The Girl in the Boys' Dorms

Chapter Fourteen: Well, when in Rome... but the problem is, I'm in New York.

Dedicated to summer_rainne, who won second place in both the cover and quote contest. This is the chapter she chose to have dedicated to her :)

The Girl in the Boys' Dorms - Chapter Fourteen: Well, when in Rome... but the problem is, I'm in New York. So, do I do as the New Yorkers do?

I felt my breath hitch in my throat as I stared at my reflection in the mirror. There was no doubting the fact that I looked different, but that I could swear that somewhere inside of me, in a part that even I couldn't identify, I thought I looked pretty - maybe even beautiful. And my heart leapt at the word, but the smile that upturned my lips thought something else, because it reached all the way to my eyes.

Any other time, I would be ashamed to be dressed like this. It wasn't in my usual comfort zone to clothe myself in a shimmering, mint green dress with matching white sandals. The strapless upper portion of the admittedly flattering dress made me feel extra cautious, but I allowed my hands to stray from holding it from underneath my armpits long enough to admire the way it hugged my waist and finished gracefully above my knees. The shoes I had chosen were, in a word, sensible. Kathleen had brandished a pair of outrageous, sequined, high-heeled stillettos to me - which I had shot down the minute I saw them. Thankfully, she had been able to dig up these gladiator sandals, which also matched the dress she loaned out to me.

Even my hair had changed. Rather than the plain black waves, it was curled to perfection, and arranged so that it flowed gently to the middle of my back. It somehow looked shinier, too. The weird, sticky, fruity smelling stuff Kathleen had sprayed onto my head seemed to have worked, because my hair now looked like an absolute waterfall, and I had to fight to keep my fingers from running themselves through it - because Kathleen had made it very, very clear that, even if it was on fire, I was not to touch a strand of my emmaculately styled hair.

As I stared in the reflective glass, I could see Chase behind me, bustling around. The constant thumping of a basketball hitting the wall reverberated through the entire room, and I knew that he was desperately trying to occupy himself. The entire day, he had been complaining about being bored, and even went to the lengths of engaging me in conversation - and for someone like Chase, who preferred to keep his life as separate from mine as possible, unless we were acting like a couple in front of a crowd, that was a huge deal.

Even now, as I debated whether or not to use the sparkly lip balm Kathleen had instructed me to apply generous amounts of, he was throwing his ball harder and harder against the wall that faced his bed. I could tell that this new social life was bothering him, because he was often excluded from his friends. Because of his showdown with Evelyn at the beginning of the week, no girls would speak to him, since she had made it a point to gather them all onto her side. And the boys that were usually a part of Chase's group were forced into ignoring him, because of the girls.

The only person who had stopped by to have a word with Chase was his supposed best friend, Marc Sanders, and that had been for a brief handful of seconds, just to ask about the Statistics project they had due next week.

Guilt sparked inside of me as I realized that Chase was going through this because of me. If I hadn't agreed to his brilliant idea of making me his fake girlfriend, neither of us would be in this mess. And he would still be the popular, handsome - but then again, that little detail of his life hadn't changed one bit - jerk that he was before; and I would be the quiet, unnoticed nerd in the background. So, why now that we were pretending to date, was there such a commotion? I mean, if there was logic used in this scenario, it would be admirable to see the guy who was the center of attention, bringing the invisible girl out of the shadows. But no, in our twisted, judgmental high school, it wasn't good, because Chase was doing something different, and that meant he couldn't be accepted.