Too Beautiful For the Alpha

Chapter 23

Maybe I've been dreaming because no situation has felt as real as this one does now. My heart won't settle, my hands won't keep still, I have to take deep breaths every little bit to calm myself. It's only dinner. We've dealt with many more nerve-racking things before, but for some reason, this one scares me the most. It's the most normal. The most foreign to me.

I brush my hair while standing in front of the mirror in my cozy bathroom, stroking the dark strands as it runs through. This seems to relax me. It's six thirty, and I heard someone walk down the hall a few minutes ago. Assuming it was James, my mind keeps wandering to him, wondering what he's doing. I think he's in the shower.

I set my brush down and leave the bathroom to change. My robe is wrapped tightly around me as I rummage through the closet, already knowing what's in there, but looking as if new things have joined the collection. My shaky fingers tug at dresses, nice pants, blouses, and pull down a few. I set them on the bed to try things on. Before letting my robe drop to the floor, I close the shutters and lock the door. First, I shimmy on a dress.

I check how I look in the mirror on the back of the door. It's silver and detailed and princess-like, but I don't look like a princess in it. The dress is black and flowy, and much too short. If I bend down, I'll flash my underwear, and if I reach up, I may just do the same. I switch to another dress, then another, then a lilac blouse, then to a navy sweater.

I eventually admit to myself that I hate this, trying on clothes in an attempt to look attractive. That part of me will never change.

This is all an unwanted flashback to times of getting ready for the gathering. The purple dress, the whining, the fear, the gold dress, the stumbling, my mother's encouraging, and that bagging chest area that was never filled out. Only this time I will be talking to a guy, which right now, makes it worse. I feel like old Rae, wanting to stay in bed, reading a book under the yellow light of a lamp.

My eyes shoot to the clock once I realize I've been sitting on the floor for a while. It's five minutes to seven. I have five minutes.

Naturally, I bring myself to a panic.

"I can't do this," I murmur, "I can't do this, I can't, I can't, I'm not," all while slipping on my pajamas and throwing myself into my bed. "I can't. I can't." My eyes stare at the clock until the fifty-nine flashes to two zeros, then they smack shut, squeezing all of the light out. My hands fist the covers before yanking them over my head, wanting to be anywhere else.

I'm scared. I don't know how to act normal with him. It was all fun and games when we slept and kissed and argued and hugged, but now it's just straight conversation. Getting to know each other, how we eat, how we drink, how long I chew for before swallowing. Just us, alone, over food, which makes me even more anxious. Food.

I remember when I was sixteen and chubby legged and cheeked, I remember the rules I had for myself. No more than some obscure amount of calories and absolutely no foods that weren't guilt-free. Yet, every food had guilt in it back then.

I wouldn't eat in front of my mother. I wouldn't look in the mirror for long periods of time. I would cry because I wasn't them. It always comes back to them, right? Those girls. The girls like her, the green-eyed girl. And she had him. She had James. He had her. He wanted her. That can't be denied.

Maybe he used her to distract himself from me as he says, but he still had her body. She was able to give it to him. She knows—she knows that she's irresistible. She knows her hair is thick and soft, her skin is smooth and unmarked, her body is lean and curved, her touch—I bet he loved it. I bet he did.

I want this to work, I really do, but I know that she's going to haunt me. She'll stride into his bedroom, the girl I'll never be, and she'll seduce him with the qualities I'll never have.