Bloomed

"Take a seat class. we will begin in a moment." My English teacher says and starts writing something on the board. A girl comes and sit next to me and I smile as I see it is my best friend, Aliza. I call her Izza, but she only lets me.

"Hey Gee." She said using my nickname. I scrunch my nose at her new nickname.

"When are you going to pick a nickname?" I chuckle.

"Well there aren't very cute names for Paige you know." She sighs in frustration. "It's very formal. I feel like  I'm talking to royalty." I chuckled some more and agreed with her.

"It's not like I chose it." I said and took out my notebook.

"What do you have to do after class?" Izza asks.

"Well, homework." I said but after the look on her face I added, "Hopefully."

"We haven't even gotten your costume ready yet! You'd think since it was your birthday, you would be first to have it." She said.

"Birthdays aren't my favorite holiday." I say, rolling my eyes.

"If I was born on Halloween, I would take advantage of it every year!" She said excited.

"And because your birthday is tomorrow. We are going to day. Tomorrow is going to be the sickest birthday ever!" Izza squealed.

"Fine." I huffed, "Just go easy, my back is still killing me." I said, touching below the part that burned.

She gave me a worried look as the teacher started her lecture.

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Izza pulled my hand into the costume store.

"Search for ones!" She said and went into shopping mode. I decided I would let her pick them out for me and just look for ones that caught my eyes. I looked around for one in the store. They seemed really regular to me. I'm sure there has to be something here. I saw a section on Mad Hatter and decided to search in the rack, being Alice in Wonderland is my favorite kid's story. That and Hansel & Gretel.

I saw I colorful, fun costume and automatically thought of Izza. I let out a cry of pain as someone bumped into my back. I turned around and saw a guy looking lost, and sorry now.

"I'm so sorry! Are you okay?" He asked, with panic in his eyes.

"I'm fine. My back had just been killing me since yesterday." I said smiling at him.

"My name is Jace, nice to meet  you." He said, holding out a hand.

"My name is-" I started out but stopped from Izza squealing my name and ran over to me with a costume in her hand.

"PAIGE!" She squealed until she reached my side. Jace and I had out hands covering our ears. She stopped when she saw him and smirked at me.

"That with a less squealing effect." I say and he chuckles a little.

"Thanks a nice name." He said. "It's nice meeting you. I'll see you sometime hopefully."

"Yeah hopefully." I smiled at him. He was cute, but not my type. I walked to where Izza was and saw only one pink and white fairy costume in her hand. A pretty revealing one.

"Izza." I groan.

"You are trying this on! It's going to look adorable!" She said and pulled me to the dressing room. It was a simple dressing room. The singles were pretty small though, black and white. It was also empty so I walked to th family one, Izza skipping behind me. I grabbed the costume and she waited outside for me.

I stripped out of my clothes and slipped it on over my feet and pulled it up. I took off my bra and put the dress in the correct spot.

"Izza!" I called and she came in the room. She started to lace up the back but froze. "What's wrong?"

"Have you seen your back?" She asked. I turned my back to where the mirror was. I saw two bright red streaks going down my back about 5 inches on my upper back. Izza touched in and I cried out in pain, closing my eyes tightly.

"Sorry! Sorry!" She said, panicking.

"It's alright." I said quietly, still in a little pain. I opened my eyes and told her to continue lacing up.

When she finished, she squealed sloftly, "You look so awesome! This is the one. We're getting this one!" I nodded my head.

"Was there a different color though?" I asked. "Pink matches your eyes!" She said. I was one of those 'lucky' people with violet color eyes. I rolled my eyes.

"Yeah, yeah." I muttered. I loved my eyes, but people think I'm a freak for having purple eyes.  I changed back and put the costume back on the clothes hanger.

We walked to the cash register. We gave the girl the costume.

"Is that all for today?" She said smiling at us lightly. The costume from before popped up in my head and I lifted  finger and walked to where it was. I brought it back. Izza smiled brghtly when she saw it.

"Can I try it on?" She said biting her lip. I chuckled and nodded my head.

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When we got home, we said hi to Izza's mom. "Hi mommy." She said and kissed her mom on the cheek.

"Hi." I said softly. She was my adoptive mom of 1 year. My parents were burned in a fire a year ago. When Izza's parents found out, they automatically adopted me because I didn't have anyone else. I still thank them every day.

"Hey Paige, happy early birthday." She smiled, flour all over her apron. "I'm almost finished with baking the cupcakes. Maybe then you girls can help me decorate."

I chuckled a bit, "Sounds fun, Sarah." She smiled at me when she saw the bag in our hands.

"I see you got your costume! Can I see?"

I pulled it out of the bag. "That's very cute. You girls go and get some things ready for tomorrow."

"I can still cancel tomorrow, Sarah, you dont have to throw me a birthday."

"Non sense, you only turn 17 once." She said giving me a motherly smile.

I gave a her a smile, "Thank you."

She gave me a smile and Izza ushered me up the stairs.

"Go shower. Shave and stuff so you wont have to do it tomorrow."