“I swear to God that ‘Death by Shopping’ will be written on my gravestone by tomorrow, if not by the end of today.”
Mel paused for a moment to turn around and glare skeptically at me. “You of all people should know that you can’t literally die from buying too many things. And besides, you need this. I’ve seen your closet more than a few times already, and you don’t even have a skirt.”
“I do,” I replied defensively. “And I may not die from shopping itself, but I will from being buried under all the dresses you keep throwing at me.”
I glanced down at the increasing pile of glittery, fancy dresses draped around my arms, the cloth crumpling beneath my hold especially after being thrown off from their respective racks, courtesy of Mel. The girl herself was still rummaging around the store, switching from rack to rack while expertly scanning every single dress the store had to offer. It didn’t help that she would constantly remind me of my slim but fairly tall physique, which she insisted that many people would literally die for, probably by starving themselves. Unfortunately, that meant that there were more than enough dresses that I could try on, and that meant that we were probably going to spend the entire day in this one store alone.
I indeed called Mel the first thing in the morning since it was Saturday and we didn’t have the burden of school to carry throughout the entire day. I told her about my conversation with Jake last afternoon, leaving out the part about the asshole of a person living with Jake and his mother—I figured he didn’t want anyone else to know about it, either. As soon as I arrived to the part where he asked me to the Homecoming Dance, she was so ecstatic that she hung up the phone and immediately picked me up to head for the nearest open clothing store. With all high school teenagers in the Homecoming mood, we all assumed that all clothing stores would start selling semi-formal outfits in preparation for the dance by now.
“Why can’t I just buy a secondhand dress?” I asked, laying down the dresses on top of a nearby couch before sitting down beside them to catch my breath. “It’s not like I’ll use my Homecoming dress for any other event. I don’t even know if I’m even going to Prom, which I will understand if you’re gonna force me to buy another new dress for that occasion.”
“Because Homecoming is just as important as Prom,” she reasoned without looking at me, pulling out a fiery-red dress from its rack and examining it carefully. “And I refuse to let my best friend attend such a prestigious event wearing a secondhand outfit. No matter how financially-troubled your family really is.”
“That’s the point. I’m not financially able to buy dresses like these.” I gestured towards practically the entire store, which was filled with countless dresses of different styles and colors. I admitted that many of them were beautiful, but I wouldn’t want to be caught dead wearing one because it just wasn’t my style. That, and the fact that more than enough schoolmates knew that I didn’t have the money to buy anything like these.
“Then you can borrow my money,” she said nonchalantly. I only glared at her back until she turned around and saw the uncomfortable look on my face. “Hayley, I’ve been your best friend for longer than I can remember and that means that I’m okay with you borrowing my money—well, technically my parents’ money, but they’ll be fine with it anyway. You don’t even have to pay me back. As long as I can see you in a beautiful dress while you dance your night away with Jake, the money I spent buying you said dress will be worth that memory.”
Blood rushed to my face as soon as she mentioned me dancing with Jake. The butterflies reoccupied my stomach; they were the same ones that came around a little bit too late yesterday, making me squirm uncomfortably in my seat while Jake was driving me back home. It was when I realized that I was going to actually participate in a major school event other than helping Mel set up the decorations, and what was worse was that I was going there with someone whom I just met earlier this week as my ‘friendly’ date.
I didn’t even know why I accepted his offer in the first place. He had a charm that he might’ve not been aware of and was charismatic without even trying, to the point that I allowed myself to trust him even though every logical cell inside of me told me not to. When I looked at him, it was like looking through a mirror; excluding the difference in our physical appearance and gender, he reminded me a lot of myself. Just a kind soul—well, the people around me told me I used to be one—who wanted some company. We both got lost somewhere along the way, got hit and had to dodge a few more incoming bullets, and we were just trying to make it through life without completely bleeding out to death. It just so happened that he still had a somewhat positive outlook on life that allowed him to stand up again, but little old me just wanted to crumple in the corner and hide from the rest of the world.
Maybe, after seeing how he could gather the courage and the strength to get back up to face the challenges in front of him, I would find my own courage to do the same, too.
“Hello? Earth to Hayley?”
I snapped out of my daze to see Mel standing in front of me, the red dress in one hand and a blue one in the other, while staring at me expectantly, though I didn’t even pay any attention to what she might’ve been saying to me during the time I spaced out a bit there.
“I was asking which one you think would look better with your skin tone,” she clarified, pressing her lips together while sighing exasperatedly.
“I don’t think that Jake will even care about what I’ll wear for the dance,” I said grumpily, turning my gaze to the ground beneath her feet. “I don’t even know why I agreed to this in the first place.”
I heard her sighing again, but didn’t pay much attention to her as she moved to sit beside me after pushing the pile of dresses away so that she wasn’t sitting right on top of them. “Yeah, probably, since he’ll be more focused on you rather than what you wear.” She then placed her elbow on top of my shoulder, somewhat a difficulty especially with our difference in height, but it was enough to bring my attention back to her smiling little face. “But I do, because I want to see my best friend out there, killing it on the dance floor and showing the world the real Hayley Rose Montgomery.”
I scowled as soon as she mentioned the entirety of my name. It wasn’t really public knowledge since students never really bothered to see the classes’ attendance list unless they were ten layers deep into boredom while waiting for the next class. Only my parents would use it whenever they would scold me, while Gwen and Mel would only use it whenever they want to piss the hell out of me.
“I’d rather not let the world know who the real Hayley Rose Montgomery is,” I muttered distantly to myself. “Because the real Hayley is whatever you’re seeing right now. Boring, average, and absolutely, tremendously ordinary.”
“That’s what they all say, Hayley.” Mel stood up and rolled her eyes at me, before extending her arms out for me to grasp onto to pull me up. “Now, c’mon. You have some dresses to try on, because as unextraordinary you believe yourself to be, you at least have to show people that you’re different and fun to be with if they actually know you like I do. Which, for this matter, is by actually wearing a decent dress to one of the biggest events of the year instead of showing up with some old t-shirt and jeans all right?”
She gave me a fake threatening glare as she practically dragged me out of my seat and towards the dressing room, and I couldn’t help but feel myself brightening up a little bit more through her encouraging words. It seemed to be her specialty nowadays—to lift my spirits up whenever they were down to make sure that they didn’t sink down too far until I was no longer in anybody’s reach. I could only hope that there would always be someone to lend a helping hand whenever I needed one, because I didn’t know how long I could go on like this if everybody just decided to leave someday.
She tossed me over to the changing room before literally hurling one of the dresses in my direction. Thankfully, I caught just in time without crumpling it too much, or else the shopkeeper might ask us to pay for it should anything happen to one of the more expensive pieces she paid a hefty amount to the designer for. I threw the beige curtains closed and hung the dress by its hanger on one of the metal hooks right beside the curtains, letting the dress unfold itself and for the skirt to fall all the way down. To my dismay, the dress was cherry-red strapless, with a heart-shaped, sequined bodice and a red silk tulip skirt.
The first thought I had on this one: This thing is really gonna itch like a bitch all over my body.
I wasn’t wrong about that thought when I actually did try it on; some of the loose sequins scratched on my skin and the material itself was uncomfortable and clingy around my body, showing off curves that I didn’t even know I had and I now desperately longed to keep hidden. The cold draft that I didn’t mind before now sent chills throughout my body from too much of my skin being exposed, since the dress was in fact backless. The skirt was scratchy and I could barely walk anywhere with it strapping my legs together. It kinda reminded me of the princess dress Mel forced me to wear all those years ago for the sake of trick-or-treating, just so that we would look like twins. I would rather trade that irritable princess costume for a prince one any day.
When I threw the curtains open, Mel had the exact same expression as I did the first time I looked into the mirror behind me in the changing room with this wretched dress.
She chewed on her lip as she was struggling to find the words to say. “You kinda look a lot like—”
“A slut?” I offered immediately. “Because I definitely look and feel like one.”
“I was gonna say that you look like my sister,” she then said, snickering as she tried to hold back her laughter. “But yeah. That word is right about accurate, too.”
I didn’t even realize I was holding my breath the entire time until I got out of that tight-fitting piece of shit, and I found myself wondering how anybody could even wear such a torturous thing without taking it as an experience to Hell itself and back. I even wondered why the designer of the dress even made such a horrible thing.
Just as I was about to reach for my comfortable t-shirt, another dress was thrown over the curtains, latching onto the rod. I dragged it down and saw that, this time, it was a royal-blue one covered in floral-patterned lace, sleeveless with a high neckline, an A-line skirt and a blue bow wrapped around the waist. It was definitely more modest than the last one, which I was infinitely grateful for, but the shade of blue was so striking that it would undoubtedly attract some unwanted attraction.
I tried it on, slightly displeased by the fact that this one was actually a little bit too loose around my body, and again, showed it to Mel. Some hope lit up her eyes before her eyelids drooped and her smile turned to a frown.
“It’s, uh… the dress certainly looks good,” she said with slight hesitance. “It just doesn’t really look good on you.”
“Wow, thanks a lot for ruining my mood again, Mel.”
“No, no—I mean, it’s just that your sun-deprived, bone-pale skin doesn’t really match with the striking color of the dress.” She put a hand on her chin, as if she was deep in thought. “I might actually take that dress for myself, actually. But maybe darker colors do suit you better, since you’re always wearing black, if not grey, like everywhere you go.”
I rolled my eyes. “Then why didn’t you give me one to try on in the first place?”
“Because I thought that maybe I should add a little bit color into you,” she said desperately. “Well, that is excluding the make-up I’m going to force into your face so that you don’t look like you literally just got out of bed, showered for five minutes and threw the dress on. You know, I saw Gwen the other day, and she was asking me stuff about lip gloss, and that’s supposed to be the stuff she would ask to you, her big sister, instead of me, who’s her big sister’s best friend. It doesn’t work like that!”
“I do wear lip gloss!” I exclaimed defensively as I made my way back to the couch, plopping down next to the pile and placing my head on my hands. “Sort-of.”
“That’s because I told you to. Your lips were cracking and you looked like a reanimated corpse. And as much as Jake doesn’t care about what you wear or what you generally look like because he’s already seen the depressed side of you, I don’t think that he would want to show up to the dance with a girl who literally looks like a zombie who just crawled out of her grave. Nobody does.”
I scowled, silently acknowledging the truth in her words. In times like these, she was the one acting like the big sister out of the two of us, because I had zilch knowledge on anything that normal girls would like, be it make-up, fashion, magazines or even boybands because I would always be too absorbed in my own familiar little box of safety. Once she would drag me out of the box and force me to acknowledge the fact that I am a girl just like her, I would literally be a fish out of water, flopping around while vainly thinking that it could survive even a second in a world it was unfamiliar with.
Without prior warning, Mel suddenly pulled me back up to my feet with her two bare hands and shoved me back to the changing room. “Just get in there, and I’ll see what I can find in the pile, all right?”
I did, and unzipped the zipper on the back of the dress and letting it fall to the floor before returning it to its cloth hanger. Seconds later, another dress was thrown over the curtains again. My eyes immediately caught sight of the darker color of the dress, in contrast to the earlier two, which slightly excited me because I was usually accustomed to darker-colored clothes.
I tried it on, and when I initially caught sight of the tulle skirt, I was rather hesitant and worried that it would itch terribly like the first one. Thankfully, there was another layer of silk-like fabric underneath that would brush gently against my legs whenever I spun around, which was the same fabric used for the rest of the dress as well. The navy-blue bodice had a wide princess scoop neckline that made the dress look like it had very short sleeves, and was decorated with numerous diamond-like beads that sparkled underneath the bright lighting overhead.
It fitted nicely around me and I found myself already growing to like this one, and I could only hope that Mel would finally give her seal of approval for this one—I did like the second one, something I wasn’t ashamed to admit because I was expecting for my dress to have some lace on it, but Mel could have it for all I knew. In fact, I was willing to just accept any dress as long as it made me look decent and would relieve me from this torturous activity, even if we were only here for less than an hour.
Mel would sometimes joke that I was more fitting to be a guy because of my dislike in girly-type activities. Shopping and dressing up and spending entire nights gossiping about everything happening in our lives while braiding each other’s hair. As much as I hated all those things, I was—and still am—fine with being a girl, considering how almost all the guys I had ever met so far had been such dicks to me.
Almost.
Taking a deep breath, I threw the curtains open and took a step forwards, just as Mel drew her eyes up from her phone and her fingers stopped tapping furiously on the phone, either because she was texting someone in frustration or just too involved in some mobile game. She grew silent almost instantly, which made the sinking feeling in my stomach even worse than before. Perhaps I was merely vainly hoping that whoever made the saying ‘the third time’s a charm’ was right, because there wasn’t a speck of hope in her chestnut brown eyes.
“Back to the drawing board?” I offered, seeing that this dress was probably far from getting her stamp of approval.
Instead of agreeing with me, she hung her head in the air and looked at me with an intense stare. “Well, do you think that you like it? Because I definitely like it. I don’t know if you’ve ever worn navy blue, but this looks a lot better on you than the other one—and that’s not because I want the other one, it’s my true honest opinion. I just didn’t think that you were a fan of fake gems on your dress.”
“I’m not, but that doesn’t mean that I mind it so much that I hate this dress because of them.” I glanced downwards, taking a second look at the dress, suddenly finding myself self-conscious again. I could imagine myself attending the dance with this dress; I knew I still wouldn’t be as decent-looking as all the other girls, who probably had their entire Homecoming Dance plans all set up beforehand, with a stunningly beautiful dress and some handsome date to whisk them away on the dance floor. I was just attending it with a friend I barely knew for long, in a dress that I technically borrowed from Mel since she would be the one paying for it.
I admitted that I was rather enthusiastic for this year’s dance. It wasn’t because Jake was the one who asked me out to the dance—he made it clear that we were simply going as friends. It was the first time I joined any social event organized by the school since the incident happened, mostly due to the fact that I was trying to avoid people as much as possible, just like every single day of my high school life. I didn’t like mingling with people, but I missed just letting loose and having fun with friends. Whenever Mel or any of her friends that I had become acquainted with would be out there hanging out and having fun, I’d envy them because I was the one who forced myself to stay put just because I wanted to avoid any unwanted attention.
Before it happened, I did have more friends than just Mel, although she remained as my best friend. After it happened, everything just changed. My views on people changed. My trust towards others changed. I closed myself off from other people as the rumors of what happened that night floated around school, and I didn’t doubt that they had reached my colleagues to the point that they began whispering about me behind my back. I felt I could no longer trust them anymore, and so I closed myself off from the rest of the world completely.
The rumors had settled, and only the resident student haters in school, a.k.a. kids with uninteresting lives so they would butt into others’, were the ones who kept the rumors going. They were pretty much in an alliance with the popular kids. Thus, every now and then, they would get the rumors around so that anybody else who was getting some attention would be kicked to the side of the curb, while the least popular people such as myself would stay put just because we intentionally try to avoid attention as much as possible.
The fact that the past was the past still didn’t change other people’s perspectives of me, so I didn’t really see any reason why they needed to try at all.
I knew I wouldn’t have as much fun as I would’ve then, but at least I would get to be a normal person for once.
“Well, if you like it,” said Mel afterwards, standing up as she encircled me with her arms crossed in front of her, “I’ll be your fairy godmother and help buy it for you. Consider this that late birthday gift I forget to buy you every single fucking time I go to the mall.”
“I don’t care about my birthday, all right? They’re just a bad reminder of the fact that I’m one year closer to death.”
She gave me a skeptical look as she nudged me a little back towards the changing room. “They’re a reminder that you’ve made it through another year, Hayley. After all that you’ve been through, I figured you would be relieved to know that you’re still here, with us. I know I am.”
I sighed and managed my best smile to her. “The difference between an optimist and a pessimist, huh?”
“It’s just the different perspectives we have on life,” she said, shrugging. “If it’s any consolation for you, Hayley, is that you’re a realist. Aren’t we all trying to be one?”
I disappeared back behind the curtains and quickly changed out of the dress back to my usual t-shirt and jeans. We didn’t discuss the earlier topic any further, even as she was picking her own dress for the dance, but she did agree to pay for my dress anyway, insisting that it was to ‘make her dreams come true.’ It made me feel slightly more regretful for my decision to agree to go to the dance in the first place, but as she finished paying for both dresses and headed back to her car, I got a text message.
It was from Jake, and it had a picture attached to it—it was a formal men’s suit, complete with dress shirt, pants and jacket, laid on top of what seemed to be a sheeted mattress. On the floor next to the mattress, just at the bottom of the picture, were a pair of black dress shoes.
I had to admit, I was rather surprised he had a complete suit so early when I’d just bought my dress, and I was just eager to get it over with and return back to the safety of my home. Not only that, but he dressed almost the same way every single day that I was afraid he didn’t have any other outfit. And yet, there was the picture, sent from his number.
The message below the picture then wrote:
Asked my mom to help me find a suit. Lent me my dad’s. What do u think? ;)
I found myself smiling as I typed back a reply while Mel was still busy stashing the shopping bags into the trunk.
Perfect. Got the dress too. Won’t show u though. Won’t want to ruin the surprise.
I threw the passenger door open and got in. Mel was entering the driver’s door when a reply came back, sooner than I’d anticipated.
Not even a peek?
A couple of nudges from my side brought my attention back to my best friend, who was grinning like an idiot as she strapped her seat belt on and started the engine. I rolled my eyes at her.
We’ll see.
The car had just moved out of the parking space and barely moved ten meters away when my phone buzzed again. I wasn’t frustrated at the constant texting, though, the way I would whenever Mel was serial-texting me in a similar way. Although, to be fair, Mel’s quite a chatterbox, even when it comes to texting other people through a tiny ass on-screen keyboard.
Who’s the cryptic one now? Although, I know you’ll look beautiful anyway, so I guess I won’t mind ;)
I wasn’t ashamed to confess the fact that I blushed upon reading the last line. It didn’t help the fact that he used the winking emoticon twice now, in one entire text-based conversation. He’d never even winked at me in real life before.
Regardless, I was glad to see that he was in a better mood than he was the day before. It was rather startling and unexpected to see him in such a vulnerable state when I first saw him that morning, especially when he was always so calm and relaxed about everything around him. It was the first time I saw him being distressed and troubled, the first time seeing pure disgust in his eyes when countless pairs of eyes all stared at him like he had done something wrong. It was the first time I saw him hurt.
And very surprisingly, it made me hurt. Not because I saw someone who might possibly be in a worse situation than I was, but because I found myself actually caring about him after how nice he was towards me, and just how nice his personality was in general. I didn’t know if it was because he was the fresh new perspective in this little circle I lived in, or maybe just because he was different from everyone else in Willowside. Regardless, I was glad to have someone like him around who, despite having a sense of curiosity that might get him in bigger trouble, used that curiosity of his to peer through the cracks I inadvertently allowed onto the walls I tried so hard to build. Instead of exposing those weak points, however, I felt as though he was trying to help me mend them, just so that I would let him to break them down a little bit more just so that he would stick around to help me put them back up again.
I was still grinning like the idiot I was as Mel would occasionally glance in my direction, half-cringing from seeing me so delightfully happy for once in a lifetime that she actually questioned it.
“Okay,” she began hesitantly. “You’re legitimately creeping me out right now, and it’s either that you’ve been possessed by some demonic force or that your parents just bought you a car of your own and are going to teach you how to drive. If it’s neither of those, then that means that it’s another text from Jake.” When I didn’t answer, she rolled her eyes. “What did he say?”
“Nothing that you should be concerned about,” I replied decisively. “Because if I tell you, you’ll never getting off my back about it, so I’d rather spare myself from you while I can.”
Although there was slight irritation written on her face, there was undeniable glee on it, too. “Well, I’m just glad to see that you two are finally getting along. And it’s nice to see that you’ve finally come out of your tiny little shell and back into the real world. Hopefully permanently, this time.”
“Well, we’ll see about that,” I muttered quietly as I turned and began to stare out into the distance. I couldn’t help but produce an image of Jake in my head—an image from the first time we met each other, how I was trying to be friendly to him because I felt like I had to even though I didn’t want to. I felt awkward and fidgety and uncomfortable with him around, but all that soon melted away once we were unfortunately and fortunately arranged as each other’s lab partners for Chemistry.
It was nice to get to know someone who was different than everyone else. It was even better to get to know someone who was not only different, but almost a mirror image of you in more ways than I could even imagine, while using the differences between us to help fix each other where others couldn’t.
As I mindlessly gazed at all the trees zooming past us, I couldn’t help but wonder if this was the part of my life when things would finally get better. They couldn’t go back to the way before, not after all the damage done, but at least they seemed to have brightened up a bit. All I could hope for was the best for the dance, because I just couldn’t get rid of the feeling that once the dance was over, nothing would be the same in my boring, straightforward life ever again.
And I wasn’t wrong.
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