Bad Romance

Bad Romance *10

Chapter 9

It was a long day. Extremely long.  Paige was very brave through the whole thing. I was proud of her and of myself. I managed not to pass out! Unfortunately, Connor took one look and fainted. I bet you can guess what he looked at! Anyway, they had a little boy and they named him Charlie. He was adorable. The perfect little baby. He had his daddy’s eyes and he had Emma’s long legs. There were no problems and they were allowed to go home the day after the birth.

The funeral was the day Emma and Charlie were allowed to go. It was absolutely horrible. I cried silently the whole time. His parents were lovely and very understanding. After the funeral we went and got a drink together at the coffee house next to the church.

The formal at my high school, Riverview, was coming up soon. I was going with the gang excluding Connor and Hayden to go and look for dresses. We were going to the best dress shop in the area, Oriental Pearl. I was pretty excited. Formal or Prom is every girl’s dream, isn’t it? The dress, the make-up, the corsages and, most importantly, the dates. Almost everyone I knew was going with someone. I felt very alone.

When we got to Oriental Pearl I ran straight over to the rack of colourful dresses on the right of the store. I picked up almost every dress and ran to the changing rooms. I tried them all on but there was always something wrong with them. Wrong size, they looked silly, too loose, too tight, too long, too short, the list was endless.

“What does it look like?” Dakota yelled over the cubicle door. I span around watching the baby pink dress flow around my legs.

“I don’t know, I think it’s a bit short.” I said, looking over myself in the mirror again. “I’m going to come out so you can see for yourself.” I opened the door and watched her mouth drop.

“You look amazing!” she said. “It’s perfect. Not too short either. Go and buy it before I decide that I want it.” She winked at me and pushed me back into the changing room.

We all brought our dresses and I couldn’t keep the grin off my face. I knew I was going to be alone but it didn’t bother me. Well, not very much.

Will drove us home and I was about to open the door when another car pulled into the driveway. Dakota jumped out and ran over to me, grinning like an idiot.

“Hey, Soph. Guess what?” She said. “You know Tommy? The cute guy from our drama class that asked me out that one time then couldn’t make it?” I strained to remember but gave up and nodded convincingly anyway. “Well, he asked me to the formal!” My face fell. I know I should’ve been happy for her but now everybody I knew had a date for formal. “This is the part where you hug me and say ‘that’s awesome, I’m so happy for you’.” She said, doing an awful impersonation of me. I smiled, putting my own misery aside.

“Dakota honey, I am really happy for you. I had a feeling he was going to ask you but I didn’t mention it because I didn’t want to get your hopes up over a boy. Just a stupid boy that makes you fall in love with him and then leaves you broken hearted after 7 months. Exactly 7 months, he just decides to ask to marry him and then dies that night. I mean, really! What is up with that? it would’ve been perfect. Lived a full, happy life with each other and then-” I stopped myself. “Dakota, I’m so sorry. I kinda got carried away.” I said blushing. She smiled at me and took my arm, pulling me inside. She immediately started chatting about Tommy again.