The Letter, The List & Everything Between

Chapter 9

Bryly, Maggie, and I are finishing out looks when my mom comes into my room. For the first few minutes she watches us get ready. Not in a stalking manner since we all know that she is standing there, watching silently with a smile.

"Here," I hand her my instax 9 camera. "Can you take a picture of all of us please?" Maggie and Bryly stand on either side of me as my mom clicks the button and it flashes, picture taken.

"The boys are out in the kitchen. Hurry up so I can get pictures done as soon as I can. I have a late shift and won't be home to take pictures when you're all home and messy from dancing." She hands me the camera and picture, I place them on the desk.

"Well, are you all ready?" Bryly says and begins filming. She wanted to film us walking out to see the guys' reactions. Before we leave the room we stand in front of the mirror and she films it. Then, we walk out to the hallway.

"Just saying, but if they don't react then we are coming back here to try it again," I whisper and we all start to laugh again.

I keep reminding myself to step and breath so that I don't fall over or hyperventilate. I feel awful about my feelings for Ashton especially because he's with Bryly and she is truly amazing and wonderful. Keeping those feelings to myself if my priority along with having fun. I'm supposed to be happy and having fun tonight.

I'm brought back to reality when Ashton starts choking on the water he was drinking, "Dang, Ashton, seriously?" Everybody starts laughing.

"I knew that she was hot, but you took that realization to the next level," I whisper, handing him paper towel to clean up. "Bryly turn that off."

Everybody's laughing now, including my mom, "Okay, that was funny and all but I do need to get some nice pictures. Plus I am pretty positive that you all want some to post on your social media profiles that I'm totally not following."

I rub my hands against my dress in attempts to dry them, but since it's 95% tulle, it doesn't really work as planned. I turn around and see Oliver, not in time for him to swoop me down and kiss me in front of my mom who has a camera. I'm about to break off, but I hear the click of her nail hitting her screen.

"No. Mom, delete that," I say. "Mom, I'm serious."

"Too late. Maybe I will if everybody actually cooperates so I can get some regular prom pictures. You know, back in my day--"

"Okay, guys we need to do this before she starts raving about her prom," I usher everybody into spots. I see something in Ashton's eyes, pain. As soon as I see it, it's gone. I guess we both know that we're with the wrong people tonight.

After dinner, we all get to the school and hand in our tickets. We get pictures taken at the archway made of roses. I almost forgot the theme before seeing everything. I think that this Cinderella theme beats my fantasy theme of Paris. I don't even know why I always liked that theme.

I walk over to one of the big tables that have a picture frame on it. 'Because you couldn't be here, we brought you ourselves'. I read and reread the caption on the frame. The picture is one of me, Ben, and Ashton when we went to the fair last year. I had been totally into the selfie stick because it had just went out of season. All three of us sat in one seat together because I was so small. Ben was in the middle and I had taken the picture.

"Thank you, Ashton," I hug him, then hand Oliver my phone. "Can you take a picture of us with the frame please?"

Once we get onto the dance floor I'm reminded of the night I went to a concert with Ben. It was my birthday present and it was so much fun. I stop thinking about it almost as soon as it starts. That was the night that I lost part of me. I lost my best friend in the whole world. My twin.