leilani

01.05

I was beyond excited to write the Midsummers scene
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"This is disgusting," Kie scrunched her nose as we both stood in front of the mirror with long, silk dresses on our bodies. Hers was a pale shade of purple, a flower crown in her hair which was on top of her head in a bun.

"I look ridiculous," I added while smoothing my hands over the fabric. My dress was sage green and I opted for my hair to be down and curled, but mom insisted I still wore a flower crown.

"I know. It's just horrible. I'm asking you both to relax and go to a fun party," Mom replied to us both as she put earrings in.

"I look like a bourgeoisie pig," Kie said as she spun around and I snorted a small laugh, not expecting her to say that.

"Will you please not worry about socioeconomic injustice for one night?" Mom asked and we walked over to her.

"Mom, I don't even know what that means, but if worrying about that gets me out of this dress then I'm all in." I looked to her through the mirror and she dropped her hands, sighing at my comment.

"People not three miles from here have no power, no running water, and we're going to Midsummers." My sister continued to argue and I took her side. On top of not wanting to go to this Kook event, I didn't even understand the point of it. The rich folk lived their perfect lives while people from the cut struggled to stay afloat, "That's so tone-deaf."

"Do you know how hard we had to work to get into the Island Club?" Mom looked at Kiara and I rolled my eyes. The Island Club is a sad excuse to sit around, drink beer, and talk about what yacht you're buying next.

"How could we forget? You had to grovel for, like, ten years," I followed the conversation as Kie walked away. I honestly didn't feel like talking out of embarrassment of my outfit. Neither of us have ever been ones to dress up this way, so we both felt ridiculous.

"Twelve," Mom corrected, "and we also had to cough up a huge chunk of dough, and do you know why we did that?"

"To keep up with the Joneses?"

"Bragging rights?" I finally got myself to speak.

"No and no." Mom glanced between us, "So that you could have the same experiences that I had as a child. Honey, do you know what the Island Club is?"

"A factory farm for debutantes." Kie answered. I couldn't agree more.

I could tell our mom was getting annoyed as she held her hands in front of us, begging for us to understand, "It is a nice place, with nice people, where you can do fun stuff."

"With out-of-touch rich people, while the island sinks slowly into the ocean." For every argument mom had, Kie had the perfect rebuttals.

"Seriously, there's bigger fish to fry here." I added and picked at my thumb nail.

"Okay, alright. I see how you two are choosing to be today," Mom sighed and punched the bridge of her nose, "I want you both to put on your party faces if you wanna live." She angrily stormed out of the room.

"Empty threats mean nothing to us!" I called out. Kie leaned her head onto my shoulder as we stood in the now empty room, contemplating how to get out of this, "I just wanna see JJ."

"You will soon," Kie promised, "I'm sure he weaseled his way right out of jail." She spun so she was standing in front of me and held my hands in here, "Let's go make the rich folk happy."

"Oh, joy," I huffed and let her drag me out of the room. When we walked onto the porch of the huge, white house I felt overwhelmed with the amount of people. Large crowds have never been my thing, there was too much going on in a confined area, "I spot Pope." I pointed through the crowd and saw Pope standing with his dad, both of them wearing aprons.