I never let my emotions show on my face and always know that keeping people at arm's length is the best way to go because I can never be who I truly am with them and pretending can be so draining.
Stella knows me, and how stressful it can get because she has seen the dark side of my "perfect life". She was there when I was only nine and my mother nearly had a heart attack when I got home with a grass stain on my baby blue dress right before Easter brunch. She was there when I told my parents that a boy had given me a flower and the very next day I was in a parent-teacher conference with his parents and was forced out of his class and put into another one.
Every time I let someone close, my parents always found out and pulled me out of it. There were only a few people in my parent's mental bubble that I was allowed to surround myself with, and even then I am a certain version of myself. The perfect version.
'Don't smile too bright when you're with the Benjamin boys. They'll think you're offering something you most defiantly are not.' My mother would whisper.
'Don't eat so much when sitting at the table with adults. It is rude.' They would chant before dinner.
'Always smile just enough to seem polite and node in agreement with whatever the company is saying. It is rude and impolite for a young lady to have opposing opinions.'
Plus so many other things that basically shaped who I am supposed to be today. It can be so very overwhelming and truly tiring to have to live by so many rules, and never be able to be myself. Sometimes I forget who 'myself' really is. The past few years I haven't been able to bounce back and have been adopting the person I'm supposed to be like a permanent skin.
Scott Stein makes everything unfold from within. He peels the thick skin of rules upon rules taught to me since birth and he forces me to face the person long buried away. Or it seems like that's where I'm heading. Every time I'm with him I just want to break all the rules. I want to be someone I never knew I could.
Although it scares me it also intrigues me. That is why I am at his doorstep right now. That is why I went home and changed into one of the dresses I always found to be beautiful and had bought on impulse with Stella knowing that I would never be able to wear something like this until I guess now. It is why I did a small amount of makeup and put my hair down to frame my face in hopes to maybe capture his eyes.
I rang the doorbell and waited for Scott to reach the door. Fingers twiddling back and forth. I heard the Knob twist and soon enough I found myself looking into blue eyes.
"Oh hello. How can I help you?" A bell-like voice questioned.
"Umm, I umm... Scott," I stumbled to find my words and reasoning.
You see it was very hard to form a sentence when standing in front of an actual model. The lady was tan with blue eyes and curly blonde hair. A smile that could kill and a look that melted metal.
"You're looking for Scott?" She asked, but I never got to answer because the next thing I knew he was at the door beside her hand over her shoulder holding the door wider.
"Alexandria? What's the matter?" He asked.
I was breathless, and he was the cause of it. I needed to snap out of it because right now I looked pathetic and if pretending as if I was unfazed would help me get away from this beautiful model and my unlawful crush then to hell with it I'll fake it till I make it.
"I just wanted to see if you could answer some of my questions for me. I had missed a few and only noticed while writing up the final draft, but I see you have company and since the questions aren't that important then I'll just ask you another day. Sorry to bother you." I lied through my teeth.
