Once Upon A Bet

/28/ Girl's night

Dedicated to TheNerd_In_Converse, thanks for the lovely support so far <33

"Hey Nova." I looked up at my name being called and saw Fawn retrieving the suntan lotion from her beach bag. "Would you mind rubbing this on me?"

"Oh, sure." I sat on my towel as well, sliding closer as she smiled and turned her back to me. Careful to avoid the sand, I stood on my knees for a better angle and very gingerly started applying the lotion on her shoulders.

"Again with the sun cream?" Avery snorted on the towel before us, lifting her sunglasses to her hair but kept her eyes closed as she laid there chilling. "There wouldn't even be a sun you need protection from in, like, an hour."

"So? That doesn't mean I'm gonna be burnt for not being careful the last, like, hour."

I pressed my lips to stop a smile as Avery groaned at the mock of her previous statement. Their dynamic was so confusing to me. Both girls were clearly friends, they have a complicity and give off that vibe, but they were constantly taunting each other, playfully, but still more aggressive than the ideal model of a friendship I had when growing up.

Dalia and I, used to be quite the opposite, we used to show off as a solid pack, what she thought was my law and vice versa. Demonstrating a disagreement in public would mean a flaw in our perfectly constructed image. We couldn't afford that. Even our child-selves knew we couldn't. We were taught to be nothing but perfect, so openly bickering with each other in the eyes of the world would be like kicking ourselves.

Yet here where Avery and Fawn, taunting, mocking, laughing all the time at their own 'flaws' and yet they still look more solid than anything Dalia and I ever projected. And the same attitude I'd seen in Shawn and Jake, and the camaraderie within the guys in the Well House... How does that make any sense? I've tried all my life to be spotless and kept driving people away when everyone was perfectly imperfect and in that casualness relied their identity.

Maybe that was why I was void? Because I'd struggled so much to be someone others could feel proud of and now I got absolutely no clue who was really I underneath all that.

And yet, for some reason, they had asked me to have this girl's day with them.

Today had been officially the most casual and weird day I had in the past months. I woke up early to find that Avery had dropped by earlier, just as I was having this lovely breakfast time with my mother, tense and silent as she flipped the newspaper and pretend I wasn't there if it wasn't to make remarks like 'sit straight' and judgemental looks while I eat my cereal. I was almost sure another diet was coming soon. It'd been over a month since my last one and Avery's likes in trying new restaurants was surely paying off considering my mother's pursed brows.

 The only reason she was okay with me hanging out without prior notice was because she liked Avery, she saw our building friendship as a way to launder my horrible reputation. After the horrible exposition, they dragged me to a few other events to meet some more bachelors, but every experience was tedious and anxious. Luckily, even if I could tell some knew about my scandal, no one openly pointed out like Keith and Roy did.

My mother kept pushing Dalia in my life, since she was the epitome of perfection and her presence would definitely mean I was heading in the right direction. But in her eyes, Avery did have somehow a similar effect too. What she didn't expect was that once out the state, Fawn was waiting in the car and we all headed to the west side. I could only imagine how would she react if she knew my real plans were far from some respectable tea party with the Starlan's heiress.