"I have some good news and some bad news," Dr. Lombardi tells me two weeks later as I'm sitting in her office on a Monday afternoon.
"Let's start with the bad news," I sigh as I lean back in my chair to listen to whatever she has to tell me. I haven't heard any big news for a while now, so this should be interesting.
"I'm afraid that I don't think that you will be making it home for Thanksgiving," She tells me with an apologetic frown. "I mean, you'll still make it to Christmas if everything goes according to plan, but your release will probably be in the middle of December."
"Well, that's alright," I assure her with a small shrug. "Thanksgiving isn't all that great in my family anyway. I just want to be home by Christmas, which will happen because everything is going to go according to plan."
"It's good to hear your confidence," Dr. Lombardi says with a small smile as she writes down something mysterious on her notepad. "Now, onto the good news. It's been a month since I've stopped allowing Niles to visit and I'm impressed, as I usually am with you, about your reaction."
"Yeah, I told you that I wasn't too attached to him," I remind her smugly. "We were just friends. Who so happen to kiss once but we still weren't like, unhealthy or anything."
She lets out a little laugh, "Right, well the good news is that, if you want to ask him to the Halloween dance, I'll let him come to the dance."
"Wow," I say in shock, definitely not seeing this good news coming at all. Although I have missed hanging out with Niles like crazy, I've been doing really well with convincing Dr. Lombardi that I'm doing really well with it. I mean, it's not like I'm being destroyed about it or anything but it still sucks that I only get to communicate with him over the phone. Dr. Lombardi hasn't mentioned Niles in a while though, which is why I'm so surprised that she's even bringing him up right now. "That's really nice. Thank you."
"You're welcome," She says. "I think that it's been a while since you've seen Niles and although I'm skeptical about your relationship, I still think that you deserve this."
"There's only a few days until the dance though, he probably has plans," I sigh, realizing that today is Monday and the dance is on Friday so I'll have to call him tonight and ask him about that. I think that it'd be totally awesome for him to come to the dance because it'd be totally awesome to be able to see him again.
"Well I'm just giving you the option," She tells me. "Now, how was your party committee meetings? Yesterday was the last meeting before the Halloween party, right?"
"Yeah, it was hectic. Quinn got kinda bossy but I just helped with the final layout. There's a few volunteers that volunteered to keep working until the dance but I didn't. I did my part, I'm done with thinking about the dance until I actually go to the dance. I liked it though, it was nice."
"Are you going to stick with it after the dance?"
"Yeah, I think so. It's something to do for a few hours every Sunday so I might as well just keep going with it. Our friend Desiree is going to be the new Quinn so I guess we should be there to support her anyway," I explain to her but I still have my mind stuck on the fact that Niles can come to the Halloween dance. I don't want Dr. Lombardi to think that I'm too excited about seeing him again.
I wonder if he'll agree to come. He might be busy on Friday night. He might have hockey practice or something or maybe he's going to be too busy getting ready for the game that he has on Saturday. But maybe there's a possibility that he'll be as stoked as I am to be able to hang out again. But if he does agree to come to the dance, that adds more pressure for me because I have to find a really good outfit. I usually don't put much effort into my outfits- even when I'm not forced into wearing scrubs, I just put on something black and call it a day. But this time, if Niles is going to be there, I'll want to put an effort into my outfit for the dance.
"Are your friends going to stay with it as well?" Dr. Lombardi snaps me out of my thoughts about Niles with another question.
"Yes, Renée says that she is staying because she wants to have something to do after we leave. You know, since she'll be here even after me and Mia leave so she doesn't want to be stuck by herself. And Mia thinks that it'll be fun too so we're all going to stay with it," I explain to her while simultaneously trying to decide if Niles would try to kiss me if I invited him to the dance. Would he want to? Would I want him to?
"That's good," She says with a nod. "It's good to hear that you are still maintaining your relationships. Do you think that you'll keep your strong friendships with Renée and Mia after you leave this facility?"
"Yeah, probably," I nod in confirmation and she starts writing things down on her pad again. "I mean, we hypothetically are going to travel to somewhere that's not here but that probably won't happen. I think that I'll stay in touch with them though, even after I go back to California."
"Well, I know that I say this a lot but I'm very impressed with your attitude with everything lately," She tells me with a bright smile. "Anyway, that's all the time we have for today so I'll see you tomorrow, Ana."
Getting up from the comfy chair that I'm sitting in and smile at her, wondering what dead celebrity I could dress up as for this dance. "Sure, have a good afternoon, Dr. Lombardi."
When I leave the room, I go directly to the phone bank and dial Niles' number so that I can talk about this dance. I'm not sure how I'm going to introduce the topic of the dance but I know that I have to ask him about it as soon as possible so that he doesn't get other plans if he doesn't have time to make other plans.
He answers the phone rather quickly with an average "Hello?" and for no reason at all, that makes a small smile spread across my lips.
"Hey," I greet him. "I have an important question for you."
"Sure, Ana, what's up?" Niles wonders over the phone.
"Are you busy on Friday night?" I wonder anxiously, playing with the black cord of the phone absentmindedly. "At... oh, I don't know, around six o'clock maybe?"
"Uh, Friday..." He trails off in thought. "No, I don't think I have any plans. Why, what's going on at six on Friday?"
"Well, there's a thing," I explain to him slowly. "Remember that Halloween dance that I've told you about? Well, Dr. Lombardi said that I'm allowed to invite you. You don't have to dress up if you don't want to."
"The Halloween dance?" He repeats, sounding surprised. "Like, we can hang out and everything at the dance?"
"Yeah. So, what do you think? I know that you might think that it's probably lame and that's fine but I miss seeing you so I thought that it'd be a reason to be able to talk face to face again," I tell him.
"Sure, that sounds nice," Niles says. "What did you say the theme was? I know that you told me but I completely forgot."
"Oh, it's Undead Hollywood but like I said, you don't have to dress up if you don't want to," I remind him.
"No, I'll dress up," He says and then there's a pause before he says, "Okay, well I might dress up. What's Undead Hollywood? Zombie celebrities?"
"Not exactly, it's dead celebrities," I say.
"Oh, got it. I think I can work out something. Are you going to dress up?" He asks me curiously.
"Sure," I nod. "I'm not sure who I'm going to be yet but I'm working on it."
"I'm sure that you'll look beautiful no matter what," Niles says and when he calls me 'beautiful' it kind of takes my breath away and I don't really know how to respond, so there's a long silence after what he says until he seems to get worried and says, "I'm sorry, was that not okay?"
"No, it's fine," I breathe into the phone, forcing myself to at least say something. "Anyway, I'll see you on Friday."
"Sure, I'll see you on Friday," He assures me.
"Awesome," I chirp, continuing to nervously twirl the black cord of the phone.
"Bye, Ana," Niles sighs into the phone.
"See you soon, Niles," I grin. "Oh, and by the way, I... um, I like it when you call me beautiful. I think that you're beautiful too."
"I thought that you didn't do the whole physical attraction thing though," He reminds me slowly but I think that I can hear him smiling over the phone. Although, that might be just because I'm crazy. I like to tell myself that he's smiling though.
"I guess that I'm going to make an exception for you," I refute, also smiling like an idiot. "Okay, I've sufficiently humiliated myself enough for one conversation, so I'm going to go. See you on Friday, Niles."
I don't give him the chance to respond to that, I just quickly hang up the phone but only for a moment so that I can pick up the phone again and dial Sienna's number. Usually, I don't really call Sienna but when I need advice on this kind of stuff, I think it's best that I talk to her instead of asking my brother for fashion advice. It's not that I think that he'd have a hissy fit if he found out that Niles is going because I don't think that he would. After everything that's happened, I think Penn has finally gotten over the whole thing so that's good.
"Hello?" Sienna answers the phone politely.
"Hi, Sienna," I greet her in response. "Are you busy?"
"Oh, hey, Ana!" She chirps. "No, I'm not busy. What's up? How are you?"
"Oh, I'm just dandy thanks for asking. I'm actually calling you because I need some help with this Halloween dance. Did Penn tell you about it?" I wonder, deciding that if Penn told her about the dance (which he probably did because he tells her everything) then I won't have to explain it to her.
"Yeah, he mentioned it vaguely," She nods in confirmation.
"Well, the theme is Undead Hollywood. You know, like dead celebrities? I wasn't planning on really dressing up for it, I was just going to grab something from the pile but due to a recent change of plans, I have decided to actually dress up for it and it turns out that I actually have nothing that I can dress up in and actually look nice so I was really hoping that you could help with that?"
"Dead celebrities..." Sienna trails off in thought. "You know, if you want fashion advice, you should call Stella. I'm sure she'd be ecstatic to pull something together for you. I mean, I'm helpful to an extent but I'm not really that into fashion and she lives closer to you."
"Oh, you're friend in New York? I don't have her number," I say.
"Okay, well I'll call her and work something out," She assures me. "So what's the new change in plans that's got you wanting to dress up?"
"It's nothing," I say quickly. "Just a thing."
"Just a thing that has to do with a certain Niles?" She wonders with a subtle laugh.
"It might. He's coming to the dance now so I don't know, I just think that it would be cool if I wear something nice because he's a nice person and it just kinda works out like that," I try to explain but I realize that I just ended up babbling and sounding like an idiot but I don't know how to explain the fact that I want to look nice for Niles. It's not like I think that it's my obligation to dress nice for Niles because I don't believe in the patriarchal system that is engraved in America's society. But I just want to look nice and that's okay.
"You're so adorable, Ana," Sienna teases me. "Do you have any idea on who you want to go to the party as?"
"No, I don't care. I just don't want the outfit to be black," I decide since I've been so used to wearing black all of the time in hopes of disappearing into the background of everybody's attention but this time, I guess that I actually want to be noticed. That's a weird feeling.
"Okay, sure, I'll tell Stella and then just call me tomorrow and I'll give you an update on what she says," She suggests.
"Okay. Thanks a lot, Sienna."
"Sure, Ana, anytime," She chirps. "I'm happy to help."
"Well, tell my brother that I said hi and I'll call him later," I tell her over the phone. "And I'll call you tomorrow."
"Alrighty. Talk to you then," She chirps before we hang up the phone and I go to the common area to join Renée and Mia to tell them the plan. As I'm walking, I find myself subtly crossing my fingers and hoping for the best.
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Song: Get it Right by Oh, Honey
Picture: Cover of Up in Flames (my up-coming story)
Dedication: breathingdaisy for getting the answer right to the question posted in last chapter: My newest idea is Up in Flames (mentioned on Tumblr), not Viral as most of you reasonably thought.