Success Is the Best Revenge {Book 1} **Watty Awards 2012**

Chapter 1: The Prom

**Dedicated to summergirl21 for the awesome character banner!**

It was finally prom night. I had waited for this night ever since I was a little girl, watching all of those shows on TV about the rich girls going to those extravagant proms. I hoped mine would be like theirs. My dad was just as excited as I was! He bought me a beautiful strapless burgundy dress with diamonds embedded at top of it. My brother even used his last paycheck to go out and buy me a diamond ear ring and necklace set. As soon as I saw it, I just knew it would go so well with my dress!

As I looked in the mirror, my father's words replayed in my head.

"Alea, you look so beautiful with your mother's deep brown eyes," he had said earlier today.

I really wished she was here right now. She would be fussing over how my heels made me look like a grown woman. But I know she's in Heaven looking down on me with the biggest smile ever. She lost her battle with breast cancer last year. It tore my family apart watching her suffer and get sicker everyday. 

I had finished putting on some light eye shadow and finishing up on applying my lip gloss when my dad called for me. "Alea! Come downstairs. Carson's here!"

I smiled at hearing Carson's name. Carson and I had been together for 4 years, ever since we got in high school. It's actually kind of funny how we met. I was the new girl in town, which came with all the usual angst.  One day in gym during the beginning of freshman year, we were just about to go change out of our gym uniform in the locker room and I saw that my clothes were missing from my locker. I went and told my coach that my things were gone and she made all of the girls stay until my stuff reappeared. 

No one wanted to spill the beans on who did it, and as a result we had to stay in the locker room an extra thirty minutes. Then, a short, skinny kid came to the locker room door with my clothes and gym bag in his hand. I was so happy my stuff had turned up. He said he found it under the bleachers and figured someone was looking for it. I learned later that the boy's name was Carson and the girl who stole my stuff was Bridget Thomas.

Carson and I became good friends and he was my only friend for a while until my social rank increased. Pretty soon, I became one of the most popular girls in the school with Carson's help of course. Seeing as how his parents were two of the wealthiest people in Atlanta, he never had difficulty with making friends. The December of that year, he asked me to be his girlfriend. I happily said yes and we've been going out ever since.

"Alea!" my dad yelled once again.  I quickly grabbed my small black pocketbook and headed down the stairs. 

When I got to the bottom of the stairs, I saw Carson standing near the door with my dad. He looked as handsome as ever. He had on a black tuxedo with a burgundy boutonniere in the lapel. His green-hazel eyes sparkled ever so beautifully.

He smiled at me, flashing his perfect set of white teeth. "You look amazing, Alea," he said as he walked closer to me and planted a kiss on my lips. I felt my face turning a bright shade of red.

"Alright, alright. Enough with the gushy stuff!" my dad said playfully.

"Sorry Mr. Peters." Carson smiled apologetically at my dad and pulled out my corsage from his tuxedo pocket. It matched the boutonniere in the lapel of his tux. 

He slid it on my wrist. "It fits perfectly." I smiled.

"Alea" I heard my brother coming down the stairs.

I turned around towards the stairs and saw my brother, Eric coming downstairs with a small white box. 

"I just wanted to give you something before you left." He opened the box and in it, was my mother's red ruby she had left for me.