Risks of Absurdity

Chapter 22

Chapter 22

Agreeing to go to prom meant having to get a prom dress. Mary and Angie laughed at my annoyed expression. “Oh come on,” Mary said. “This’ll be fun.”

“There are people who say root canals are fun. But you know what? They’re really not.” I glanced around the store and all the colorful dressed mocked me. 

Andrea and her band of merry friends popped out of nowhere. One second she wasn’t there and the next she was. I wondered if this was planned or I really did have the bad luck to run into my pushy sister. “You’re not thinking of skipping it are you?” she made it sound like a sin to skip the party she helped organize.

I spun around looking at every exit. “Where the hell did you come from?”

“Mary told me earlier you were going dress shopping and Tina didn’t have a dress either.” She looked at the girl named Tina standing to her right. “So here we are. You have to think of this as a slap in the face to Austin and get motivated.”

“Austin?” Both Angie and Mary said from beside me. My friends didn’t happen to know of that tragic error in my life, one Angie was human and wouldn’t understand what led me to sleep with Austin, and two I didn’t want it getting around the whole pack so I didn’t tell Mary either. Sometimes she could have a big mouth but apparently not as big as my sister.

Andrea caught her mistake and blushed. “Did I say Austin? I meant Andrew, he’s this guy Syd got close to over the summer before he turned into a huge jerk. He goes to another school but he’s taking Libby, this girl from swim class, and I think it’ll be a good idea for Syd to show him what he’s missing. Guys need to be reminded of that.” I had to give the girl credit, all her rambling fell in character and made perfect sense when she finished with it. Mary and Angie ate up the lies and agreed; I had to find the perfect dress and make the guy jealous.

This was going to be a long day.

An hour later I had tried on ten dresses and I thought most of them were fine but the crowd judging said dresses hated every one. Andrea was the ring leader of this escapade and the other girls, hers and my friends, all fell in line with her critique. 

I slouched in a chair and waited for my sister and the others to come back with more picks they wanted me to try on. In my opinion there were just too many dresses. If there was only five picks they’d have to settle on one but this store had thousands.

I groaned and had a flash image of being tortured to try on every single one.

“Who’d you piss off to be here?”

I glanced up and saw Austin with his hands in his pockets grinning at my misery. “I agreed to it.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

I shrugged. “Going to the prom means getting a dress for it so here I am. Why are you at a girl’s dress store?” I kept talking to ignore how seeing him and having him standing so close made my heart pick up and all my sensory nerves flare with remembrance.

“I’m not, I was walking past and saw you sitting here. I was dropping off Martin at the game store.” He pointed to it up ahead. “Do you want to ditch this dress hell?”

My brows pinched together. “With you?”

He smiled and I felt my heart doing those stupid girly flip flops again. “Yeah, with me.”

I looked around for Andrea and didn’t see her. I didn’t need anyone to fight my battles but I wouldn’t mind her sassy attitude right now. “On what planet does that make sense? I want to avoid you like the plague.” Trying to be vague wasn’t working anymore and I needed to figure this out before my head exploded with all the whys.

He took the last step into the dress shop and reached for my hand. “Come on, Sydney.”

He pulled me off the chair and that put us a little closer than I could handle. I looked up into his eyes and whispered, “What are you doing? You already got what you wanted, why are you still playing with me?” I liked to be the tough girl and tackle the world but I also did have a heart and he kept trying to break it.

“I’m not playing any games and I don’t have any ulterior motives.” He started out the door and took me with him. What the hell was I thinking?

Maybe I wasn’t thinking at all and somehow my brain short circuited due to how fast my heart was racing and how warm my skin was growing.

Inside the car I turned and faced him. “I need you to spell this out for me. Why did you hold me that way at the park? What is this now?”

“You were crying over something that involves me and I couldn’t leave you there to cry alone. When it comes to the possibility of you being pregnant we’re in this together all the way.” Austin was driving and didn’t take his eyes off the road for a second. I doubted it was because he was such a dedicated driver.

“Ok, I can believed that and even accept it but what about now? Why did you swoop in like my knight in shining armor and demand I leave with you?”

“I was on my way out and you looked miserable so I brought you along.”

“Austin.”

“What do you want me to say?”

“The truth! Your ears turn red when you lie and you haven’t stopped gripping the steering wheel for dear life either.” I was a little scared about what the truth actually meant. I didn’t have any real answers either but I knew this wasn’t normal for us and I didn’t want to keep tiptoeing around it.

“I don’t know Sydney, I really don’t.”

“Good, that makes two of us.”

Minutes passed and it was Austin who broke the silence after he pulled into the driveway of his home. “I tried telling you it wasn’t all an act. None of it was really an act when I stop to think about it because all I did was stop fighting the attraction between us.”

I could get out of the car and race up to my room but I wanted answers and now he was finally giving them to me. “There was no attraction until after Logan hurt me and you kissed me that first time to mess with my head.”

He finally glanced my way. “That’s not true. There’s always been an attraction, Sydney. We just both chose to ignore it and deny its intensity. Its still here and we’re trying all over again to deny it by being angry and distant. I guess I keep showing up because…I want to. I want you.”