Shall We Dance?

1. The Invitation

-Greetings! You are invited to princess Katrina's grand birthday party. It will be held at the palace. Please dress formally.-

I held the letter and smiled. How time has passed. Katrina, my best friend, and the princess of this kingdom, will already be turning eighteen.

I looked at the envelope and I noticed a small note.
Which said:

-Jessica! Guess what?, I finally managed to convince the king, my father, so you can be one of my twelve maids. How exciting! I hope you're ready to dance all night!
Att. Katrina-
That note made me smile even more.
"She's still so inmature even after all these years."

It's been some time since I last saw Katrina, I've been busy helping my father with his farm.

I want to go, but I need to find something decent to wear.
I opened a wooden chest where I keep all my clothes and looked around, trying to find something nice. Most of my clothes are all worn out and ugly.

Finally, I managed to find a dress that Katrina had given me for my birthday last year.
While I got the dress ready for the ball I heard a knock on the door.

"Hey Jessica, it's me!" I heard a familiar voice.

I know that voice, It's none other that Ethan.

"Hey Ethan, come in" I said while I looked for some decent enough shoes to wear.

He walked in and sat down at the table. Like usual his messy brown hair was covered in sweat from working at his grandpa's farm. His emerald eyes always looking at you in the most gentle way posible. His strong back against the wall. And his cute round cheeks. I'm used to seeing that face since we were little.

"You got Katrina's invitation?" He asked.

"Of course I did" I said and showed the envelope.

He chuckled. "That was rather silly of me to ask wasn't it?" He leaned back in the chair and stared out the window, as if seeing something that wasn't there. He smiled.

"Remember when we were kids? We used to play at the castle all the time." He said and looked at me.

I smiled. How could I forget? By that time mother was still alive. She used to work at the garden of the castle, and I always went with her.
Katrina would sneak out and play with me whenever she could. We would run around the garden and spy on the butlers-in-training, which were kids about five years older than us. One day while playing we met a young boy and his grandfather. That boy was, of course, Ethan. His grandpa was a butler at the time and wanted Ethan to follow his footsteps, but Ethan never liked being around four walls, he loves the outdoors.
We quickly became friends.

"Yeah, I remember." I said and sat next to him. "So are you going?" I asked looking at him.

"Of course, need help with the suit though. It's my grandpa's, but it has a hole. Think you can sew it for me?" He looked at me.

"Why didn't you say so earlier? Bring it here I'll fix it right up" I smiled.

And with that we both got prepared for the party.