Page 23 of Saving Graces
Cassidy bit her lip.
“She’s going to work us into the ground,” she warned her. “You know that right?” Cassidy gripped tighter to her beer, suddenly feeling the need to drain the whole bottle. She didn’t know how to explain to Kinsey what was coming. “She is going to literally destroy our souls and everything we hold dear. She’s going to leave us broken on the floor.”
Kinsey blinked.
“Sounds like my kind of woman.”
Before
Rosalie huffed. It was less than a month since Rachel had dressed her up for the party and here she was again in an uncomfortably tight dress, her sister tugging it down to show her cleavage and Rosalie tugging it back up again.
“What do you think?” Rachel asked Savannah where she lay stomach down on Rosalie’s bed. Her gaze was focused on a weighty library book titled North American Meterology like it was a damn thriller. She didn’t seem to register the question.
“Hey, Squirrel, I’m talking to you!”
Savannah barely glanced up to see Rosalie in her prom dress. “You look pretty,” she said, before going back to the weather.
Rosalie sighed. She supposed pretty was the word for it. The dress was the exact shade of green that redheads were supposed to wear, and it did make her eyes pop, especially with Rachel’s expert makeup application, her eyelids sparkling. Her hair was swept half-up, a few strands hanging artfully loose. It was all exactly as it should be, for an almost seventeen-year-old on prom night, except goddamnit, why was her body so unruly? There wasn’t a dress she’d tried that didn’t cling to her boobs or show the flare of her hips. There was a reason she wore her school uniform two sizes too big.
Travis arrived and her best friend did a double take at the front door.
“You…you look great, Ro,” he said, his eyes darting to his feet. Rosalie frowned. She wasn’t sure if he was doing the embarrassed-to-be-seen-with you kind of head duck or the Savannah kind.
They’d just about made it down the front steps when her mother appeared behind them.
“Stop right there young lady,” Rosalie’s mom said in a bright sing-song voice. “We’re going to need some pictures!”
Rosalie sighed, meeting Travis’s eyes with a grimace. They stepped back into the house and posed awkwardly, Travis putting his arm around her like an actual date, Rosalie stiff as a board.
“It’s about time you dressed like a real young lady,” her mother tutted.
Rosalie’s spine went even more rigid, indignation spiking in her chest. She grabbed Travis’s hand and towed him out the door without sparing her mother a second glance.
Travis’ truck door slammed behind her and she groaned. “God, she sucks.”
“I mean, she’s just being proud of you,” he said, his tone reasonable. Rosalie glared at him. “What?” he asked. “You look amazing. She can’t even admire you all dressed up?”
“If she wants a glamorous daughter, she can find Rachel,” she said flatly. “They could talk makeup, hair and fashion all night and day if she wanted. That’s not ever going to be me and the fact she’s trying to make it that way is intensely stupid. You know it is.”
Travis shook his head, his truck rumbling to life. “You’re hard on them is all.”
“Not hard enough.”
They drove on in silence until Travis flicked on the radio and they didn’t have to talk until he’d pulled up in the parking lot of the school.
They ducked into the auditorium together, watching from the sidelines, the weirdness of seeing your peers all dressed to the nines and trying to look grownup bonding them back together. Travis had been her date to every school dance since middle school. They had a routine down. Walk in together, have the obligatory photo taken, greet their other friends, then lean against the wall and have a good people watch, making snide comments, cracking jokes and generally being Rosalie and Travis against the world.
“Want to dance with me?” he said. She’d looked at him, nonplussed.
“Okay,” she agreed.
Travis led her out onto the dance floor and messed around, doing silly moves and taking the piss. A slow song started and he kind of shrugged, then pulled her close. They figured out where to put their hands and swayed awkwardly under the soft lights.
“Ros,” he said, his hands on her waist. “You’re really fucking beautiful, you know that?”
She smiled at him. Travis was her best and oldest friend. It felt weird to have him compliment her, but also, kind of nice.
“Thanks buddy.”
