It All Started with a Lie

Chapter 10.1

At an early age I learned that people make mistakes,
and you have to decide if their mistakes are bigger than your love for them.
~Angie Thomas

Chapter 10.1
Her POV
"What do we think of this one?" I showed my dad yet another dress option. Dress number twelve. And one Richard's little brother had just so happened to hand sew himself. It was one of my favorites.

He sighed, readjusting his spot on my bed. "It looks fine, sweetie."

I stared at my stepfather, waiting for him to add more to his sentence. He did not. "Fine? Fine! It can't look fine, baba, it has to look perfect."

He smiled, grabbing my necklace from off the nightstand, and stood to help me put it on, silently telling me that this dress was the one, or that he couldn't stand to sit through a longer fashion show. "You look beautiful, princess." He clasped the necklace, brushing my hair out of the way. "What's so important about this boy anyway? Why are you getting all dressed up for him?"

"I'm not doing this for him, I'm doing this for her, Richard. This is like meeting your significant other's parents. That's the level of stress I am under right now. I'm finally meeting her brother. He is her lifeline, her most important person, the only person in the world I come second to in Richard's mind." Except maybe my brother. "Richard may love me more than anything but this is her brother and if he hates me, I'm screwed. Everything has to be perfect." I can't disappoint Richard. She's my best friend, my person, my soulmate. I don't know what I'd do without her.

My stepdad shook his head. "But this is Richard. She loves you most."

"Yeah, but not if her brother hates me." Anyone else, sure. Richard would pummel their face to the pavement for speaking ill on my name. Her brother though, he is the only person that could ever come between us, because while I may be her soulmate, he is her ride or die. She would do anything for him. So I had to make the best impression.

"I'm sure he will love you, kidege."

Kidege. Little bird. He always called me little bird, ever since we met. I used to hate the name, eight year old me practically cussed him out for it, saying he wasn't my real father. I wanted nothing to do with him. But without my father, who passed away, or my brother who was too grief stricken to leave his bed, or my mother who could never seem to love us, he was the only person who cared about me, and it was hard not to love him. Now I can't imagine a life without him.

"I really, really hope so. Richard is everything to me, I can't lose her." I smoothed down my dress, staring at myself in the mirror. The dress was fitting, not too tight, but not too baggy either. It was the perfect dress. I turned to my father. "This is the one."

He smiled. "You look beautiful." His phone buzzed beside him, probably work, or my mother, drawing his attention, and mine.

My smile fell instantly as my gaze caught his Lock Screen, a picture of me from six years ago, a picture I hated. "Why is that your Lock Screen?" I tried to keep a calm voice.

He gave me a loving grin. "A father can't have his daughter as his Lock Screen?"

"But why that picture?" So many pictures, he could have picked any other. I took up modeling for three years, couldn't he use one of those photos?

"Because you look so cute in this picture." He held up his phone to show me, displaying it like some kind of trophy. A picture of me with cake all over my face, between the rolls on my chin  after having my face pushed into the cake as a birthday tradition.

"I look fat in that picture." I didn't look it, I was. And everyone was sure to remind me of it.

He scolded me. "You were not fat, you were beautiful then and you are beautiful now."