Crazy In Love (Completed)

Chapter Two: The Dinner

My mother practically forced me to wear a dress to dinner.

I found it lying on my bed when I came in from my swim. It still had the tags on it and everything. I knew it was my size, considering my mother was constantly shopping for me.

The dress was white, and simple. Though it was strapless, which was part of the reason I was contemplating it more than usual. My father wouldn’t even want me to wear this dress. She had put a thin, brown, braided leather belt beside it, to go along my waist. I could feel my mother watching me as I decided whether to make her happy and wear it, or ship it back to the store, with my mom pouting about how I never appreciate anything she buys for me.

“Please wear it Elle!” she pouted. I turned around and saw her in my doorframe.  “It would look so beautiful on you!”

“You say that with every dress you buy me” I smiled. It was true, that was her way of attempting to make me want to wear it. But unlike her, I didn't really care about what I looked like. It was one of our many differences. Unlike my older sister, I didn't care to be prom queen, or even go to prom for the matter. Though I grew out of my tomboy faze, I wasn’t ready to be a complete girl yet. 

“Ellie” my mother whined “do it for me,”

I sighed, grabbing the dress from my mother’s grasp and walked into my bathroom. I slipped the dress on, tied the belt, and looked at myself in the mirror. It made me look different than I normally did. It was true that dressing up could make anyone look good. I took my hair out of the braids they were originally in and let the waves hang loose. I stepped out of the bathroom, and my mother gasped.

“Elena,” my mother stared in awe “you look so beautiful!”

I smiled. For some reason I felt beautiful too. I never liked wearing dresses, but for some reason, I actually wanted to wear this out. My fare skin and light hair made me stand out, but this time, I didn't mind it. The last time I remember wearing a dress was to my aunt’s wedding when I was ten, and my mother practically had to force me into it.

“Come” she said to me, “let me do your makeup”

We walked next door to the Thomas’ house at six thirty. I hadn’t gone to their house in years, though my parents went regularly. I always made an excuse, because I didn't want to sit on the couch for hours while my parents had a good night. 

My father rang the door bell. He was wearing a shirt and tie and my mother was wearing a skirt and a blouse. I never understood why they got dressed up when they would go to the Thomas’s house. They were our neighbours; we saw them nearly every day, well, except for Blake.

Mariah answered the door. She had a red dress on but it was covered by her apron. The house smelled good. Obviously, she had been cooking all day.

“Hello!” she said cheerfully, “come inside!”

We walked inside and Daniel took our coats. There were few times when I was younger that when I would go home, Blake’s father was actually home. He was constantly working, but I guess you have to work twenty-four-seven when you have to support a family living in such a large home.

“Good to see you Elena,” said Daniel. Blake’s parents were one of the few people who refused to call me anything but Elena. As a kid, I hated the name. It was so formal and old fashioned. I wanted a more modernized name, like Kyla or Sophie. So I told my parents to call me Ellie, which eventually got shortened down to Elle. But no matter how many times I reminded the Thomas’ to call me Ellie, they refused, because to them, I would always be Elena.

“Good to see you too” I said, walking into the kitchen. The Thomas’ house was much larger than ours. When our parents bought the lot and built our house on it, the Thomas’ bought two houses, and built a large house, with an indoor pool and a tennis court. But despite the fact that their house was way cooler than mine, Blake and I spent most of our time at my house.

As a kid, my house was always moving. My sister constantly had her friends over, and I constantly had Blake over. It was an entirely different environment than Blake’s house. His house felt empty all the time. His mother was the only one home with him and he spent most of his time in his room. Soft music was always playing faintly in the background, reminding me of fancy restaurant washrooms. We lived next door to each other, yet our lives were so different.

“Blake’s in his room” Mariah finally said to me, after I’d been sitting at the kitchen table, eating cocktail shrimp for the past half-hour. “Tell him dinner will be served at seven.”

I nodded and walked up the stairs. The house was exactly the same as it had been six years ago, but everything was different. The pictures of his family were still lined up against the stairs as they had always been, but there were additional ones added. Ones of Blake at school, and ones with his friends. The years I missed out on.

I followed the hallway to Blake’s room. It was at least double the size of mine, with a walk in closet that was full of board games. I knocked on the door then opened it. His room was exactly the same. The walls were still a faded shade of blue, and all the furniture was in the same place. There were only a few differences, like the new posters on the walls and keyboard had been replaced with an acoustic guitar, sitting in the corner of the room. I wondered when he started playing. Probably at his fancy boarding school.

“Hey” he said. He was sitting on his bed, with his laptop in front of him, and he was listening to music. He took his bulky headphones and put them around his neck “what’s up?”

“Nothing really,” I said, which was true. I hadn’t done anything exciting since this morning’s swim. 

“Not to be rude or anything,” he said looking at me “but I don’t think I’ve ever seen you in a dress, or with your hair down.”

“Thanks?” I wasn’t sure whether to take that as a compliment or an insult.

“No,” he said, clarifying what he meant “don’t take that the wrong way. You look good,”

“As appose to...” I was playing with him now. He was always so worried about hurting people’s feelings, even as a kid.

“You know what I mean” he smiled.

“When’d you stop playing piano?” I asked, trying to change the subject. I didn't like anyone talking about me.  He looked at me confused.

“I didn't stop” he said, “why would you think that?”

“Because the keyboards gone.”

“Ooh” he said, looking at the spot where the keyboard use it be. “My mom got a grand piano. It’s in the Living room, and we sold my keyboard. And they got me a guitar too”

“When’d you start playing that?”

“Few years ago” he said “I asked for an electric, but my mother refused. Go figure”

I laughed.

We didn't say much after that. Mariah then called us down for dinner. It was a quiet dinner, and Blake and I got asked the basics: how’s school going? What are you up to this summer? Where are you thinking of going for university?

It was annoying that people I've known my entire life can ask the same questions every time I see them. I was going into eleventh grade next year, and I hadn’t even thought one bit about university. Blake had been accepted into Yale, where he was going to medical school. I bet his parents were extremely proud of him.

To be honest, I never saw him as the ‘I’m going to be a doctor’ type. It was a great job, but it didn't seem to suit him. When we were younger, he had dreams of being a Forensic Scientist, and we would play detective games with the other kids in the neighbourhood. Somehow in those games i was always the one who died.

We said goodbye at around ten and walked back to our house. I said goodnight to my parents and went to my room. It was so odd to see how much people change. I looked out my window and into Blake’s house, where he was playing his guitar. You could tell how much he was into the music just by his face.

Blake had changed a lot since I last saw him. He was no longer my buddy, or my teammate on my soccer team. Instead, he was an eighteen year old boy, who was going to university to be a doctor. And I guess I changed too. I was no longer that nine year old girl who cried for two days straight after Blake left. I was now an almost sixteen year old woman who didn't know what she wanted to do with her life. But I did know one thing; I was still in love with Blake Thomas.