Abandoned

chapter thirty-two.

"I can't believe I agreed to this." I sighed as I stepped out of the guest bathroom to a very excited Rose and Pattie sitting on the bed. I took another look in the full length mirror at my dark knee length dress.

As I've known for years previous, our school has a New Years Dance every year. And even now, as I stand here wobbling in heels, I've never wanted to go. I'd actually made it a goal to get through highschool without ever attending a dance.

But after Justin had asked me and I said that I really hate dances but that I'd think about it, Pattie swooped in to convince, and eventually bribe, me into saying yes. As it turns out she'd actually bribed Justin to ask me in the first place. Not that we wouldn't want to go with each other, but that we'd rather not go at all.

But after Rose had spilled the beans about us dating, Pattie clearly had other ideas about how she saw us spending our New Year's Eve.

"Rayna, you look amazing." Pattie smiled at me as Rose nodded in agreement with her.

"Yeah, like a princess!"

"No way. You're the princess, little one."

The night of 'the incident,' as I've dubbed it, Justin and I had explained to Pattie what happened with Rose's dad. Justin had also apologized for getting into a fight with me, and I'd managed to stay mad at him for about a day before giving in.

And after that, things had gone back to normal, relatively. Everyone, especially Rose, was still freaked out over what happened and Justin and I didn't have to hide not wanting to murder each other all the time, though we did have our moments.

"Okay, ready?"

"Guess so." I said. I'd loosely curled my hair and spent a lot longer than usual on getting my makeup perfect, plus Pattie had let me use her card to buy a new dress and shoes.

I opened the door and walked into the hall and around the corner, Pattie and Rose following close behind me.

I made it to the top of the steps, where I now saw Justin standing at the bottom of them. I'm pretty sure that I audibly gasped at the sight of him standing there in a tux.

"Go on, we need pictures!" Pattie said from behind me.

"Hey," Justin breathed out when I reached the bottom, grabbing my hand. "You look... just-" he paused, and I felt myself blush just from the look on his face like I was a million dollar prize. "Stunning."

"Thanks. You look... just-" I mimicked him, though it was nearly impossible to assign just one word to how he looked in this moment with his tux and his perfectly styled hair and even the slight bruise that you could still just barely see over his eye. "Really hot."

"Wow. You have a real way with words, Samuels." He laughed.

I laughed along as Pattie started to snap pictures of the two of us. We did some making weird faces and one with him kissing my cheek and one with Rose in the picture. Once Pattie was satisfied and done going on and on about how gorgeous we looked, I kissed Rose goodbye and we made it to the car.

"Guess what?" Justin said, half smiling, as he drove out of the neighborhood.

"What?"

"We are officially on our first real date."

"Oh, yeah." I smiled, nodding in agreement. "It better be great or I might just dump you. You know, get it over with early." I joked.

"Ouch." He hissed in amusement, looking over at me. "No pressure or anything."

"You're at a pretty big disadvantage, too, as with me at a school dance is bound to go tragically wrong." I said as he pulled into the packed school parking lot. He laughed, shaking his head, as he got out and walked around the front of the car to open my door.