Audacious

Chapter 3

Thursday. The weather was incredibly rainy today; I could tell by the way my room stayed completely dull and dark even at 10 in the morning. Even my feet felt cold against the carpet as I trudged over to the bathroom with my eyes half-closed. I didn’t feel like doing anything today; all I wanted to do was sleep in until it was time to wake up again for work later tonight.

I hadn’t gotten as much sleep as I had wanted last night and that was all thanks to Harry for my semi-anxiety attacks of thinking he was going to return in the middle of the night. I hate to admit it but it scared me to know that he knew where I lived. It was quite evident what was going through his mind during our little walk and a locked door wasn’t going to stop him from getting it. I couldn’t even help but shudder just from thinking about it. All I knew was that what Harry wanted, Harry got, and that was a haunting thought.

I let my head rest against my pillow, hoping to let sleep take over before I remembered the plans I had noted on the calendar for today; dress shopping. My school formal was coming up in a week and I needed the perfect dress. It was also the last event for Year 12 at the school so I needed to stand out, make a good last impression. And today was the perfect day to go look for it; I had the whole morning and the afternoon so I was bound to find what I was hoping to look for.

In no rush, I brushed my teeth and got dressed before heading downstairs to an empty kitchen. My dad hadn’t come home last night meaning he was still at work. I did hope he would be back but I couldn’t be the one to have him when other’s needed his help more than I. And selfish was the last thing I wanted to be. I made myself some cereal and when I had finished around one and a half bowls of weetbix, I tidied up the kitchen counter before dashing to the bus stop that was just down the street, grabbing my wallet and keys on the way out.

 I made it just in time for the bus and it wasn’t long before I had arrived at my stop as well. The local mall wasn’t a place I regularly shopped at. It was literally only filled with designer stores and departments and they even had some weird expensive version of Woolworths which left me confused me as to wonder who on this planet would spend $7 on a loaf of bread.

But it was the perfect mall for me right now, considering my situation. I was thinking designer but not overly expensive. I mean, I was going to wear this dress just once so I needed it to be beautiful yet worth the price. I thought of calling my best friend Montana to come and help me choose, knowing very well it would be something she would cancel all her plans to come do. She was honestly the greatest person to go shopping with; she had the finest fashion sense and she knew how to bargain. But it went straight to voicemail when I dialled her number so I decided to leave it and just find the dress myself. It couldn’t be that hard, right?

***

I was absolutely flushed when I got back home. I had come back tired with achingly sore feet and I was empty handed. Most of the dresses I had found were otherwise a bit too fancy for my liking or made of low quality. I did however find one I really liked - it was an incredibly gorgeous dress, strapless with a sweetheart neck line and tiny diamond beads were embedded across the whole front and back of the dress. It was gold in colour and when I tried it on in the change rooms, the hem of the dress swept the floor. Kristian Aadnevik. And it was beyond beautiful. The only downside of this dress was that it was a lot over my budget, so I figured the only thing to do in this situation was to just look for another dress. There was no point in obsessing over a dress I knew I was never going to be able to afford. I decided I would just wait until I could contact Montana and ask her to come with me next time.

I still had a bit under an hour left until I had to get to work so I hurried upstairs to take a quick shower and get ready. There was no sign of my dad’s presence in the house so I made sure to give myself an extra ten minutes for the bus ride to the restaurant as I had no ride and I wasn’t quite feeling up for a twenty minute walk.