The truth she held inside

11

     Today has been a slow day. I don't go home right away once school is over. Steven, Drew, and I walk to a pizza spot that everyone goes to.

"So you're going to get your dress tomorrow?" Steven asks me after we get our pizza.

"Yeah, I'm excited. It's going to be hard for me to choose one." I reply, about to take a bite of my pizza.

"Are you guys going to match?" Drew speaks in a sarcastic tone.

"We don't have to." I look at Steven.

"We should though, I'm all for it."

Steven makes me smile. I'm actually relieved that he wants to match. It would be weird if we had on two completely different colors.

"I'm sure you'll be matching with a certain someone at the dance, Drew." I raise an eyebrow and give him a side smile.

"You know?" Drew is surprised.

I didn't know if he say yes or no to Reese but by his reaction I think it's safe to say he said yes.

"Know what?" I pretend to not know what he is talking about.

"She's knows, I can tell by the way she's smiling." Steven locks eyes with me.

The way he just analyzed me made me feel all happy inside. No one has ever said anything like that about me before no one can usually tell how I feel by the look on my face. Maybe Roni and Malia but that's about it, especially not a guy.

I continue to stuff my face with pizza but Drew has some questions.

"How do you know I'm going with Reese?"

Hearing him say it out loud makes my heart pound but I truly am happy for them. There are times in our lives where we put our feelings aside so someone else can be happy. It's not always a good thing to brush away your feelings but in this case I have to.

"I have my ways." I say mischievously.

He thinks to himself for a second before saying, "You knew before me didn't you?"

Steven is also looking at me.

"Yes but in her defense she needed to ask me something before she could ask you and I was happy to help."

I flash my teeth at him and take a bite of my mozzarella stick.

I get home at around four thirty. I write down every event that is coming up so I won't forget anything. The dance is exactly one week from today and the talent show is about a week and a half from the dance. The week after the talent show starts Christmas break.

We are a little over a week into December and it is going by all too fast. Mom has already started decorating the house but later, when all of us are here, we are all going to put up and decorate the tree.

I get the little tree from out of my closet and put it in the same spot I always do. We were always allowed to decorate our rooms for Christmas but I started doing it about two years back.

"Does Santa delivers gifts under this tree too?" Veronica laughs at my small tree.

"No but it's cute for decoration. I'll pull your tree out of the closet, we have an extra one and you can pick your own ornaments when we go out tomorrow."

"I get my own tree? Why?" She speaks as she folds her arms.

"Because it's almost Christmas, its fun to decorate, and it's cute. It's your first Christmas living here, make it a good one, Cali girl." I say playfully as I walk past her to go get her tree.

"Don't ever call me that." I hear her call out behind me.

The little Christmas tree that is going in Roni's room hasn't been opened yet.  I don't know why we have an extra but I don't question it.

"Here it is, isn't she pretty?" I say in a southern accent.

"Never speak like that again and I've had dogs that were bigger than that tree." Roni retorts.

"Come on, get excited. You'll have a great time decorating it and your room. This place could use some... life." I try to put it in the nicest way possible."

She grin at me and looks around the room.

"While I figure out what to do with this place, tell me about how you've been." She changes the subject.

"Good, I guess. I'm excited about going dress shopping tomorrow and I'm excited about Steven."

"Aw, young love." She places her hand on her heart.

"Gross, I'm not in love." Our laughter fills the room.

"What are you going to do about Reese?"

"Absolutely nothing. She's going to the dance with Steven's best friend and that's perfectly fine. It'll be a great night."

"I'm sure it will be." She looks to the ground.

"Are you going?" When I ask her, I assume she wasn't going because she still is new here.

"I might. I've made a few friends in my English class and they were talking about going in a group."

"That's great." I gasp after having a sudden thought. "You could look for a dress tomorrow too! Aw, I'm gonna see you in a dress."

"Calm down, Nyla. It's not that big of a deal, well not for me anyways."

She never made a big deal about dances, or any big event involving school. When it comes to that, we are so different. I look forward to things like this, not just the dance itself, but the experience leading up to it. Now that Steven is involved, it makes it that much better.

"I know but will you at least pick out a dress tomorrow?" I ask her this because I know she's gonna go. Just because she doesn't freak out over going to the dance doesn't mean its not happening.

"Maybe. If I find something I like, I guess. Don't get too excited little cousin."

"Too late!" I shout.

Later in the day I talk to Arthur for about an hour. He demands that he sees my dance for the talent show immediately after I finish it. It won't be long because  I have most of it done already.

I unplug myself from the internet for a while. I feel so weird, I hate feeling this way. I know we are supposed to go through life not caring what people thing about us but in this case, that's all I care about right now. What will people say? What will they think? What will my family think of me?

I don't want to hear, "It's just a phase." or "She'll get over it." because it's not that simple. I've felt like this for way before my Sophomore year of high school. I've waited for it to go away, I've tried to make up all of these reasons as to why I was feeling this way towards Reese. None of those reasons seemed to make sense, except one.