Oh, Dakota

22- Hurricane

Which, in my brain, translated to: Marnie is better than you. I like her better than you. You’re not good enough for me anymore. It doesn’t make sense, but that was just how my mind worked. I mean, I knew that she really did look better than me that night because she tried a lot harder and everything, but he was my boyfriend so he was just supposed to think that I look beautiful in everything, right?

“Fine,” I muttered, trying to look angry since I knew that I couldn’t pull off the blank look, I’d just cover up the hurt with anger and maybe then he wouldn’t be able to tell. “I’ll go change.”

I turned around quickly and hurried for the stairs to go back upstairs and downstairs I heard Marnie start to go off on Todd with a lot of usages of the word ‘asshole’ and ‘dumbass’.

Fifteen minutes later, I returned downstairs in the skimpiest dress that I could find in my closet. It was super short and super tight and the neckline swooped so deep that you could see the space in between my breasts and the back had a cute criss crossing pattern that exposed my back. It was Marnie’s dress but she kept it at my house so that her mother wouldn’t find it, and we were pretty much the same size, luckily. The heels that I had switched into were incredibly tall- they were probably Marnie’s too- and I looked embarrassingly slutty.

I didn’t do it to ‘keep’ Todd or anything, like some girls do when they think that their boyfriend is going to break up with them, they just dress sluttier to try and keep him around, but I wasn’t doing that. I was proving a point in the worst and stupidest way.

“Is this better?” I wondered sarcastically as everyone in the living room dropped their jaw when I started coming down the stairs- except for Owen who rolled his eyes and looked the other way.

“Okay, you made your point, Kota, now go change,” Owen mumbled, obviously not happy with my symbolic outburst.

“Oh no, I can’t do that because I have to look hot tonight,” I defended, walking towards the door with everyone hesitantly following, including an unhappy Owen with his protective brother instincts kicking in and a still-shocked Todd.

We sat together, me and Todd, on the way to Caleb’s house, though so he decided to speak up in the car, quiet enough so that only I could hear him.

“You’re being ridiculous,” He whispered.

“I’m just trying to make you happy,” I chirped innocently. “Are you saying that you don’t like it?”

“I’m saying that it’s too much and you know that it’s too much,” He defended. “I obviously like it, but I don’t like other people seeing it.”

“Well, you probably should have thought of that before you told me to change my clothes,” I informed him. “Because I think I was pretty modestly dressed before. I mean, I dress modest and you tell me to dress like a slut and then I dress like a slut and you tell me to dress modestly. Make up your mind because I’m getting mixed signals here.”

“I know you, Kota,” Todd reminded me with a hand on my bare knee. “And I know that you would never let anybody dictate what you wear, that’s pretty much ridiculous. We both know that you’re just trying to make a point.”

“And did I?”

He nodded in annoyance. “Yes, you made your point- I won’t say anything about what you wear anymore- so let’s just get to this party and then we’ll take the car back to your house and you can change into whatever the hell you want except for this.”

I grinned at him, and it wasn’t sarcastic or anything, it was a real smile. “You’re so adorable when you’re protective, you know. What isn’t adorable, however, is the big asshole that you’ve been lately and it’s annoying.”