Page 35 of The Ugly Stepsister Strikes Back

I realized that Ella was nervous. I didn't think I'd ever seen her nervous about anything before and it was kind of ridiculous. I mean, it was just Trent.

I shook my head at her irrational behavior. Until the proverbial light bulb went off in my head and I saw what I had missed.

Ella liked Trent. Really liked him. I remembered our conversation from last week when she'd told me that she liked someone that was not Jake.

"Is Trent the guy you were interested in?"

She had been holding a dress up against her in the mirror and she froze, her reflection staring at me. Suddenly everything felt serious and ominous.

Finally she said, "Yes."

"Why didn't you just tell me that?"

Ella let the dress fall to the floor with the others and came over to sit on the foot of her bed. She looked down at her hands while she fiddled with her charm bracelet. "I never said anything because I thought you guys were together and I didn't want to be that girl." She sounded so earnest, and so apologetic.

"The girl who's interested in her stepsister's boyfriend?" I asked her sarcastically before she started giggling about the irony of the entire thing.

Well, if nothing else, I guess it gave us something in common. "Even if Trent had been my boyfriend, I'm pretty sure I would have traded him for Jake in a New York minute."

That made Ella laugh more, and broke the uneasy tension. She jumped off the bed to go back to finding something to wear.

I started up a new game and said, "You know, Trent's not going to care what you're wearing. He's not like that."

Ella emerged from her closet with another potential outfit. "You're right. That's one of the things I think I like best about him. I always feel comfortable with him. I get to just be me and not have to worry about how I look or what I say. I am being so dumb."

Without even looking in the mirror, Ella put on the pink pleated skirt she had in her hands and looked around for a matching top. I remembered that day in the family room when I saw them together on the couch, how Ella had her hair up in a bun with her glasses on and her purple Juicy sweats. I'd never seen her look that way when she spent time with Jake.

I had put a ban on all internal thoughts about Jake, but that one just slid in. Which, predictably, led me to more thoughts of Jake. And how I'd never honestly worried about how I looked around Jake. I accepted the fact that I looked the way I looked and while I may have stressed a little over my outfit that first car ride, I'd never given it a second thought since. Jake had the same effect on me that Trent had on Ella.

I wanted it to mean something, even if it didn't.

My dad called for Ella. She yelled back that she was coming.

"Did you hear the doorbell?" she asked in a panicked voice.

"Relax, you'll be fine. He's not here yet."

Ella leaned against her closet doorframe, staying there for a minute before she picked out her shoes. "I just really like him, you know?"

Yeah, I did know.

"I'd go with the glass slippers," I said before heading off to the kitchen to find something to eat. My dad sat at the kitchen table, holding an envelope in his hands.

"Where's Ella?"

Before I could reply, Ella said in an out-of-breath voice, "I'm here. What's up?" She went over to the fridge to pull out a bottled water.

"I have something for you." I saw the twinkle in my dad's eye, heard the pride in his voice. Whatever it was, this was big. He held the envelope up in the air. "It's from UCLA."

That was Ella's dream school. She grabbed the refrigerator door handle so hard, her knuckles went white. "It's a small envelope. That means no," she said in a voice barely louder than a whisper.

My dad pushed his chair back and walked over to her. "That's just a myth. Open it."

She kept staring at the envelope like he was offering her an eel or something (have I ever mentioned how much I hate eels? Slippery, slimy scary looking things).

She shook her head. "I can't."

"I'll open it for you then." My dad had like no boundaries. "Dear Ms. Christensen…"

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