There are times in a person’s life where they question a decision or multiple decisions that they had made in the past. They will question their sanity and they will want to back down out of whatever decision that they regretted.
When I was sitting on my couch with my dad and my brother, that was one of those times where I was questioning myself and my own decision making skills. Why did I feel the need to tell them about Paris? Why did I feel the need to tell my dad about talking to Annie at all? This was going to end so terribly and it was all my fault.
“Aren’t you going shopping today?” Owen wondered as we all were sitting on the couch.
“Yeah,” I sighed. “Later though, I have to tell you guys something really quick though.”
“Are you pregnant?” My dad asked with raised eyebrows.
“No!” I insisted loudly.
“Well then what is it?”
I took a deep breath and decided to get it all out in one breath so that it wouldn’t be so slow. “I’ve been talking to our mom,” I blurted, waiting a few seconds to look up and gauge my dad’s reaction.
“I know,” He chuckled. “You’re not as secretive as you think you are, Dakota.”
“You know?” I echoed in surprise. “How’d you find out?”
“Owen told me,” He sighed. “And if that’s what you want, then you go for it, I won’t stop you.”
“Oh,” I muttered, totally taken back by the total nonchalance that my dad had for the subject. Ever since I was little, he wouldn’t allow Owen or me to ask questions about our mom or to talk about her at all so I was genuinely surprised and relieved that he didn’t mind me talking to her. “Well, that’s not all.”
“So you are pregnant?” My dad wondered.
“I’m not pregnant,” I grumbled. “Why do you think that I’m pregnant?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know, you just seem like you’re about to tell us that you’re pregnant.”
“Well, I’m not,” I assured him once again. “But after talking to Annie for a while, she actually invited me to go visit her in Paris for the summer.”
“What?” Owen snapped, finally joining the conversation. “That’s insane, you’re going to tell her no, right?”
I shrugged softly. “I don’t know yet.”
“Dad, you won’t let her do that, will you? That’s seriously insane, Kota, you don’t even know her,” Owen reminded me hysterically.
“Okay, well technically, we’ll be eighteen by then so I can go without Dad’s permission, I just thought you guys would want to know,” I explained. “I don’t want you to be mad or anything and I’m not sure if I’m going to accept or not.”
“I think it sounds like a good idea,” My dad piped.
“You do?” Owen and I spurted at the same time.
He nodded. “Yeah, I do. Just because I don’t particularly care for the woman, doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t have the opportunity to get to know your mother.”
“I’m so glad that you see it that way,” I chirped excitedly. “You’re the best, Daddy.”
“You’re only saying that because I’m paying for this prom dress,” He teased as I stood up from the couch to grab my bag because I had to meet Nikki and Bridgett at the mall in fifteen minutes to go find our prom dresses.
“No, that’s only a little bit of the reason,” I joked, still incredibly relieved that he wasn’t upset about the Paris thing, although I don’t think I could say the same thing about Owen because he looked kind of upset about it.
“So you’re really going to go to Europe for three whole months?” Owen wondered as I grabbed the keys so that I could leave.
I shrugged. “I don’t know, O, maybe. I’m still thinking about it but I kind of really want to go.”
“I think it’s stupid,” He admitted, walking into the kitchen with me.
“I know,” I sighed. “But I think it’s something that I want to do.”
“And what about Braeden?” Owen argued.
“We’ve been figuring it out,” I responded vaguely. “Anyway, we can talk about this later, O, I don’t want to be late because it’ll probably take us at least all weekend to find the perfect dresses for prom next week.”
“Right,” He sighed with a small laugh. “Because girls are really weird.”
“Right,” I mimicked him. “And you still don’t have a date, so no matter how weird you think I am, I will win this battle.”
“Who said that I don’t have a date?” He wondered with raised eyebrows.
“Do you?” I asked him immediately.
“We can talk about this later, Kota, you don’t want to be late, remember?” He fired my own dismissive comment back at me.
“You’re a jerk,” I jokingly accused him before exiting through the back door to get to the car. The drive to the mall was exactly twelve minutes long and I found Nikki and Bridgett already conversing at the cupcake place in the food court.
“Oh good, Dakota is here and she can settle the debate!” Nikki cheered once I arrived at the small table they were sharing as they both were chowing down on their own gourmet cupcakes with one untouched one sitting there preordered for me because Nikki knew that my favorite cupcake was the Oreo one.
I sat down and eagerly started chowing down on the Oreo cupcake. “Explain the debate,” I laughed.
“Okay, so I think that Bridgett would look really amazing in a green gown kind of dress but she disagrees,” Nikki explained.
“I would prefer a short dress. Preferably pink,” Bridgett defended.
“Well, obviously Bridgett gets the last say, since it is her prom dress,” I sided with Bridgett.
“Okay, I can understand where you’re coming from,” Nikki agreed. “I’m thinking about going with black, or do you think that’s too edgy?”
“I think you could definitely pull off a black dress,” I nodded.
“Right? I so could,” Nikki agreed. “But Levi wants to get a fun tie and his tie has to match my dress so if I get a black dress, he’ll have to get a black tie and that’s no fun.”
“You sound like such a girl,” I laughed.
We finished up our cupcakes before throwing away our trash in one of the bins and then decided on the first shop to go to. Because it was prom season, almost all of the stores were selling an abundance of prom dresses, so the hard part of this shopping trip would be choosing the perfect dress.
“So, Bridgett,” Nikki started as we started on the first store. “Your boyfriend is taking you to prom, right?”
She nodded, eyeing a rack of pink dresses. “Yep. Cody and Maggie are going to stay here with us until after prom.”
“And Maggie is his sister, right?” I clarified.
She nodded. “Yeah, well he’s autistic, so he can’t travel by himself. Besides, Maggie is like an older sister to me and she’s pretty excited for my prom. I had to beg with her to not come with me today to go dress shopping.”
“She seems nice,” Nikki commented. “And very pretty.”
“Yeah,” Bridgett sighed. “She’s great.”
“Hey, on a completely random note, do you think that Levi will bring condoms to prom?” Nikki wondered, grabbing a simple black dress from one of the racks.
“Probably, he is a guy,” I laughed. “Braeden probably will.”
“Wait, are you two going to do it on prom night? I mean, I know you’ve technically already done it, but losing your relationship virginity is so cheesy and cute on prom night,” Nikki explained.
“It’s the only night that we’ll be able to spend together without me having to be home by two. I convinced my dad that I’m going to spend the night at the hotel with all of you guys.”
“Well, that’s true so at least you didn’t lie,” She piped.
“Exactly. Anyway, I know that it’s cheesy but it’s still pretty cute,” I justified.
“It sure is cuter than sweaty seduction after a baseball game, which is how Levi took mine,” Nikki sighed loudly. “So I have no room to complain.”
“Mine wasn’t all that great either,” Bridgett admitted with a small giggle. “But it was nice, I guess. And I think that you were right with the length- I’ll definitely go with something long, but I have to stick with pink.”
“Pink it is,” I chirped, finding a cute pink dress on the rack that I was searching. “What about this one?”
And so that’s how most of our afternoon went, just us going around the mall looking for the perfect prom dresses. We stopped for another cupcake round and then we had dinner there in the food court. It was hard and long, but our search was relentless and we didn’t stop looking until each one of us had the perfect dress in hand and numbingly painful pain in their feet.
“I can’t feel my lungs,” Nikki breathed as we all walked out of the mall with our long dresses thrown over a shoulder.
“I can’t feel my anything,” Bridgett added with a tired puff.
“You’re both wimps,” I teased, grabbing my keys out of my jean pocket as we walked through the parking lot. I didn’t know where Bridgett parked but, because Nikki and I had this system where if we ever met up at the mall, we’d park by the light pole labeled B, we were parked close to each other. As a result, we said goodbye to Bridgett, who was parked by the C pole and then trudged our tired bodies towards the B section. I unlocked my doors and carefully laid my dress in the back of my car before pulling my phone out and checking the time but also seeing that I had a few texts from Marnie and a missed call from Owen.
“Did Marnie text you?” Nikki asked as she also realized that she had a text from the same person.
“She wanted to go dress shopping with us,” I sighed, reading the first of the texts. “Nikki, I know that I shouldn’t be friends with her, but I seriously feel like such a bitch.”
“I know,” Nikki agreed. “Me too. But we tried forgiving her, remember? That didn’t work either, so we just have to ignore her and move on.”
“Right,” I nodded. “I mean, she did this to herself, right?”
“Exactly,” Nikki muttered as we tried to reassure ourselves that we were doing an okay thing by just ignoring Marnie’s constant pleas at forgiveness.
“And Owen called me- were we really that oblivious while shopping?” I wondered, deciding that I’d call him back once I started driving home.
“Yes,” She laughed, standing beside me at my car. “Why do you seem so surprised that he called you though?”
“I told him that my mom wants me to move to Paris,” I admitted. “Just for the summer, but I just figured he’d be a little upset about it I guess.”
“You’re going to Paris?” Nikki squealed.
“I don’t know,” I laughed softly. “I’m still thinking about it.”
“Do it! That is so exciting, Kota, to be able to go to Paris for a whole summer and to get to know your mom. You totally have to do it!”
“I’m still thinking about it,” I repeated with another laugh. “Anyway, I’ll see you later, yes?”
“Of course,” She chirped.
“Wait,” I called just before she was about to turn to get into her own car. “Do you know who Owen is taking to prom? He told me that he has a date but he didn’t tell me who.”
She crinkled her nose in thought before shaking her head. “Nope, I don’t think that I know, but I’ll squeeze it out of Levi.”
“It’s not that big of a deal, I was just curious,” I shrugged, finally getting into my car to go home.
By the time that I remembered that I was supposed to call Owen, I was already almost home, so I just decided against it because he’d probably be home and he’d just tell me then what he wanted to tell me over the phone.
After trudging with my dress all the way through the house, I walked into my room to find Marnie sitting there on the bed texting away at her phone.
“AH!” I let out a shrill scream as I almost dropped the dress. “What are you doing here?”
“I didn’t mean to scare you,” She said quickly, standing up from my bed.
I grumbled incoherently as I walked over to my dresser and hung up my dress so that I didn’t get it wrinkled or torn or anything. “Okay, well what are you doing here?”
“I see that you already got your dress,” She sighed sadly. “I kind of wanted to go with you.”
“I went with Nikki and Bridgett,” I explained softly.
“Is Bridgett like, replacing me or something?” Marnie wondered with an upset frown.
“It doesn’t matter,” I mumbled. “We aren’t friends anymore, you and me. I tried to forgive you and move on but I just can’t. And you showing up in my bedroom like this isn’t helping at all, Marnie.”
“Oh, yeah, Marnie is here,” Owen piped from the doorway. “And she’s not leaving. I called you but you didn’t answer your phone.”
“Thank you for that,” I chirped sarcastically at my brother.
He smiled back at me and then disappeared again because he was just that weird.
“I just want to hang out with you again like old times,” Marnie explained desperately.
“Well, it’s not old times,” I told her. “And you’re acting like a serious charity case right now. The Marnie that I know has pride and she doesn’t beg for people to be her friend, she just accepts it with her head held high and moves on.”
“But how can I do that without my best friend?” She wailed.
“I don’t know how to help you,” I admitted apologetically. I hated sounding so mean to her, but I didn’t know how else to say it without her thinking that maybe we could be friends again, which won’t happen. “But you’re going to have to figure it out. Without me.”
“Oh, and Braeden is here too,” Owen came back into the room with Braeden and Levi behind him.
“Thanks for the memo,” I groaned.
“If you answered your phone, I wouldn’t have forgotten to tell you,” Owen defended. “So is there going to be a girl fight or no?”
“We’re not fighting,” I mumbled, almost laughing at my idiotic brother.
“I guess I’ll go then,” Marnie sniffled. “Since you just don’t care anymore.”
“That’s probably a good idea,” I nodded, moving out of the way of the door so that she could get through.
“That was pretty harsh,” Owen commented once she was gone and out of the house.
“She almost deserved it,” I defended. “She won’t take no for an answer and it’s so aggravating. Which reminds me, who are you taking to prom?”
Owen grinned at me with an energetic laugh. “I’m not telling you.”
“Is she on the dance team?” I wondered. “She probably is, isn’t she?”
He shrugged. “You’ll have to wait and find out next Saturday, Kota.”
“Owen Peters, you have a crush!” I exclaim. “Not only do you have a prom date, but you have a full blown crush on this mystery date. How do I know? I’m so glad that you asked. That’s why you were so nonchalant about the Paris thing, because you’re all cupcakes and butterflies for this mystery girl!”
“Okay, we’re leaving now,” Owen appeased me when he realized that I wasn’t going to stop teasing him about this girl.
“Do you know who it is, Levi?” I wondered, going to Levi for answers because Owen was clearly not going to tell me.
“Yeah- I mean no. Yes I do. No! I really don’t know who this girl is because she doesn’t exist. She’s actually a robot. A ghost. I’m going to go now,” Levi rambled. He clearly wasn’t the best liar.
Owen followed Levi down the hallway, leaving me alone with Braeden finally. Because my dad was gone for the day with his friends, I shut the door all the way and locked it before turning to Braeden with a cheesy smile.
“Do you know who it is?” I wondered curiously.
He nodded, pulling me close to him and pecking my lips with a simple hello kiss. “Yeah, I do.”
“You’re not going to tell me who it is though, are you?”
He laughed and then kissed me again. “I’m not.”
“Fine then,” I sighed. “I’ll live without knowing. How was your day?”
“Boring,” Braeden admitted. “How was your shopping?”
“Exhausting,” I huffed, plopping down on my bed. “But at least I found the perfect dress. It really is super cute and I’m sure you’ll just fall in love with it when you see it next weekend.”
“I’m not allowed to see it now?” He wondered with a laugh.
I shook my head. “No, you have to wait until prom night. It’s bad luck for you to see my prom dress before prom night, obviously.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s just marriage,” Braeden mentioned.
“No, it’s prom too,” I giggled.
“I think you’re making that up, but whatever you say,” He teased.
“So I told Owen about Paris,” I informed Braeden.
“I know,” He sighed. “He told me.”
“Is he mad about it?” I wondered. “He won’t act mad because apparently, he’s looking through rose colored glasses right now, but did he say anything about being mad at all?”
He shook his head. “Nope, but he’s really surprised. That’s pretty much all he said about it though.”
“I think he’s secretly upset,” I admitted. “I mean, don’t you remember how furious he was with me when he found out that I’d been in contact with her over mail? I don’t get how he can just suddenly be okay with me actually flying to Paris to meet her.”
“Maybe he’s jealous,” Braeden pondered slowly. “Because he also wants a relationship with your mother.”
“Do you really think that’s it?” I asked with raised eyebrows, sitting on the edge of my bed with my legs resting over Braeden’s lap.
He shrugged sheepishly. “I don’t know, but I kind of sounded like Dr. Phil for a second there, right?”
“Sure,” I giggled. “I don’t think that’s it though, because he really hates that I’m even talking to her.”
“Just talk to him about it after prom, when he’s not all excited for his mystery date,” Braeden suggested.
“Thank you, Dr. Phil, I’ll just do that,” I agreed with a nod.
He grinned at me, placing a soft kiss on my lips. “I’m here to help. Now, can we be done talking about your brother? I mean, if you still want to talk, that’s totally fine, but I really want to kiss you now.”
“I really want to kiss you now too,” I giggled softly. I don’t know why he just made me giggle all of the time but it felt idiotic yet adorable at the same time.
“Obviously,” Braeden scoffed jokingly. “I am an awesome kisser.”
“Yeah,” I agreed with a small laugh. “You really are an awesome kisser, Braeden.”
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This song is the cutest thing ever <3 Only two more chapters left! </3