My Dream

Chapter 1: The Craze Begins

I suddenly wake up from my nap, as my mother wakes me up. I've been listening to my typical 1970's music, (The Beatles, Queen, ACDC, KISS and my favorite, Billy Joel) and I must've fallen asleep. I was in a familiar place, the driveway of my best friend, Jalen Li's house, the first to arrive at her birthday party. My mother unfortunately had to drive me, as my dad was called into work. Not that I don't like my mother, it's more that she doesn't like me. She's never supported who I am or who I want to be, and we've recently started calling each other by our full names, or something close to that. I never call her Mom.

"Okay, Mother. I'll see you tomorrow," I said.
"Joy Birch, you'd better be ready when I come to pick you up, or else you're staying there," she says back to me. I wish she didn't use that tone with me. It always makes me upset. But that's okay. I was so excited for this party.

Jalen has an intense love for music, and she has been at a camp for the past four weeks. I haven't been able to talk to her, barley even text, and I was excited to finally see her again. Once I had gotten out of the car with my things, I walked up her driveway. I knocked on her door as soon as I reached the top of her porch. Seeing the door open, I put a cheeky smile on my face.

"Ahh, Jalen, hi!! Happy birthday," I say with a huge eye-smile on my face, grabbing her into a tight hug as we cross the threshold into her house. I was engulfed by her, as I'm quite petite. I'm only 5 foot, 3 inches tall and 97 pounds. And it's not like she's fat or anything -I actually quite envy her body- but her being nearly 6 inches taller than me and weighing about 40 pounds more than me makes our hugs feel very embracive, and I love it.

"Joy! You're here so early.." she says, looking awkwardly behind her at a messy house. "We were just cleaning up. But I guess you get to help now," she says, her smile turning into a slight smirk.

"Alright, no problem. Where would you like me to put this?" I say, half shoving the gift bag into her chest. She gestured over to a basket she had set up on a bay window as her head turned, her mother calling her.

"Jalen, will you please hurry up and finish up cleaning? We have company soon!" Mrs. Li yelled down to her daughter, after finishing vacuuming. Jalen looked back at me, the both of us chuckling. I set the gift down in the basket and took my shoes off, following Jalen upstairs to finish picking up. They must have started upstairs, because there wasn't quite as much laying around and we quickly fixed things up. I ran downstairs, taking control of the cleaning, since I have always been much better at it than her. Once I had finished, I looked at the time and we had about 45 minutes to spare before people would start arriving. I asked her if I could use the time to give her a cute 18th birthday makeover, to which she agreed. She was never the most girly person, but she did quite like the way she looked when she was cleaned up nicely. She always told me she was just way too lazy to ever do it herself.

We ran upstairs and into her bedroom, as I sat her down in front of her vanity. I decided I wanted to do a natural, dewey look for her makeup (I've never been good at glam, not even on myself) and some type of braid for her hair.  We ended up having to use her mother's limited makeup supply, since my foundation won't match at all. (I've been described as having vampire skin, and have gone to the doctor's in the past- for a physical, mind you- and have had them check my temperature and blood pressure because they thought I looked 'very pale. ' I had to explain that I was just always this pale. On the other hand, she has beautifully tanned skin. So no amount of blending would match her face to her neck if I used my makeup.)

Jalen leaves the room to grab her mom's makeup and comes back. "Did you want to listen to some music while we do this..?" She asks, looking to my phone. I have Apple Music,  and she has always took advantage of it in the past. But she never liked 70's music, so I had to listen to some EDM that I didn't care for. Since she rarely lets me listen to my music, I was reluctant but then I remembered it was her birthday. I handed her my phone. "Look up whatever you'd like. You get a pass since it's your birthday," I pick on her.