The truth she held inside

17

     Wednesday and most of Thursday were not terrible days but I've had better. It's Friday morning and I'm feeling better than I have been this week. The dance is tonight and we have a half day of school.  I don't like wearing my hair in buns often but today is one of those days because I simply don't feel like doing anything else and Malia is going to do my hair later anyways.

"Who's doing your makeup later? I think I'm just gonna get it done myself. It's faster and cheaper and I know what I'm doing." Roni comes in my room early this morning.

"You are." I say while making my bed.

She pauses and stares at me. Ronnie is amazing at makeup and I hardly wear any so she's the perfect person to do it. Like she said its cheap, faster, and she knows what she's doing.

"Fine, I'm not even going to argue about this, it's too early in the morning. I'm going to stuff my face with delicious food." She heads down stairs to eat breakfast.

My phone dings which means I have a text. No one really texts me right before school because I'm going to see them in a little while anyways. I get heart burn when I see that Steven texts me.

S: You were right. My cousin is going to the dance tonight and I'm stuck going on the retreat. I can't let my group down and my mom won't let me back out now. I'm sorry Nyla, I truly am. I would rather be there with you tonight, dancing and seeing how beautiful you look in your dress. Don't let my cousin win, have a great time tonight, like nothing ever happened. I know my words won't fix things but I will fix this or at least I will try to. I'm not going to school today but I hope we can talk when I get back.

I almost hesitate reading it but when I did, I was glad. I got all the answers I needed, Remi did this out of spite. She did this to her own cousin just because she couldn't stand to see me happy with him. I'm still angry at him for letting her fool him but I'm not as mad as I was.

It sucks when your family members aren't who you necessarily think they are. 

"Lets go, I want to get you guys to school so I can come back and nap." Malia said, delightfully.

"Morning sunshine." I head to the car. Everyone is more talkative this morning than usual.

I can feel the excitement right when I walk into the door. The halls are buzzing with chatter about the dance.

I just want to get in and get out, half days seem to be longer than full days. I guess the anticipation of getting out early makes it feel that way. 

A meeting for everyone who are participating in the talent show happens second period. This meeting wasn't very interesting but we did find out the order we are going in. Out of fifteen acts, I go on third. The positive about going third is I won't be as nervous waiting because I go on right away, if I went on later, that would give me time to be even more nervous and that's never good.

"Hey, we were just looking at each others dresses, can we see yours?" Reese's friend Kalia speaks.

Kalia and I talk on occasion, we're always friendly but I hardly know anything about her.

I pull up the picture of my dress on my phone, Kalia and her friends show me theirs and they have beautiful taste.

"You're going to look so good in that! I love events like this, everyone gets all dolled up." Kalia's friend is clearly excited about the dance.

They notice my phone keeps lighting up because of incoming text messages.

"Is it him?" Kalia's best friend Rayna blurts out. No one was expecting her to come right out and ask that question. I guess that just proves that everyone knows what happened but at this point I really could care less, I just want to have fun.

I'm young and in high school. There are so many problems that are so much bigger than Steven and I.

"Yes, it is him. It's been like this for the past couple of days." I'm honest with them.

There's no point in lying, there never is.

12:30 hits and the final bell rings.

"Time to beautify ourselves." Ava flails her arms around.

"How long will it take you guys to get ready?" Arthur asks without really paying any attention to us.

We both look at him because we both know this was going to be an interesting conversation.

"Well," Ava starts off. "We have shower, do our hair, makeup, nails, toes, get dressed and take pictures. So I'd say about two to three hours."

Arthur's eyes widen.

"You're joking right?" He responds.

"No sir, it's a process to look fabulous." I giggle but I am speaking truth for many people.

"Why is taking pictures apart of getting ready?" 

"Because, after that long process of getting ready, we need full body shots of the aftermath right after we finish." Ava informs him.

He shakes his head and we say our goodbyes. Ava is coming to my house to get ready and her mom is joining us too. It'll be a huge gossiping session with Ava's mom and my mother.

Ava's mom will be bringing Ava's dress and everything else she needs for tonight.

"I know you probably don't want to hear about this but Lucy has been looking pretty lonely lately, actually, I saw her hanging out with a couple of kids from middle school. No Remi in sight." There is hesitation in Ava's voice.

"People change."

"I know but Remi must have been really terrible to Lucy to cause them not to hang out anymore."

"That's who she is. We just figured it out before Lucy did."

We get to my house and Roni is already there. We don't always go home together which is fine. The dance starts at seven and goes until eleven. The clock strikes five pm and that's when everything starts. I've gotten my shower in already so I go to Malia so she could do my hair. Roni does her makeup first, Ava's mom has her covered by starting with her makeup.

After a couple hours of chatter, it's finally time to put our dresses on. Roni did my makeup exactly how I wanted it. I really didn't want to have so much on, it'll probably end up on my hands anyways.

7:16 pm.

"You girls look so beautiful!" Ava's mom holds her hands to her heart.

We take about a thousand photos before he get in my dad's truck.

Time to make memories.