Page 42 of The First Kind of Love
The dressing room door swings open to reveal one guilt-ridden bride-to-be, the upper half of her dress pooled around her waist like she didn’t have time to fully slip out of it. The little line between her perfectly plucked eyebrows ratchets up my anxiety, and I don’t need to look around the room to gauge the expressions of horror exchanged between girlfriends.
It’s hot in here. I think I’m sweating. I can feel every hammer of my heart threaten to break my sternum in. That’s not normal, right?
Faye shakes her head, going all growly mama bear on her. “Don’t do it, Aeris.”
But it’s too late…because Aeris sings like a canary. The truth shoots out of her faster than the speed of light, a disjointed train of words mushrooming into the air and piercing my bubble of tranquility.
“Fulton’s had a crush on you for four years! He always talks about you. If it wasn’t for the wedding, he would’ve never gotten the courage to ask you out. I’m pretty sure he hasn’t evenentertainedanother woman since meeting you!” Aeris instantly slaps her hands over her mouth, turning red enough to compensate for the rest of the gang’s guilty silence.
Oh, okay.
I’M SORRY—WHAT?!?
Fulton’s liked me for four years? As in one thousand four hundred and sixty days? That can’t be true. They’re…they’re just joking around. Maybe this is like an initiation prank or something. Yeah, that would make more sense, right? I mean, if he’d had a crush on me for that long, surely he would’ve made a move sooner. Unless he thinks I’m unapproachable. Am I unapproachable?
The truth is Fulton caught my eye from the moment hestepped into my small, monotonous workplace. I didn’t even know he was a hockey player—there was just this quality about him that attracted me like a moth to a flame. Aside from his knee-weakening good looks, he was kind, considerate, and a breath of fresh air compared to some of the entitled customers that plagued me on a day-to-day basis. He saw me as more than just a worker to serve his needs. It’s ridiculous that the bar was even that low, but he saw me as ahuman being.
To think that he hasn’t been interested in anyone else since meeting me is…well, it just seems unbelievable. Fulton’s got girls lining up to simply take apicturewith him. That line probably triples when it comes to his love life. Has he really turned down that many women because of me? An unextraordinary, hyper anxious barista who’s married to her work and shuns any form of social interaction? Fulton and I come from two different worlds. His is full of luxury and fame, and mine is full of taxes and tears—which, yes, are usually synonymous with one another.
Head swimming, vision shuttering like a choppy stop-motion picture, the faint taste of iron clings to the back of my tongue. “Is that really true?” I ask quietly, unsure whether to jump for joy or shrivel into a little ball.
On one hand, I’m flattered that Fulton’s liked me for so long, but on the other, this information is a high-risk danger for someone like me. I’m usually great under pressure—thank you, rush hour during UC Riverside’s orientation week—but I’m about to be pulverized into a sad, pathetic dust pile instead of being hardened into a diamond.
“You can’t tell him I said anything!” Aeris pleads with her head halfway out of the fitting room, and Lila—still toting her liquid courage—scrambles to the rescue to help her into the next dress. The partition snicks shut, forcing me to face a sea of saucer-wide, unblinking eyes that overflow with pity.
My worry-congested mind is racing toward a migraine, my pulse is skipping erratically like a stone across water, and I’m surprised my body is still functioning given the nuclear-sized truth bomb that just fell on me. I fix my desperate gaze on Faye for support, needing to excise this unwelcome fear before I’m drop-kicked back into Fulton’s and my one-bedroom reality.
“Do I tell him that I know? Do I pretend like I just found out about it? Do I act like I’ve always known? Should I be calm? Freaked out? Oh my God, he obviously didn’t tell me for a reason. And now I know something he doesn’t want me to know! That makes me a terrible person! What if he can’t stand to look at me because he’s so embarrassed? Or worse—because I betrayed his trust and found out from someone who wasn’t him? He’ll hate me! I?—”
Cali’s the one who cuts through my pessimistic waffling, shaking me by my shoulders, hard. Like, shaken-baby-syndrome hard.
“Get it together, woman! Fulton could never hate you. Hell, I’m pretty sure you could murder his entire family and he still wouldn’t hate you,” she says, prohibiting any more worries from making a dent in my subconscious. “We’ve all seen the way he looks at you. He’sobsessedwith you. I mean, the truth was going to come out sooner or later.”
She’s right. Either he would’ve had to tell me—and it would’ve been very stressful for him—or I’d end up finding out another way. And Aeris just so happened to choose option B. The way I see it, she made Fulton’s life easier.
I’m afraid to remove Cali’s claws from my arms. “So, do I confront him about it?”
“Maybe you could just bring it up casually? But definitely don’t treat it like it’s a big deal,” Faye suggests, chugging the rest of her bubbly as an exit ticket out of this conversation.
Josie nods. “Let him know you feel the same way. That’llprobably take some of the edge off. I mean, it’s sweet, isn’t it? That he’s had a thing for you for so long and was gentlemanly enough to wait. It’s like the start of a romance novel.”
“Or a stalker romance,” Lila jokes from the tiny cubicle, to which a slapping sound ensues in the following silence, along with a high-pitched and undignified “Ow!”
“Don’t listen to her, Shiloh!” Aeris yells over the ruckus, sounding slightly breathless as she squeezes herself into whatever circulation-cutting death contraption is up next on the roster. “This is great news. Now you never have to question if he likes you.”
As twisted as it is, Aeris is sort of right. If that night in the hotel room was any indication, Fulton seems serious about pursuing a relationship. He’s not just going to abandon me when things get tough—not like Ace. And who says that our relationship can’t survive in the real world? Maybe Fulton and I fit into each other’s lives more than I thought.
A unified consensus creeps through the group, manifesting in supportive thumbs-ups and murmurs of agreement. And just like that, confidence chases away the initial sting of fear, leaving me with a buzz of euphoria that I only thought procurable through some grade A drugs.
I’ve never had a huge support system before. Sure, my family and Revlon would ride at dawn for me, but this is…different. I feel like I’ve been friends with these girls since elementary school.
The somersaulting of my stomach ceases, the cadence of my breathing resumes a natural progression, and my heart’s no longer trying to break the world record for six hundred beats per minute. I take a recreational sip of champagne for the first time in minutes, seeming to metabolize it easier when it isn’t panic induced.
With the topic of conversation having shifted to baby Eda, I’m the first person to notice Aeris opening the door to thedressing room, the bottom of her gown sweeping across the floor like the leisurely migration of steel clouds over a star-studded horizon.
Aeris comes slinking out in a showstopping dress, every lace intricacy sparkling underneath filaments of sunlight. The top is strapless, with a corset-like fixture holding up her breasts and outlining her natural hourglass figure. The waistline flares out from her wide hips in a waterfall of silk, spilling onto the ground with layers upon layers of ruffles, and her long train could cover the distance from here to the entrance door. But it’s the floral embellishments made of gems that pull the whole thing together. They compile a stunning configuration on her bodice, twining up the neckline and drawing the eye to a glistening replica of blooming foliage. And the rest continues downward, interspersed throughout the skirt in single vines and florets, with little pearls sewn into the fabric to add dimension and variation.
This dress wasmadefor Aeris.
