Someone Like You

Part Twelve

Chapter Twelve

Life went on for Nina, and though she tried to ignore the looming threat of the Madonna fashion launch, the days ticked by steadily. She threw herself back into her designing, and had some amazing ideas, but that didn't mean that her mind wasn't still distracted by the past and the future, things didn't seem the same, not really and she couldn't figure out why.

Amelia, an actress growing in her fame, was as tall as Lilah, and as beautiful. She dwarfed a room when she came in, Nina had realised a long time ago, associating with two such beauties, that it was confidence that gave them both such a dramatic presence, but that didn't mean it was any easier to emulate them. The day before a courier had arrived with a huge parcel, which when she'd opened with dread had revealed a dress that scared her. She'd never worn anything like it, and she had no idea how she'd squeeze her rather thick figure into it. Though it was exquisite navy blue, ruched silk, with a single strap over the right shoulder landing to mid thigh and the label revealed the name of a well known exclusive designer.

It had taken her an hour to lift it from the box, and since then it had stared at her from a hanger in the corner of her bedroom, at some point she had to try it on, as the day of reckoning was approaching. With a grunt of frustration she grabbed the dress, tossing her t-shirt off as she pulled it over her head. It took a few moments to position her breasts in the correct place, and draw the deceptively tight fabric down to her thighs, but she got it on...and then couldn't reach for the zip at the back to fasten it.

"LILAH!" She called out at full shout. Her friend had just come home from having a spray tan at a nearby salon, so she knew she was home. When her bedroom door flew open, Nina looked up to see her friend stood open mouthed in the doorway. "What?" She snapped.

"You look AMAZING!"

Nina rolled her eyes, then turned to offer her the open zip. Lilah closed it then watched as her friend slipped her feet into the spiky heels that had come with it. She was still watching when Nina caught sight of herself in the mirror and stopped dead.

"I don't look fat!"

Lilah came to stand behind her, "that's cos you're not. I keep telling you that. You're petite and curvaceous, you should flaunt your beauty more often," she gestured towards her wardrobe as she added, "instead of draping yourself in bland sacks. I just wish you'd see what I see. I'd love to punch your darling step mother for her role, or lack of. It's her fault. The bitch. She tried to ruin you and no one even saw it."

Nina knew Lilah was right, she'd been a fairly happy youngster, her father wasn't happy, not really and her stepmother had never been anything to her, but she had great friends and loved her grandmother to distraction. She was popular at school, especially as she hit her mid teens. Though all that changed when she walked into her home one Friday after school to find her beautiful step mother Imelda in flagrante with Josh, the love of her life, the older boy she'd felt so lucky to date for the previous six months. It hurt more than anything else, because she could never compete with the beauty of the elegant Russian. He left, he didn't rush to beg her forgiveness, instead he sauntered out like the proverbial cat who'd overloaded on cream. Six months of her life, wasted as her heart disintegrated into fragments...and then to rub salt in the wound, Josh played the lovesick kitten, hounding Imelda...and she didn't look him in the eye again.

The worst part was that no one else believed her, other than Lilah. Not her other friends, not her brother, and definitely not her father. And her heart broke a little more.

She'd left home for France a week later and despite being welcomed to the bosom of her mother's family, the damage had already been done. Nina hardened her heart, and from that moment on had become a different person.