still a teenager

chapter 3: an idea

Lily let the warm water run over her body as she poured some shampoo into her hand. The only time her mind was at rest was when she took a shower. It was her kind of meditation. She turned the water off after she rinsed the shampoo out of her hair and wrapped a towel around her body. She stepped out of the shower and wiped the fog off the mirror. She studied her reflection. It just wasn't fair. Why where there people out there who looked like Madison and her friends. Why did she have to look like this? Why could not everyone be equally beautiful? She wished she could just skip her "awkward phase" ( her grandmothers words) and just go right to the period where she looked like the models in those fashion magazines. She walked out of the bathroom and threw herself on her bed. She didn't bother getting dressed. She opened her favorite magazine and started reading. This weeks Marie Claire was about "hot autumn looks" with Julia Roberts on the cover. Lily flipped the magazine open and started reading. She was just reading what colors were best to wear in the autumn depending on your skin tone, when she heard the ring tone of her phone. She looked at her phone surprised. No one ever called her. Her parents didn't believe in phones and she didn't exactly have friends. She reached over to her bed side table and looked at the caller ID. Zoey Miller. Zoey! Lily rolled out of bed and answered the phone as quickly as she could. "Zoey! hi!" Lily's throat tightened, she had missed her best friend more then she had known. "Hey Lily-pad. Am I calling at a bad time?" Lily smiled. Typical Zoey. Never wanting to be inconvenient. "No, you're not," Lily said quickly. "Great," Zoey whispered. "Because I have an idea."

"This idea is ridiculous," Lily hissed as she and Zoey were walking down the street towards the bus stop.  "My mom is going to kill me." Zoey rolled her eyes dramatically and sighed. "Really Lily, you are going to chicken out now? We literally just walked all this way, and now  you're going to tell me you're too scared?" Lily didn't say anything else because she knew how Zoey was. Once she got one of her "ideas" she wouldn't let anyone or anything change her mind. Lily touched her brown hair. Did she even want to do this? Zoey and Lily had been best friends until Zoey moved to New York and Lily stayed here, in California. They were on autumn break so they had decided that Zoey would come and visit Lily for a week. Zoey and Lily couldn't be any more different from each other, but that was what made their friendship work. Lily was used to having to put up with Zoey's crazy ideas, but this was the craziest one yet. "God, could you stop moping. You're being a baby. Besides, we're going to look great blonde," Zoey said as she gave Lily a light punch. Whatever. It wasn't like Lily could look any worse.