The Girl in Blue

42- The Girl Prepares

Sutton

"The gala is tomorrow, people!" Carmen emphasizes for the billionth time today as we're all helping her get the ballroom decorated for this animal shelter gala that she's been planning for months. It's tomorrow and she's absolutely going crazy now.

"We know," One of the shelter volunteers assures Carmen. "Just relax, everything is going to get done and it's going to work out."

"We have so much to get done," She says. "Sutton, how are the lights coming?"

"They're almost done," I tell her. Lana is beside me, helping me get the lights hung up before Carmen has an aneurism. "What do you want us to work on after we get them finished?"

"Can you make sure that the DJ booth is set up right?" She asks us. "Lana, you know that kind of stuff, right?"

"Sure, we'll get on that," Lana assures her with a nod.

"Okay," Carmen breathes out. "I'm going to go check on the streamers."

And then she's hurrying away from Lana and I to go freak out about something else that she thinks is going wrong. We all knew that she would freak out like this before the gala happened because she cares so much about this thing going well. That's why all of us are here, all of our friends. Some people from the Black Student Association that Carmen is a part of are here to help out.

The guy that Lana had made out with a month ago to make Levi jealous is here but she doesn't seem to notice him or recognize him. She was really drunk that night so I wouldn't be surprised. Megan is here with her girlfriend, Tessa and Dawson are here, Vic, John, and AJ too. We all came back from our winter break early just to help out Carmen and to go to this New Year's Eve gala. It's going to be a great party.

Lana, however, isn't as excited about it as I am. Unlike Megan, Tessa, and I, Lana doesn't have a date to the gala. Tristan broke up with her, Levi is going with Addison. I'm just glad that she's still going because it took a lot of convincing on my end to get her to agree to go despite her boy problems.

I know that even though I'm going with Jonah, I'll still dance a lot with Lana and Jonah will understand that I have to be there for my sister too. I have to make sure that she has a good time because if she doesn't, she'll blame me for forcing her to go.

"She's losing her mind," Lana notices after Carmen is out of hearing distance.

"I know. This is her baby though, she wants everything to go perfectly," I defend our insane friend. "It means a lot to her, and to the animals. Anyway, do you know if Levi is still coming?"

"Yeah. Why wouldn't he?" She questions me as she holds the hook up and I get the rope lights hung up so that they stay up.

"Are we pretending like that thing with Addison just didn't happen?" I ask her. "I mean, come on, Lana, that's weird. That girl is so worried that Levi is going to leave her for you that she came over and begged you to leave it alone. That's sad... in a really pathetic way."

"She just doesn't want to lose him," Lana justifies. "If I was with her, I would do anything to keep him too. But yes, they're both still coming. Levi doesn't know that she came to talk to me and I told her that I'm not going to stop being his friend. After the kiss, it's been kind of weird but after what happened with Tristan, I can't lose Levi too."

"Understandable," I say to her. "As long as there's no more kissing."

"I can't predict the future," She shrugs. "But I can say that I will try my best not to kiss him while he still has a girlfriend. I mean, I'm not going to try to steal him or whatever but if he makes the choice to be with me, I'm not going to stop him. That's not going to happen but one can dream."