Not a Cinderella story but close

Chapter 37/ Confusion

East doesn't show up at school a couple of days after the prom incident. Fenix hasn't heard anything and North says that East won't come out of her room. (East's and North's parents were out of town for the week on business.) No one knows what's wrong, but we are all very worried. Then on Monday East shows up. We all surround her and ask her what's wrong and what happened, but East just shoves everyone away. The only person that she lets near her is Fenix, who has to shove people away to get to East. Fenix puts their arm around East and they walk to school, East head on Fenix's shoulder. 

North just tells them to give them some space and we'll figure out what's going on after school. Everyone agrees and we all walk inside. I push towards North. "Hey do you have any idea what's going on with her?" I ask. North turns to me looking tired. "No, I've asked her, but she doesn't answer, only says that when she does that she will hurt me," North says. I grab her hand. She looks up at me. "Hey we're going to get through this ok?" I say. "Ok" she says, laying her head on my shoulder. "She'll get through this too. She has Fenix." I say and we walk to class. After school none of us can find Fenix or East. Fenix's car is gone. 

"Don't worry I'll text them." I say to North as we walk out of school not finding them. "Hey where are y'all?" I text Fenix. They text back saying that they went to the park to talk. "It's fine they just went to the park to talk" I say to North. "Ok, well we might as well let them talk. So do you want to go find some pride stuff?" North asks with a wacky grin on her face. "Sure" I say, taking her hand. She drives and we go to the only pride store around the Old Navy. Ours has a little section on pride pins. I haven't gotten one because I'm afraid that my parents will see it, but I'd always wanted one. 

Me and North look around the isle for the perfect pin. "What about this one?" North asks holding up a pin with a frog holding a lesbian pride pin. "This one is better," I say grabbing a pin with a dragon on it with regular pride flag colors. "You're right that one is better," North says walking towards me to get a better look. She takes it and holds it up to the light. "Hey do they have a philly rainbow version?" North asks. I turn around and look for it. "Yes they do" I say, grabbing one and handing it to her. We do that for about thirty more minutes and we get each other's opinions on every pin that we like. We have narrowed it down to six. 

The dragon one, the frog one, a tiger with a lesbian flag pin, a nonbinary gang pin, a sword lesbian pin and a demisexual one. We got the demi one for Bow, the frog for Lace, the nonbinary one for Fenix, the dragon for North, the sword for me and the tiger for East. We go to check out and we both pay five dollars for the whole lot. Then we walk out of the store with the bag. "This should help East feel better," North says smiling and looking happy. "Why do you look so happy?" I say smiling myself. "Because I have you" She says, kissing me. "Well I'm glad" I say after. 

We head to the car and then drive to North's house. We leave the tiger pin on East's desk. Then we hang out and watch movies until Fenix and East arrive. We hear a car pull up and get off the couch to look outside. East gets out of the car looking happy and Fenix looks excited. They come through the door to me and North staring at them. All Fenix says is "She said yes". "Oh that's great!" I say. North goes and gives her sister a big hug. "I'm so happy for you," North says to her. 

We all smile at each other and then talk for a while. Then me and Fenix get into our cars and drive back to our houses. I hide the pin in my jacket. I close my eyes and brace myself to enter the house. Bailey greets me at the door. "Hey buddy" I say to the little dog at my feet. Then my mom asks where I've been. "At Fenix's house studying" I say. 

Then I go to my room, open the door and walk up the stairs to my bed. I flop on my bed and then roll on my back. I take the pin out from my jacket and look at it wanting things to be different, but you can't change everything. After prom I wished that I would have been able to change other things. Maybe this would have never happened.