right back at her, Angie had the tendency to giggle and blush like a young schoolgirl.

Angie looked at the dress again, stifling a laugh. “Somebody thought it was nice enough to try and sell…I’m not sure who, though.”

“Amanda Joy. Now that’s really quite pretty, if you ask me.” She shrugged up one of her bare shoulders. “Now, I kinda got the same thing going on with my name. Angie May, my mother used to call me. But I just shorten it to Angie because Angie May is a bit of a mouthful and, honestly, A.M.? Can you imagine that catching on anywhere?” It made her sound like a clock or something. “But Amanda is pretty on it’s own. Amanda Joy has a nice ring to it. And A.J. is nice and simple. I think you lucked you with that one.” She giggled again.

[Amanda Joy "AJ" Lane]

"Either am I," AJ said with a slight laugh. Angie was nice enough and she made AJ feel like it was okay to laugh and be silly if she wanted to. She needed someone like that. "And thank you. It's an old family name. My great grandmother was Amanda Joy as well. Although I don't think she went by AJ. I don't like being called Amanda. It's Amanda Joy or A.J." The name worked.

She found that Angie's giggle was actually quite contagious, as well as her smile. Such a bright person. It was refreshing.

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That was Angie’s philosophy in life. To always keep your chin up and try to find the good in things, no matter how bad things got. She didn’t know if she’d have survived her own ordeals otherwise, if she hadn’t kept up that state of mind. It was all she really had, at the time. “Well, I guess since you introduced to me as A.J., then I’ll go ahead and use that one.” Because people usually gave others the name that they wanted to be called upon meeting them, right? That’s what Angie always thought anyway.

Angie got herself a little smirk that came with an idea. “So A.J., humor me for a moment,” she stared, not sure if the girl would go along with her. “How do you feel about just grabbing a bunch of these here clothes, dragging them to the fitting rooms, and giving ourselves a good-ol’-fashioned catwalk show of it?” She didn’t have to, of course, Angie just thought it would be something fun to do. Definitely more fun when there was someone else with you. But she didn’t know if AJ even had the time for such a thing.

[Amanda Joy "AJ" Lane]

Shopping usually wasn't AJ's favorite thing, especially with other people. She preferred to shop by herself, find what she liked and leave. Shopping for long hours with people who could shop til they drop usually made her crabby, but she hadn't been shopping with someone else in a long time, only Adaryn and whenever they went together, it was as if they were shopping separately. They reappeared with clothes on their arms and then they checked out together. It was a good system.

But it actually sounded kind of fun, to try on a bunch of dresses and just relax with this nice woman she'd just met. She had to learn to just be carefree sometimes anyway. "Why not?" She shrugged. She already had several dresses folded over her arm.

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“That’s the spirit!” Angie gleed with a supportive, tiny fist-pump. Oh, this was going to be so much fun! Angie just loved playing dress up. Now, she wasn’t a particularly fashion conscious woman, Angie just liked to wear what she liked to wear and than admire what it looked like. And then laugh when it looked like something silly.

Angie grabbed the hideously patterned dress they both vetoed earlier and draped it over her arms, along with a few others she’d picked up with interest previously. “Well, I’d say I’m ready.” She giggled again. Angie motioned towards the fitting rooms, assuming that AJ would follow behind and secured two rooms right next to each other. It should only have taken a minute and once ready, Angie would turn to the young girl. “Alright, just let me know if you need help with anything, like zipping something up. I’ll let you know when I’m ready too.” That way they could each come out and show off one by one until they cycled through the whole lot.

[Amanda Joy "AJ" Lane]

AJ sent Angie a warm smile. Angie's attitude was contagious. She watched the blonde grab the hideous dress with the pattern again and she shook her head with a laugh. "I'm ready too." She had her own pile of dresses. "You have to model that crazy dress for me." She wondered if anybody could pull it off.

She followed her to the fitting rooms and took the one next to Angie's. "Will do," she told her. "Sounds good." This wasn't normally her thing, but Angie made it fun.