365 Days

246

A/N: You know the creative juices are flowing when you start to write the chapter and end up with 'hi tehe' on your screen for an hour. I'm tireeed let me sleeeeep.

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246

Shopping is very therapeutic; it's like a having a bath after a stressful day with candles lit and soft jazz playing.

Shopping for a dress to wear to a wedding, however, is the thing that requires the bath at the end of the day. Especially when you have to shop with your two best girl friends who are majorly into fashion.

At least I have Ryan, who has somehow managed to get dragged along with us. It's almost as if he makes up the last girl in our little quadrant, although this is not an activity he is enjoying. As we roam the stores with Lacey and Olive on the hunt, we trail behind, dragging our feet and wondering when the next food break will be.

"I wish there wasn't a stupid public holiday so that we'd be at school and not here," Ryan groans, his voice muted. We have ended up in a store like Forever 21, but it's much fancier. All the dresses must have pricetags to break the bank, but Lacey assures me they are affordable.

"I know." I'm frowning when Lacey skips back to me, her hair swinging from side to side. She is wearing a smile so wide it looks like she slept with a hanger in her mouth.

"We found some dresses! You just have to try them on," she beams, grabbing my wrist and pulling me to the changerooms. Everything is a polished white; the doors, the walls, the floor, except for the gleaming doorknobs and clothes hooks which are glass.

I repress a groan as they shove me into a change room, all the dresses they have picked out already on the hooks. The stack is thicker than my arm. I want to cry.

"Guys," I whine, unzipping my jeans and sliding them off. "Do I have to try on all of them? There's like, twelve."

The answer is simultaneous. "Yes." There's no room for arguing.

I slide my top off as I hear the girls chatter away outside. Ryan is probably sulking against a wall.

I turn to the dresses, so many colours I can hardly differentiate.

Contestant number one is a deep red cocktail dress with spaghetti straps that I would constitute a 'whore dress'. I don't even put it on.

"These have to be suitable for a wedding," I call out. "Jesus Christ."

Contestant number two is a navy blue one with a fitted, sleeved bodice and a flared out skirt. It's pretty, so I try it on and look in the mirror. It makes my blonde hair stick out but I feel like one of those sailor girls who are always seen with their boobs pushed up to their ears. I a) don't want to be one of those (especially at a wedding) and b) don't have a big enough chest for that. Regardless, I step out of the change room regardless, knowing the girls will want to see it.

Lacey likes it but says there are better while Olive completely dismisses it. I shoot a look at Ryan for help but he's trying not to laugh at me, clearly very happy he's not in my position. I'd hit him but I fear I might rip the dress so I just poke my tongue out at him and retreat to the dressing room.

I try on dress after dress after dress. They are all either too short, too long, too low cut, see-through or too clingy. I am about to give up but I have one dress left. On the coat hanger it looks decent. So here it goes.

Contestant number twelve is a lovely pale pink dress with a relatively fitted bodice and skirt that flows out at the waist. It reaches just below my mid-thigh, is fairly basic and has the same neckline as the band t-shirts I wear to bed. It has a semi long-sleeve and is made out of this beautiful fabric that I can't name.