Hey Everyone,
I have been thinking that I'm going to switch to posting on Tuesdays and Thursdays for the foreseeable future. I just think that it works better with my class schedule, especially while I am writing my thesis. So from now on, I'll see you all on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Thank you for reading and staying with me. So we are picking up with the girls getting ready for the dance. I plan on posting the next chapter tonight also. I hope that you enjoy it. Let me know what you think and happy reading.
I don't own any of the Twilight materials or characters. I just make them speculate about mystery dates.
Chapter 23: Dressing the Part
"Do you have any idea who Emmett is bringing to the dance?" Esme asked us as she curled my hair. "I know you girls promised not to look into it, but I also know you both so… any ideas?"
"Bella and I were talking on the bus, and we both think it's Rosalie Hale," Alice gushed, and Esme, Mrs. Brandon, and mom contemplated it for a moment before they nodded.
"I think they would be cute together," my mother said, finishing up my make-up. "I think she would focus him, and he may just bring her out of her shell a little. Yeah, they are really perfect. I hope that you girls are right."
"Hey, if they're together, that means we own the student government in our class," Alice gushed, and we all laughed.
We gossiped. We laughed. We even drank virgin mimosas, real ones for the adults. At a little after 5:30, we were all ready and making our way down the stairs. Alice had modified her dress, cutting out diamond-shaped holes and – only per her father's demand – covering them with grey tulle. Refusing a wig herself, she requested her hair be pinned up like a flapper, twisted at the base of her neck, and wrapped in a string of costume pearls to hide the hair tie. In the matter of an hour, my best friend had pulled a Jennifer Garner. She was 12 when we walked into Lizzy's room to get ready but was now 26 and off to a charity gala.
"You look beauteous, Sisi," I said as we made our exit into the hallway.
"As do you, 'Bianca'. Thank you," she said and hugged me. She was wearing wedge heels that were black with silver straps, so she was a few inches taller than me.
"Yeah, sure," I said. It wasn't the 'Bianca' in me that said it. It was the 9-year-old girl who was told that she was too chubby to be anyone's girlfriend. The 7-year-old girl cried into her daddy's shoulder after her first tee-ball practice when the boys said there were no girls in baseball. The 12-year-old who picked up Moonlight, read page 10 and cried as "I" was no longer just Bianca. 'I' became me.
I had faced each, punching that mouthy girl in the face, practicing all of my skills until I was the best on the team. Even though I'd faced all of these things; they had cut me deep. No matter how many times my mom said that the right boy would love all of me or my dad called me 'slugger' from the sidelines, a lot of those feelings stayed. I thought that I was alone until I read page 10. Page 10 where Bianca worried about finding a place in a smaller school. Page 10 where Bianca realized that mentally and physically, she would never fit in with her peers. But Bianca had. She had found her place by going home. Found family, life, love, friendship, and herself by returning to where she belonged. The more time I spent at my new school, the more I felt like I had, too. The only difference was Bianca was from a small town in Northern Maine. Nothing even close to a vampire love story could ever happen in boring, old Forks, Washington.
"You do, Bella," Alice said, squaring up in front of me to make me take her seriously. "I think so, our moms think so, and the boys are going to wonder where their tomboy best friend went for the night. Ten bucks say at least two of their mouths gap open when they see you," she said, smirking and rolling her eyes when I shook my head. I was half-tempted to bet against myself.
End Note: Next up… the Grand Entrance. It is a fake Prom after all. Later… the mystery is solved. Let me hear you! See you soon!