Teardrops of Roses [Completed]

Chapter 25: I hate dress shopping

C h a p t e r    T w e n t y   F i v e

"It's just up the next floor, I promise!" Mandy drags me by the arm towards the escalator, her other hand full after she'd found her perfect flapper prom dress literally in seconds after flipping through the first rack in the first store. 

I allowed her to take charge and pull me along, navigating us towards the next store that sold flapper style dresses. Whilst I was thankful that she was here to help me take the stress out finding that perfect dress that was apparently 'so important', I also slightly regretted agreeing to go on a day where every man and his dog in the whole town was out celebrating the start of the weekend.

It'd also been the first real time that I'd gone out to an actual mall in years and by the third time I'd been elbowed from people walking past, I was promptly reminded why I avoided it. I rarely ever bought new clothes anyway. 

I was surprised with how well I'd adjusted to being in the midst of the commotion. The crowd inside the complex wasn't too intimidating once I reminded myself that it was pretty much the same as being sardined in the school corridors once lunch had been let out. 

"Boutique... Boutique... Boutique Shimmer! Ah–ha there it is!" We reached the entrance of a gold and glittering shop lined with with racks of dresses with enough sequence, long-frills and glitter to last a lifetime's worth of Hollywood red carpet events. We enter and immediately Mandy begins to combs through the front racks.  I too, approach the racks, however with a lot more doubt and apprehension.

From experience, many of the dresses we'd come across at the previous stores were often sleeveless and short; even when including the length of the frilly bits at the bottom. Being taller, most of the dresses just stopped a little too high up my thigh for me to ever be comfortable with. Those rare few that we found with a good length all, for some reason, had to have the thinnest spaghetti straps and deepest plunging necklines– as if to balance out the modesty; like you couldn't have one without the other! Gah!

In the previous shop I'd reluctantly tried one of these on after Mandy insisted, and once I felt the wind of the air-conditioning vents onto my exposed chests, it was enough to scar me for life. I flipped out and accidentally tore the dress in the zipper section in my hurry to take it off. After that debacle, Mandy finally accepted that I would never wear anything like that again, even if she thought I looked good. 

"Mands... Not this one either." I look in the mirror at the big dress I'd put on with a heavy sigh.  I'd fallen in-love with it the moment I saw it on the mannequin. The capped sleeves and light shimmery white glitter gave it a lovely lady-like feeling that I thought would feel nice. Disappointingly though, while it did looked beautiful and very feminine on the mannequin, on me it was another story. I'd opted to go up a few sizes because I wanted the longer length but in doing that I was left with a whole lot of excess fabric. 

"Show me anyway," she called from behind the curtain while I stepped out, holding all the extra fabric. All of a sudden we hear a hoot of laughter from the stall beside us. 

"Now that's what I'd like to avoid looking like! Did someone bring their great-grandma from the 1950s to life to attend the ball?" 

Turning around, out of the opposite stalls emerged two members of golden trio of our school, Samantha and Melissa. Yep, the whole town really seemed to be out in the mall today.

"Ahem!" Sam cleared her throat loudly and does a twirl in the her dress before we finally noticed. She was wearing the exact same one as I was!

Except the way she and I looked in it was vastly different. Choosing a much smaller size, the dress fit snuggly around her waist with no room to spare, the bottom stopped only a few inches down her thighs. She screamed flirty youth and feminine beauty in the dress with her long slender legs on display for the world to see. I on the other hand, looked like a stick insect wearing a big chewed up disco ball that had been stretched to oblivion on a clothes line and hung to dry.