Chapter 1
1019 Words
“Will you come with me to the club for Student Day?”
"Are you kidding?" Julia looks at me as if I said that Santa Claus does not exist. The shock on the face. She even stopped using mascara on her eyelashes.
"Yes, I'll go with you. Only you should help me with the choice of outfit. I thought about wearing my black jeans. The tight ones I have. And take one of your brightly coloured shirts."
"Jeans and a shirt to the club?" a grimace of discontent and disgust was reflected on the face of a friend.
"Well, yes. And what is wrong?"
"It's not like that, Jan. If you come with me, then only in a dress and heels. Trust me, you need it. How much can you move with a grey mouse? It's time to shine, friend!"
"Shine with a broken leg? A very interesting start."
"Why would you suddenly break your leg?"
“Because in this,” I point Yulia to her favourite pair of shoes with a thirteen-centimetre stiletto heel, “I will definitely break something for myself. If not a leg, then an arm for sure."
"We have time to prepare. A couple of lessons and you will run them, just like me. Maybe you can even throw away those awful sneakers of yours."
"What's wrong with my sneakers? Practical, comfortable. I'm so used to it. Yes, and with my mother you can’t go wild on the topic of heels."
“The main thing is that you are smart and get an honours degree, and appearance is secondary,” my mother constantly says. When you get married, then do what you want. Your husband will be responsible for you.
Most often I go in jeans and some kind of closed golf if only I don’t hear from my mother once again that decent girls don’t dress like that. The last time I put on a shirt for school, with two buttons not fastened.
So I heard from my mother that with such a neckline I am the spitting image of Lenka's neighbour. And Lenka is shameless, by the way, because every evening she takes a new man to her place. At eighteen, I envy even this neighbour. She doesn't have the same oversight as my mother.
Only once did my mother allow me to date the boy. It was in the ninth grade. Misha is my classmate and classmate. His parents worked somewhere at the ministry, so she considered him a profitable party and allowed our union.
We dated for a couple of years. I felt very good with Misha. I even thought that one day we would get married. But after graduation, he left with his parents abroad for permanent residence.
In general, love has passed, and only rare congratulations to each other on the holidays on social networks remain.
“And yet, how did your mother let you go? Is your supervision weakened?" Julia can't believe that I'm still going, like a white man, to celebrate Student's Day with her.
"Yeah, she'll let go. How." Hold your pocket wider. It's just that she and her stepfather are flying to Paris for a week. Celebrate the anniversary of living together.
"But that's not the only reason I go to the club." I maintain a theatrical pause while Julia sits next to me on the bed, "You know how long I sigh for Titov? So I recently found out that he broke up with his ex and is now free."
"AND?"
"Well, Julie, don't be stupid. Maybe this is my only chance to get Oleg's attention. Either hit or miss, as they say. He is in his last year of study, in six months he will graduate and I will not see him again."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes. I want to take a risk. And then until old age, I will regret that I did nothing. Anyway, I'm going to marry some pimply son of one of my mother's friends. For once in my life I want to do what I want."
***
Julia did not disappoint. On the appointed day and hour, I look like a queen. I'm wearing a beautiful dress with sequins. Depending on the lighting, it is either dark blue or emerald green.
Length to mid-thigh. Not too short, but not too long either. With a deep neckline. The seductive hollow between the breasts, and attracts the eye. I even looked at her in the mirror.
Beige stilettos are eight centimetres high. This is the smallest heel height that Julia agreed to and which I could resist. In the hands of a small bag-clutch for the phone and money.
In front of my eyes, a friend drew fashionable cat-eye arrows for me and made up her lips with persistent red lipstick. They decided to leave their hair loose, just straightening it with an iron.
Mother dear, in the Orange Club today there is nowhere even for an apple to fall. And these are only students of our university.
I spotted Titov almost as soon as I entered. Naturally, he is surrounded by a bunch of beauties and celebrity athletes like himself. And how to get to it? We need to come up with a plan.
But first, Julia and I decided to take a cocktail and go to a table with our group. We greeted each other and toasted each other. The boys complimented my appearance, and the girls somehow looked suspiciously, frowning their noses.
But I do not care. I don't intend to waste my good mood on them today. "So tasty. Remind me, friend, what is the name?"
"Yana, don't drink too much. Otherwise, before you have time to approach Olezhka, you will fall asleep here on the bar counter. Alcohol is harmful."
"Nothing will happen, Yul! I'm not drunk. Look." I quickly finish my cocktail and run to dance with everyone. The music is pounding in my head. I want to move my hips, wave my arms, jump, and laugh.
Finally freedom. It may be temporary, but I'm so tired of living by the rules.
- Writer
