When We Meet Again

Chapter 39 | El Party

The worst kind of days are the ones that you want to look your best, but everything just keeps going wrong.

"What do you think? Red or blue?" I asked Jack, who was lying on his bed, already dressed. Oh, how I envied the opposite sex.

"I honestly don't see a difference," Jack said, scratching his head.

I groaned. That meant I looked catastrophic in both. I slipped the dresses into one hand and went back to my room. Throwing them onto the pile of clothes I'd littered my bed with, I glanced at the clock. It was ten minutes to seven.

This was useless.

I shut the door. "I've changed my mind," I yelled, knowing the door would muffle my voice. "I'm not going."

It was just way too much pressure. Needing to look pretty for myself, showing the entire world and Max that I was over him. Not that the world or Max knew. They probably had problems of their own.

I didn't even want Max to know. It was kind of embarrassing.

I had never really been in love with Max. Just the idea of my best friend coming back and looking like--well, that. Maybe if I had stepped back and just gotten over the crush he wouldn't have pushed me away.

No, no. I promised myself I'd stop making excuses for him. That meant keeping thoughts of him being the hero at bay.

I wasn't the villain. He was.

God, one could only pray and hope he never actually got it into his head to pursue me.

I shivered. Thank God I was in the friend-zone. Well, more like the enemy zone now. I could live with that. He was toxic; a spider.

A knock from behind me startled me out of my reverie.

"Baby, you good?"

I sighed and got off the floor. "Yeah mum, come on in."

She looked adorable in her blue maxi-dress she wore around the house for comfort. Her glasses were perched at the tip of her nose and a string of silver pearls held it to her neck. She smiled at me. "I like what you did with your hair. Very chic,"

I laughed as I ran my fingers through the shorter strands. It was up to my shoulders now; in angled drop. I'd been to the salon only a few hours before, asking the hairdresser to do whatever she thought was best. She had cut and permed it into waves. I loved it. "It was starting to weigh me down."

Mum looked around my room; not really meeting my eyes. A heavy feeling entered my gut. "Dress dilemma?" She asked.

"I just don't really feel like going," I sighed.

A line of fierce determination set between her brows. A look I'd often seen on Heather when she wanted something she couldn't have. "Come on, I may have just the solution," she shot back.

I frowned as she turned her back on me and headed up the stairs to the room she shared with dad. I shrugged to myself-yes, I did that sometimes-and followed her.

I entered the room and smiled. Heather was taking a nap on my parents King bed. Her arms spread on either side of her-snow angel style. Sometimes, I absolutely adore my baby sister.

My mum pushed past the lacquered furniture and the dark walls and into her inner sanctum, her sacred chamber of clothes.

"You're going to give me a dress, aren't you?" I said as I followed her into the brightly painted room. There were windows all around, but darkness had settled outside. Mum switched on the lights and headed to the cupboard at the back of the room. She pulled it open and rifled through it. "Not just any dress," she huffed, pushing a barrage of clothes to one side of the cupboard.