“Rachel!” I hear Amber wining at me from the other side of the door. Amber, Krista, Rhiley and I were all getting ready at my house then we were going to Brads party. We had all done our hair and makeup and they were wearing their dresses, which meant that everyone was ready but me. I look at myself in the mirror again.
I had locked myself in the bathroom because I was embarrassed. Last night at the mall, I found a really cute dress. It looked good on me, and it seemed like the shoes I had bought earlier were made to match the dress. The only problem was: it is very revealing.
My dress is made of forest green chiffon. It is floor length, and now that I think about it, way too dressy to wear to some rich kids birthday party. Too late now, I think to myself. The top of the dress, which is very tight, is decked out in tiny little jewels; I believe the term is bedazzled. The rest of the dress is loose and it flows beautifully whenever I move. It is a bit too long for me, but with my shoes, it is the perfect length, it is like the dress was made for me.
I have on long silver teardrop earrings, they belonged to my grandmother and when I showed my mom the dress that I bought, she said they would be perfect. I have kept my makeup simple and light, just a bit of glitter on my eyes and a touch of blush. For my hair, Rhiley curled it and then put it in a loose up-do. She left the front pieces of my hair down so they would frame my face, and she wrapped the hair around itself so that it would stay in a loose bun at the back of my head, and some hair could fall out.
I honestly think that I will be way too dressed up for this party. Last night when we were shopping, though, Annie had assured me that some people wore ball gowns to his parties. This is an excuse for people to get dressed up, and who doesn’t like doing that?
“RACHEL!” yells Amber, again, as she starts banging on the door.
“One minute!” I yell back to her. I take one last look in the mirror, and decide that I am about as ready as I will ever be. I leave the bathroom, and enter my room. The party starts at 8:00, it is 7:54. We don’t want to get there early, so we decide to leave in about half an hour. I look at my clock again, just as I hear a knock on the door. It must be Derek.
Suddenly I feel my face flush, what if I am way over dressed for him? When I get to the door, I see that it is not Derek, but Kait. She looks at me with wide eyes, taking in what I am wearing. “Rachel!” she squeals, and I duck my head. She walks in and then we go up to my room with the rest of the girls.
It is not until she sits down on my bed that I realize that something is wrong. “We broke up!” she says to us, tears forming in her eyes. I can tell that she is not wearing any makeup. Well this is just great.
“What!?” asks Rhiley, shocked, “Why? What did he do?” We are all shocked actually. They were like the couple that was supposed to stay together for a really long time. My theory was that they were both too nice to break up with each other.
“N-nothing!” she replies, crying, “It was m-me!” She is full out crying now, so Amber goes and sits beside her. Kait wraps her arms around Amber and cries into her shoulder. Now I am really curious, what did she do? I really want to ask her this question but I don’t want to seem mean, or hurt her feelings.
“What happened?” ask s Krista, “you guys seemed fine yesterday.”
“Yah, we, we just...I don’t know...” She gets really flustered. I furrow my brow, what’s going on? “I didn’t mean to,” she finally says, her voice going really quiet.
“What?” I ask her, now I am concerned. What could this girl have done to cause Josh to break up with her?
“Why did he break up with you?” asks Rhiley, still shocked.
“I, he didn’t...I broke up with him.” She stops and looks at all of us before she continues, “Last night, after work, he caught me and Matthew...together.” Amber and Rhiley gasp, Krista’s eyes go wide and my jaw drops straight to the floor.
“You what...!?” I try not to yell, but if it is one thing I hate, its cheaters.
“It just sort of happened! I, we...we have been talking at work a lot, and on the phone; and last night, Josh was late picking me up so Matt offered to let me wait in his car. I didn’t want to wait outside, and he told me he wasn’t going to leave me until Josh got there anyways, so I waited in his car.”
She pauses to catch her breath, and looks around the room at us again.
“But if it was you,” says Rhylie, “why didn’t he break up with you? And you were just sitting in his car...” I wanted to ask that question too, but it seemed rude.
“We were, at first.” She says to us. She knows how much I hate cheaters, so she says this next part looking at me, her eyes pleading for my forgiveness. “I don’t really know how it happened, but we were just talking- he’s really sweet Rachel!” I give her a look, signalling for her to continue, “And with Josh, its just so comfortable. He never says nice things to me anymore, it is like we are brother and sister now. And Matthew, he said that I had really pretty eyes. Then he asked if he could kiss me, at first I said no, but then I realized that I wanted him to kiss me.
We stare at her with wide eyes. She pauses from her story to blow her nose, and it looks like she is done crying. “I told him he could kiss me, but, then he said no. Not when I am still dating Josh.” We were all confused, if Matt said no, how could Josh have caught them together?
“I pulled his face to mine and thats when Josh came. He told me it was okay, and that we would work through this... no questions, just acceptance. Thats when I realized that he had a secret and it turns out he has been cheating on me...” She pauses and takes a few more deep breaths before finishing, “Matt took me home and asked if I would go with him to Brads party, so he should be here soon.”
Well that was an interesting turn of events. Wow, he had been cheating on her...who knew? As if on cue, my doorbell rings. I look at Kait, who is a mess, then motion for her to go down and get the door.
“But its your house!” she says to me.
“And its your guest,” I reply smugly. Its her mess, she should have to deal with it herself.
“Please Rachel! I need to clean myself up before he sees me!” I sigh and leave the room, telling her that I will stall him for as long as I can.
I rush down the stairs and answer the door, just as the person was raising their fist to knock. The person standing on the other side of the door was wearing a black suit and he had a tie that was the exact same colour as my dress. It wasn’t Matt, it was Derek!
When he sees me, his eyes go wide and his jaw drops causing me to blush deeply. I move over giving him room to come into my house. I am still blushing and I cant look at his face.
“Wow,” was all he managed to say. I look at him now, and smile.
“Hi,” I say to him, I look down again and say, “Everyone is upstairs, come on.”
We go up to my room, and Rhiley is fixing Kait’s hair, while Amber is doing her makeup. When she sees us coming in, she squeaks and runs into the closet, shutting the door. Derek gives me a funny look and I just shrug, “Kait, calm down, it’s Derek.”
“Oh,” she says, opening the door. “Hey,” she says to him while taking a seat on the bed so the girls could finish her hair and makeup.
“Derek?” I say to him, after a few minutes of silence, “How did you know the colour of my dress?” The only people who knew were Krista and Amber... and-
“Annie,” he says, just as I think her name. Of course, they are neighbours after all. It was weird though, because she wasn’t at school today. “She sent me a picture of your dress colour, so I could match my tie.”
That was actually really nice of her. “Did she say if she was going tonight?” I ask him.
“Yah, she said she wouldn’t miss it.”
By the time Matt gets to my house, Kait is as good as new and we are all ready to go. We split up with Kait going with Matt, Krista taking Rhiley and Amber, and Derek was driving me.
“So what do you think of Matt and Kait?” I ask Derek, making small talk.
“It’s unexpected, that’s for sure. I mean, I’ve only known them for a few weeks but from what I saw, her and Josh were going to be together for a long time.” That is exactly what I was thinking too.
“And with Matt, that’s kind of weird.” Matt is best friends with Mike and Brad, so it’s weird that he would like her. Suddenly, I got a really bad feeling. “Derek,” I say to him, “What if...”
“I know,” he says, cutting me off. “We will make sure she is okay.” What if he is just using her?
We get to Brads house around 9:00 and it is packed. I take in the scene in front of me and realize that a lot of people are wearing ball gowns, just as Annie had said last night.
I don’t really know what is going to happen with her, whether she will be friends with Casey and Trisha again or not; and if she is not friends with them, will she continue to be friends with Sammy and the rest of them?
“Come on,” says Derek, grabbing my hand and pulling me into the house. No, I think to myself, not house... castle. I used to come here when I was really little, and everyone got along, and I was still friends with Brad.
“Whoa,” he says when he sees the inside of the house.
“I know, its huge!” The house smells strongly of alcohol and everyone looks hammered. Everyone is wearing green, and it actually looks pretty cool, with a million different shades of green everywhere you look.
We walk around the house, talking to people. Eventually, we met up with the others and we made our way outside to get drinks. We can hear people screaming and yelling so we head back into the house to see what happened.
We follow the noises and they lead us right to the kitchen, no surprise there...every major fight scene in every book or movie always happens in the kitchen.
Sammy is standing in the middle of the room with Trisha to her left, and Mike and Casey to her right. They have Annie backed against the wall. She seems ten times smaller than she actually is.
“Bitch, we told you not to come tonight!” yells Casey. I can tell that Annie is trying to stay strong, but she is starting to break down. It isn’t fair- four to one, and where is Brad? It's his house, shouldn't he be breaking up the fight?
“We warned you not to mess with Matt!” Wait, what? What does Matt have to do with anything? Trisha looked furious, and when I turned to Matt, he had a scowl on his face. I looked at Kait and she was blushing. “He is mine,” continues Trisha, “So back off!”
“But, I-“ squeaks Annie, before she gets cut off by Mike who looks just about ready to explode.
“You disappointed me Annie,” says Mike, “I really thought...” He trails off, looking down.
“No, Mike I didn’t!-“ but she gets cut off again when he raises his palm.
“Save it.” He seems utterly defeated. I am completely lost. Since when did Trisha have a thing with Matt, and when did Annie and Mike get together?
“Mike please, she’s lying! They all are! I love you, I would never do anything like that to-“ Once again, she gets interrupted, this time, it’s Matt.
“Who are you going to believe Mike, Trisha, or Annie?” I step out of his way as he walks forwards, pulling Kait along with him. When he steps out of the crowd, he walks over to Mike then lets go of Kaits hand, wrapping his arm around her waist and pulling her close.
“Matt,” Sammy says, giving him a stern look.
“Mike,” he says, “we’ve been best friends since we were three, I know how much you care about her, would I ever do anything like that with her? You know me, its obvious that I wouldn’t. You know Annie too, anyone would be able to tell, just by looking at her face, how she feels about you!”
Mike turns to Annie, who is full out crying. He looks like he is in pain, “Annie, please stop crying,” he says to her, walking up to her. “You are going to make me cry.” She looks up at him, the height difference is unbelievable, the top of Annie’s head only makes Mikes shoulder.
“Mike,” she says, “I didn’t do it!” He just nods before pulling her into a tight hug.
“I’m sorry I didn’t believe you.” He kisses the top of her head, then she looks up and pulls his head down so his lips could meet hers.
“So it was you then?” I hear Trisha ask, pulling my attention back to where the others were standing.
“Oh shut it Trisha, we went on one date, last year.” When Matt said that, she started blushing.
Sammy turned to Trisha and said something too low for me to hear, then her, Trisha and Casey left the room. From the way that Matt was holding Kait, I could tell there was more to the story than that one night in the car.