Page 72 of Defiant
I blinked. “I don’t even get to pick it?”
“Nope,” Bobbi said. “I’m picking it for you. That’s the one, Jaz. That’s your dress, and if you try to argue with me, I’ll just buy the damned thing for you. Got it?”
She knew I didn’t like accepting any kind of charity—it was a damned good thing I didn’t know where that money in my locker came from—so it was a good threat. If I didn’t buy it, she would, so I’d rather buy it myself.
I hurried back into the dressing room, shimmying myself out of the dress and putting it back on the hanger. I totally agreed with Bobbi: this was the one. I’d lost track of how many dresses I’d tried on today, how many times I had to take off my boots and my clothes, only to be let down when I actually got the dress on.
This black one? This black one was literally perfect for me.
Once I had my clothes on, I took the hanger and brought the dress to the nearest checkout. The truth was, I’d probably stick out at the dance like a sore thumb—I bet every other Midpark girl would wear ridiculously expensive, name-brand dresses that cost more than ten times what this one did—but I didn’t care. I didn’t care a single bit.
We carefully hung the dress in Bobbi’s backseat, and as she started up the car and began the drive back to Midpark, she was all smiles. “I can’t wait for this dance. Is it wrong to be so excited? Probably, but I don’t care. That bitch needs a wake-up call.”
That much I could wholly agree with.
Her next question caught me off-guard. “You bringing a date, or you going solo?”
“Uh,” I paused, wondering. “I don’t know. I haven’t put much thought into it.”
“Most of the good ones already have dates, and obviously the ones who have girlfriends will be taking them,” Bobbie went on, cranking up the heat in her car before pulling out of the parking lot and onto the road. “Not that you’d want to go with anyone like Archer or Ryan.”
Hah. Yeah, that much was so true. Fuck those guys.
“What about Vaughn? Or that new kid?” Bobbi shot me a look. “You sit by them both at lunch. Why not take one of them?”
It was true, I did think about asking them, but now that I was really sitting here thinking about it, I did wonder if either of them would even want to. It was a dance; surely dances weren’t their thing. They probably preferred to spend their time doing literally anything else but dressing up. Honestly, I couldn’t imagine seeing either of them bust a move to a quick beat.
Or lovingly slow-dance with a date.
“I don’t know,” I muttered, picking at my nails on my lap. Mom would kill me anyway, especially if either one of them swung by before the dance to pick me up, like guys usually did. At least, at my old school, that’s how it was. I’d never gone with anyone, but my friends did. Their dates always showed up early so they could take pictures, maybe go out to dinner, and then head to the dance.
You know what would be hilarious? My mom’s face if I told her I had not one but two dates to the dance. She’d probably have an aneurysm, no joke.
“I guess I could ask,” I spoke with a shrug. The worst that could happen was they said no, anyway, right? It wasn’t like it would be the end of the world. Sure, I might get a little pissed, since I had these weird feelings for the two tattooed guys, but I’d move on. The show would go on—meaning Brittany would still be left in the dirt, watching as I, a nobody, accepted her crown.
Something like that might not matter to some girls, but to Brittany, it was a payback like no other. It wouldn’t be the only thing I did to her before the school year was over and I never saw her again. Oh, no—she needed so much more retribution than that for what she did to me.
I turned my head toward Bobbi, asking, “Do you have a date?”
She smiled. “No, me and my friend are going solo. Things have been too crazy lately for me to even think about going with a date.”
Gosh, I hoped she wasn’t talking about everything with Brittany. If that was the case, I kind of felt bad, hijacking the last half of her senior year of high school to help me get back at the bitch who wronged me.
“Don’t worry, it’s not the first time in history I’ve gone solo. Remember that picture I showed you from homecoming? The one I told you Brittany put up online and asked who had the ugliest dress?” Bobbi frowned to herself. “That was me going solo, too.” The frown disappeared as she shot me a grin. “I’m not as cool as you think I am, Jaz.”
I laughed at that. “Still a lot cooler than me.”
She nodded. “You might be right there.” Bobbi couldn’t keep a straight face while saying it, and she busted out laughing. “I know you haven’t been in Midpark long, and I know your time here has kind of sucked, but…” A sigh left her. “I think you and I would’ve been really close if you came earlier.”
The sincerity of her words shocked me. She really sounded serious, and I wondered how different my life would’ve been if I would’ve been born into money. If Mom had married some wealthy guy, we’d moved here to be with him, and I was thrown into Midpark a few years earlier. I probably still would’ve earned the wrath of Brittany, somehow.
“I don’t know,” I deadpanned. “I definitely wouldn’t have taken choir.”
Bobbi chuckled. “It’s really not that bad. Everyone loves singing—”
“Usually people who have good voices,” I chimed in, making her laugh more.
I teased her about her so-called un-coolness for a while longer. Before I knew it, she was pulling up to the gate surrounding the Fitzpatrick’s house, and it was time for me to get out. Bobbi offered to go in, drive me to the door, but I told her it was fine.
