High Alert

It wasn’t me who noticed it. It was Charlie and Amy. Although Charlie was the first person to mention it, Amy was the first person to understand it.

“Why is the security guard following us around?” Charlie asked. Her question was blatantly rhetorical, as she shouted it loudly, while looking over her shoulder at the security guard, who was indeed following us, and making no attempt to hide it. He was almost directly behind us, to the point where, if we had change direction and spun around one hundred and eighty degrees, he would’ve walked right into us.

“He thinks Rachels stealing,” Amy answered, her tone bored. “Haven’t you noticed that we can walk around any shop normally until Rachel speaks, and then immediately a security guard follows us around until we leave.” Then without warning she turned and addressed the security guard directly. “You know it’s not okay to discriminate against somebody because of their accent don’t you?”

He stared back emotionless, and didn’t respond.

“Fuck this shit,” Amy said. “I was actually shopping here. Like, I was actually going to give you people my money, but I’m fed up with this bullshit, so I’ll go give some other business my money,” she put the clothes she had draped over her arm down, and stormed out of the shop.

Me and Charlie followed, neither of us saying a word.

I had never noticed it before, but after that I did, and it made me afraid to speak in public.