Out and About (OPEN)

[Ceri McKay]

To say that work had eaten up all of Ceri's time would be an understatement. She'd been at 'Sil's day and night always baking or cleaning or both. The girl never stopped. She'd come home late and barely talk with her family because they were all either asleep or just about ready to fall asleep. She was running herself ragged and after going to the doctor's for a check-up on her OCD and to get a new prescription that was supposed to help more, she had been told that it wasn't good for her. She needed some time to relax and have fun.

Fun? That word hadn't been in her vocabulary since she was in high school. The word fun didn't really pertain to her anymore and once the doctor told her to have fun...she blanked. Usually Linden would have been extremely helpful in this case, but she was still a little irritated with him and didn't feel like asking for his help. His idea of fun was getting wasted at a frat party and she refused to do that. So what did she plan on doing to have 'fun?' Go to the mall and shop for a new pants-suit. The girl really needed to get a dress, a spunky dress that would make her want to go out, but she was a little too timid for that now. Ceri had taken a complete 180 since high school and sometimes she wished she could go back.

At least for a little while.

She'd taken the day off, and to no surprise Basil hadn't minded at all. He was still battling a nasty bug and Matt was hell bent on making sure that the older man was not in the shop at all. Ceri had made several different things for customers if they happened to want anything and she'd told Matt how to serve and/or deal with anything, but just in case, she had checked it out before heading towards the mall. Workaholic much?

She was finally at the mall and had no idea where to start. Ren had always passed stuff down to Ceri, not that they were really the same size, but their mother was good at fitting clothing, so they made it work. Rarely did Ceri ever get anything too new, even though they could afford an entire wardrobe for every child. She didn't particularly like shopping. Especially at such a public place like the mall, but it had the best deals according to a few girls who had come into the shop once. So why not give it a try? It was really just a test to see if her new medication worked better. She hoped there would be no nagging thoughts of cleaning and such, but there was only one way to find out.

To the first store she went, and almost immediately, she bumped into someone.

[Jessica Pruitte]

Shopping wasn't Jessica's first choice for stress relief, but sometimes a girl had to get new clothes when the old ones didn't fit anymore. She hadn't heard from her mother in months, and had managed to dodge the Kenney-Pruitte dinner at Christmas, but she'd gotten a credit card in the mail with a short note about how any Pruitte had to look the part and that she was to get new clothes and stop wearing things from four seasons ago.

Who was she to turn down suddenly having cash. Not that she couldn't have gotten it on her own. Both of her parent's accounts were an open grab for someone with Jess' abilities. She'd memorized the electronic route into and out of them fairly quickly; one of the best bits of control she had but didn't dare display to Hotty McHawtHot. Either way the freely given money was a bonus and she had needed to buy new jeans. And a Sedine action figure for Jared as a means of mourning for the Canuck's latest loss.

And so she was at the mall, several pairs of jeans picked out to try on, some t-shirts, and nothing her mother would approve of, but then The Dutchess as Tiffany Kenney-Pruitte was called in her social circle, wasn't there to enforce the Pruitte dress code.

Sorting through a rack of shirts, Jess was nudged with a bump as someone wasn't paying full attention to where they were going.

"HEY!" turning on her heels to face the rude creature who'd run into her, Jess narrowed her eyes briefly before really taking the other person's appearance in.

Ugh, maybe she had a mini seizure or something. The thought rolled through Jess' mind as she reached out a hand. "You okay? Not gonna fall down and start foaming at the mouth are you?" She didn't look like she was having a seizure, but Jess didn't really know much about the whole medical thing.

[Ceri McKay]

Had it been any other day, Ceri would definitely have been better off. She'd be focused and not so out of it. The past few months had been slowly worsening. Worsening in the medical department and worsening in her relationship with her brother. He was trying so hard to get back in her good graces but she had no intention of letting him back in so fast. She always let him get away with everything and now she was cracking down. He forgot her birthday! He'd been to every single one for the past two decades and he forgot! She couldn't just forgive him after that. Especially since the reason he forgot was because he was out partying with his friends when he should have been taking her out for her first legal drink.

It was frustrating going through both medical problems and family issues. The more stressed out she was the harder it got to not go on a cleaning rampage. When she was stressed, everything was dirty. It didn't matter how many times she cleaned something, she'd got over it repeatedly until someone stopped her or until she just gave up. Her disorder was at it's worse and she had no one to go to besides her siblings, but none of them understood the way Linden had.

As she looked around, whipping her head back and forth in a jerky motion, she hadn't seen anyone in front of her and she accidentally bumped into a girl. She turned around fast and her eyes widened with guilt, "I'm so sorry! I didn't see you, nor was I paying attention. I really didn't mean to." Her words tumbled out quickly and all pushed together because she really hadn't meant for that to happen.

The girl looked like the type of girl who shopped a lot. As in, too much according to Ceri. She just didn't understand the point in wasting money on a new outfit every few weeks or days depending on how crazy about shopping the person was. She'd occasionally walk through stores, but nothing more than glance around at styles.

The girl she'd bumped into looked at her as if she were a freak or mentally unstable, which in some ways she was, but that was why she'd taken the medicine that would kick in at any moment. "I'm not an epileptic and I don't seize or foam at the mouth, I wasn't paying attention." Ceri said with a frown. Clearly this woman didn't know much about medical illnesses or anything for that matter.

[Jessica Pruitte]

Lifting a hand and waving the apology away as though it didn't matter, Jess was actually very quietly happy to know that someone would think to say they were sorry to her. Never mind that she'd barked at the woman first.

"No foaming? Awesome, I can deal with that." She hadn't been hurt so the little bump wasn't that big of a deal. It had been surprising, and a little on the unsettling side, but it hadn't been harmful all things considered. Besides, the woman seemed more ill at ease about it than Jess had. "And I can totally undrstand not always paying attention." She was almost constantly distracted by the bits of internet, emails, private pictures, texts, documents, or whatever that passed through her vision. It had gotten a little better since she'd been at Hammel, but Jess was far from having perfect control over what passed through and what didn't. But besides all of that, there were a lot of new fashions out this time of year, and Jess assumed the woman was looking at those and not where she was walking.

A fairly common error.

"Buuut, anyway. No harm no foul I guess. You're not seizing. I'm not bruising. I think I can forgive you." Grinning as though she were bestowing a huge favor on the woman, Jess tucked hair behind an ear and shifted her weight to the left side.