by S. J. West
“I don’t want to see that either.”
“Ok, well, I just felt like I needed to get that out in the open,” she picked up her fork again and continued to eat her steak.
After that, Abby was her effervescent self and asked about the Black and White ball Brand had asked me to.
“Why didn’t you say yes?” she asked.
“I don’t have a dress. I wanted to see if my mom would help me out with some money to buy one first.”
“Well if you need a dress to wear, I might have something in my closet that would fit you.”
I looked at Abby and highly doubted anything she had would ever fit me. She was at least a foot shorter and not nearly as well endowed in the chest area. A vision of me trying to fit into one of her dresses flitted through my mind and made me want to laugh out loud.
While we were cleaning up the dishes from lunch, the insurance agent showed up. I went out to speak with him. Surprisingly, it didn’t take long. He pretty much said the car was totaled and wrote me a check on the spot for $5,000. He explained he had already looked up the value of the car expecting it to be a totaled claim from the police report they had received describing the accident and damage. I was pleasantly surprised by the amount. I had only paid $3500 for the car. I thanked him for coming out and handling things so efficiently.
After he left, I sat on the steps of the front porch staring at the check in disbelief.
“Wow, he’s gone already?” Abby asked coming to sit beside me.
“Yeah, and he gave me about $1500 more than I originally paid for it too,” I showed her the check in my hands still not believing it.
She whistled. “Well, maybe you don’t have to ask your mom for money for a dress now.” She winked at me and jostled me in the side with her elbow.
“Do you know when Brand will be back?” I asked, now anxious to give him my answer to his invitation.
“No, I’m sorry. I don’t know. He wasn’t sure himself. But, he’s a sure thing, love. Need help picking out a dress?”
Abby’s excitement made me even more excited. “Sure, but we’ll need to take Tara. She’d never forgive me if I bought something this momentous without her. Plus, she’s sort of my balance.”
“Balance?”
“I would most likely pick out something way too conservative. She’d force me to pick out something a little more edgy.”
“Ahh, I think Tara and I will get along just fine. She sounds like my kind of girl.”
Abby drove me home soon after. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised to find Will pacing anxiously in front of my apartment with my books in his hands when we got there.
“Where have you been?” he demanded as soon as I stepped out of the car.
“I was with Abby.” I turned to Abby. “Abby this is Will. Will this is Brand’s cousin Abby. She lives over by his house.”
“Hello.” Abby waved to Will, but did not get a reply back just a stone cold look of disgust which seemed totally uncalled for.
“Thanks for everything, Abby. Would you ask Brand to call me when he gets back?”
“Sure thing, love.”
“Thanks, see you later.” I closed the car door and walked to the door of my apartment.
Abby drove off leaving Will and I alone.
“That was stupid, Lilly. Why would you get into a car with someone you barely know? How do you know she isn’t the one trying to kill you?”
“Well it was better than trying to out run you, Will Allen.”
“Lilly,” he touched my arm tenderly urging me to look at him. When I did, I regretted it. His eyes held a yearning I had almost forgotten existed. “Can’t we talk about what I said? Is it that bad to know how I really feel about you?”
Before I could answer, Tara pulled up in her car and hopped out.
“Hey, y’all!”
Tara came bouncing up to us all full of herself. I instantly knew something good had happened that day.
“So, what’s put you in such a good mood?” I asked adjusting the strap of my purse on my shoulder in a movement which forced Will to drop his hand away from my arm at the same time.
“Oh, nothing, just Simon asking me to go to the Black and White ball with him.” She said hopping up and down in excitement.
“Great! We can go shopping for dresses together.”
“I shoulda known Brand already asked you. Why didn’t you tell me?”
I shrugged. “Just haven’t had the time.”
“I gotta go,” Will handed me my books, turned away and walked to his car.
“What’s up with him?” Tara asked watching Will speed out of the parking lot like the hounds of hell were after him.
“Let’s go inside. You’re not going to believe the day I’ve had.”
After I recounted everything which happened between me and Will that day, all Tara could say was, “Wow.”
“I know.” I sat down beside her on the futon feeling completely dejected.
“What are you gonna do?” she asked turning to me. “I mean you’ve been in love with Will practically your whole life! And now he says he love you back?”
“I just feel…”
Confused was a weak word to describe how I felt in that moment. How could I explain my true feelings to my best friend?
“It’s just that I feel so much better when I’m with Brand. I don’t know. Maybe it’s the newness of our relationship that excites me. But, I just get this intense feeling around him, like he was meant for me. I feel like someone special when I’m around him. And Will….well he’s my past, my childhood love and my first heartache. Maybe it’s time I grew up some and left the past where it needs to be left.”
“Can you do that?” The uncertainty in Tara’s voice mirrored my own thoughts.
Could I leave my feelings for Will in the past knowing how he felt about me now? My adolescent dream of Will professing his love to me had actually happened that day, and here I sat, completely depressed by the experience. It made me sad to realize how much time had been lost between the two of us. How different would I be now if he had just told me how he felt two years ago?
“I honestly don’t know,” I confessed.
The doorbell rang and Tara got up to answer it.
When Brand walked through the door, I felt the weight of the day lift off my shoulders as though it had been a physical weight. In that moment he was my light at the end of a dark endless tunnel. I couldn’t help myself. I launched my body off the futon and into his arms in a matter of seconds. The warmth of his skin and the smell of him made my muscles relax instantly. It was like coming home after you’d been away for a while.
“Lilly, what’s wrong?” he asked holding me easily, like I was the most precious thing in the world to him.
“Just hold me, Brand.”
Tara went to her room to give us some privacy.
I’m not sure how long Brand and I stood there, but I finally let him go and looked up into this beautiful face. Had I ever noticed how Brand’s pale skin glowed before? Well, I mean it didn’t glow like a light bulb, but it was like his inner beauty showed on the outside illuminating him in an ethereal shroud of tranquility.
The tender way he looked down at me made me want to kiss him until I couldn’t think about anything else anymore, until everything Will had said was vanquished from my mind and heart. But, my promise to him stopped me from doing it. Abby’s words reverberated in my mind too. I had to make sure my feelings for Will could be kept in the past where they belonged first.
But could I do it? Could I let go of my adolescent fantasies which had stared Will for as long as I could remember? Could I trust my heart again and let myself fall in love with Brand? It would be so easy to love my Adonis in the flesh and let him love me back.
“Do you want to talk about it?” He asked gently rubbing my back with his hands.
“Yes and no,” I admitted. How could I tell my new boyfriend that my one time best friend had professed his love for me just a fe
w hours ago? Yet, why keep it a secret? Hadn’t he already said he knew Will cared for me a great deal?
“Will and I had a fight and then he said he loved me. That he’s always loved me.”
“Oh, I see.” The understanding smile on his face told me he had expected this to happen. “And what did you say?”
“I told him he was too late. Then I ran away.”
Brand’s brow furrowed at this news. “Why did you run away?”
“I couldn’t handle it. I’d given up hearing him say that to me a long time ago.”
“Did you like hearing it?”
I laid my head on Brand’s chest, unable to look at him. “I don’t know.”
He let out a relieved sigh. “I’m glad to hear that.”
When I looked back up at his face, his expression was one of understanding.
“I thought you’d be upset,” I admitted.
“No, Lilly, you’re only human. I’d rather hear you didn’t know how it made you feel than to hear you say yes or no.”
“Why?”
“If you had said yes, then that would mean I’d lost you. If you had said no, it would probably mean you were denying your feelings for him. But, the fact that you don’t know means you realize you do still have feelings for him but you’re not sure they’re as strong as they used to be. That maybe you’ve developed feelings for me that have started to run just as deep. That’s what’s confusing you.”
“And you’re ok with that?” I asked puzzled at how logical he was sounding.
“I would rather see you make a decision with your eyes open to everything. Don’t mistake my acceptance of the situation as giving in. I want you for myself. I don’t intend to share your heart with Will. It’s me or him but only you can make that decision.”
“Thank you,” I laid my head back onto his chest.
“Why are you thanking me?” He asked laying his cheek against the top of my head, hugging me tighter.
“For not expecting me to know all the answers. For not pushing me to make a decision before I’m ready.”
“I’ll never push you to do anything you don’t want to do, Lilly. I care too much about you to do that. I just want you to be happy. Even if I’m not the one you choose, I want you to know that. But…”
I waited for him to continue, but after a few seconds of silence I looked back up at him.
“But what?”
“But I need you to know that… I love you.” I could tell the words were hard for him to say. Not because declaring his love for me was hard, but I got the impression he was realizing just how much he truly cared for me. “I can honestly say I’ve never met anyone as special as you are. I’ve searched a long time for someone like you, but I’d given up hope you actually existed. If anyone in this world was made for me, you were Lilly. There will never be anyone else for me but you.”
I didn’t know what to say. But I did know I didn’t feel like running away.
“Do you remember the question you asked me in physics class yesterday?”
I could see the wheels in his mind turning trying to remember what I was talking about.
“About the Black and White ball?” he asked.
“My answer is yes. I got my check today from the insurance company for my car and it ended up being a lot more than I thought it would be.”
“I don’t understand. What’s that got to do with the ball?”
“Well, I wasn’t sure if I could afford to buy a dress to go with you. Now I can.”
“I would have bought you a dress, Lilly,” he admonished. “But I am glad to hear that was the only reason you didn’t say yes when I asked.”
“You know I wouldn’t have let you buy me a dress. Why did you think I didn’t say yes right away?”
“I thought you might be waiting for a better offer,” he admitted.
The unsure look on Brand’s face made my heart skip a beat. How could anyone like him be unsure of himself?
I stood on my toes and kissed him on the cheek. “There isn’t anyone I’d rather go with, Brand and that’s the truth.”
I was rewarded with a smile so bright I knew it lit up the room.
The rest of the week went smoothly. Well, at least no one tried to kill me again. I didn’t see Will at all, but Brand told me he contacted him at least three times a day to make sure I was all right. I was thankful Will didn’t try to come see me. It would have just complicated matters.
Brand spent nights at our apartment but Tara took his place in my bed and made him sleep in her room.
“I let it go that first night you were back but once was enough. He don’t need to be sharin’ your bed unless you two get married.”
I just rolled my eyes at her. “Tara Jenkins, I know full well and good that you are not a virgin. Why the double standard?”
“’Cause I don’t want you to make the same mistake I did.” The serious way she said this didn’t surprise me.
I knew Tara had lost her virginity our senior year in high school. She had been going out with Chris Jones at the time. He was one of the better players on our basketball team, and Tara had fallen madly in love with him. After the senior prom, he took her to a motel room and that’s where Tara lost her sexual innocence. After that night, Chris avoided her as much as he could. Tara was heartbroken. She made me promise that I wouldn’t lose my virginity in some nondescript hotel room with a piece of trash like Chris Jones. She tried to make me promise I would be the one to keep true to the purity pledge we had taken when we were sixteen, but I couldn’t promise her that. I knew if I truly fell in love with a guy one day I might not be able to keep a promise like that to her. At the time I always imagined Will to be that guy, but now all I could see in his place was Brand.
That Friday afternoon Abby, Tara and I made a date to go shopping for dresses. Abby met us at our apartment. Since her car and my Mom’s car were two seaters, we ended up taking Tara’s old Toyota Camry to the dress shop. As I knew they would, Tara and Abby hit it off from the first hello.
If you wanted a really nice dress, everyone knew you should go to Madame de Pompadour’s in Lakewood. When we got to the store there were at least 20 cars in the small parking lot. The store itself was jam packed. I estimated at least 50 people inside the small space. Almost as soon as we walked in the door, Tara saw the dress she wanted to wear. The material’s pattern was a little bit wild like she was but the style was somewhat conservative. It was a shoulder less dress with a bold mosaic print in black, white and tarnished gold with a black ruche waist and long hem. It was accented with a metallic gold embroidered-ribbon trim around the top.
I looked through a few racks but just couldn’t seem to find the right dress for me. I really wanted something completely different from what I would normally wear. Finally, Abby and Tara tossed a few dresses in my arms and basically ordered me to go try them on.
It wasn’t until I put the last dress on that they both said, “Wow.”
“That’s the dress, love.” Abby said looking me up and down with a slow whistle.
“You got that right, girl. That’s it for sure.”
When I looked at my self in the mirror, I was pleasantly surprised at how well the dress fit. It was a simple dress. It reminded me of something you might see in pictures with old movie stars like Grace Kelly or Ava Gardner. It was made of black silk with a halter top in a sweetheart design, which definitely put my upper half on full display. It was slim fitting at the top and flared just a bit from the waist to my ankles to make it easier to walk in. It was definitely not something I would have picked out for myself.
My only concern was the bruises from the crash. They were fading quickly, but I wasn’t sure they would be gone in a week’s time. I had always been a fast healer though. The bruises would probably be gone in a couple of more days.
When I voiced my concerns about the bruises to Tara and Abby, they were quick to find a remedy. They found a beautifully embroidered shawl that went with the dress perfectly.
&
nbsp; We were trying on shoes when we heard a friendly voice call out to us.
“Hey guys!”
When I looked up, Michelle was waving at us with a load of dresses in her arms. Nora was right beside her with only one dress in her hands.
“Hey,” I said to Michelle. “What are you doing here?”
“We’re looking for a dress for Nora.” Michelle smiled and tried to reposition the dresses more comfortably in her arms.
“Who are you going with Nora?” I’ll admit I really didn’t care who she was going with but tried to act friendly anyway.
“Well, I had a couple of guys ask me but I chose Ricky Norris. He’s in my world civics class.”
“Who’d you turn down?” Tara asked.
“Can you believe Elliot Manning tried to get me to go out with him again? It didn’t take me but a second to tell him no.”
“Well, I need to put these dresses down before I drop them. See you guys later,” Michelle said making her way to the changing rooms before she fell down under the weight in her arms.
Tara and Abby talked me into buying a pair of shoes with two inch heels. I told them I’d probably end up breaking my neck but they assured me flat shoes wouldn’t look good with the dress. I knew I’d have to practice wearing the heels before the dance. However, I did buy a pair of flats, just in case.
Chapter 10
When Brand came over that night, he tried to get me to model my dress for him, but I told him he had to wait until the dance.
“Don’t you want to be surprised?” I asked cuddling up next to him on the futon.
“You won’t even let me see the dress without you in it? At least give me a hint about what it looks like.”
“Why do you want to know so badly?”
“How else will I know how to dress you in my dreams?”
If he hadn’t been so sincere and looking at me with those smoldering silver-grey eyes, I might have laughed at what sounded like a bad come on line. As it was, I was having a hard time not just falling against him and making out. Luckily, Tara came into the room with the Monopoly game.
