#PastelPrincess

Chapter Two

Eyes on the fabric in my shaking hands, I know my rage is making me bound for a needle prick. “I shouldn’t have offered to help with costuming since I need to study my lines.” Which isn’t at all true to what I want because my perfectionist itch would be going crazy if I wasn’t in charge of my own costume.

Macen sees right through my comment and snorts. “First off, if you didn’t handle your own costume, you’d make everyone so anxious they’d throw up. Second, it’s Romeo And Juliet again, you’ve been Juliet three times now. Do you really not know it by heart?”

“Middle school, having to read it in class, and that summer camp are nothing compared to what’s expected for a High School performance,” I bull s**t.

He gives me a look and sighs. “Com’on, tell me what’s really got you all in a tizzy.”

I look to my Macen, my Mayday. Son of a theater starlet – both Broadway and the biggest stages in Europe – and a lawyer to the filthy rich and famous, Macen is one of the few outwardly gay kids who are accepted not just by their friends, society as a whole, but most importantly their family. Politics only an issue when it’s an issue for me or Sophia, he has so much freedom… to be who he wants, do what he wants, say what he wants, be friends with who he wants, and most importantly hate who he wants. The first friend I made in the States and yet there are just some things he can’t wrap his head around.

Easing back into the foot of the leather couch in the Drama room, I let the fabric of my costume fall to my lap. “It’s Christopher, again.”

He offers a crooked smile, “Well I knew that I was there in that gym, Lori. What was it this time?” His Swedish voice that he inherited from his mother is soft, comforting, coaxing me to admit more. “Was it something about your parents again or you?”

Closing my eyes, I can feel the displeasure in my face. Almost a snarl on my lips and I shake my head once. “He asked me out.”

My eyes peak open, over my nose to see a range of expressions across Macen’s face. A slightly confused look with a soft “Oh….” Then raised eyebrows and a side glance with “Oh.” Then wide brown eyes and staring at me, hand out, “Oh!” With his wide hand resting on my knee, he smiles to himself, “Well that makes sense,” and he taps my knee once then goes back to sewing his Mercutio costume.

“Makes sense?” I ask incredulously. “In what universe does that make sense?”

“Well…” he offers slowly, tossing his curly sandy bangs to the side. “You guys have a history. Albeit not a flawless one… but still, a history. Plus, you’re an excellent student, pretty popular, a beautiful dancer, you take after your mother in your writing ability… and, Lori, you’re an actual princess.” I open my mouth and he lifts a hand, “I know, I know… not a going-to-rule-your-country-one-day princess, but still.”

I focus intensely on stitching the shoulder puff of my sleeve. “And he is a half-witted, scruffy-looking, Nerf herder,” I mutter poisonously under my breath.

Macen barks with laughter and gestures enthusiastically. “See! How well did that turn out, huh?”

I roll my eyes, but my chest does ease, “At least I don’t have a brother to kiss.”

“A brother to kiss?” Sophia asks with a laugh, returning for the bathroom to plop down next us, her cheerleader skirt fanning out dramatically. “Talking about Star Wars again?”

“More or less,” answers Macen. “Less about Star Wars, more about the Christopher O’Crosphen asked-her-on-a-date thing.”

Sophia holds a glass Voss water bottle with one hand and digs around her violet leather Dooney & Bourke Hobo bag for a Crystal Light packet with the other. “Oh, that.”

“Locker room?” he looks to me.

I nod, “Locker room.”

The water turns pink, and she tightens the lid to shake. “So, what are you going to say?”

Off-guard, I cough a little. “Say? Really… is that even a question here? Of course, I’m going to say ‘no’. I’m pretty sure the ‘f**k you’ was clear enough as is.”

Sophia and Macen share a look. A look that expresses they’ve been talking about something for a while now. A look that expresses it’s time for a sort of intervention, like when I needed to stop using so many emoji’s.

“What?”

“I know he’s like enemy number one when it comes to you,” Sophia takes a huge swig of water. “But he’s not that bad.”

Turning to Macen I make a face, “And you agree? You two think it would be wise for me to go to dinner with him?”

Raised eyebrows, nibbling on his cheek, he shrugs without looking up from threading his needle. “There are a lot of boys in this school I will gladly punch in the face if they even look at you or Sophia the wrong way. He is not one of those people. He’s actually… decent. Really, Lori, what would be the harm? You don’t have a good time… well, then, you’ll both know it and you’ll go back to being enemies or whatever.”

Sophia reaches out to me, palm up. “Seriously… the worst the can happen is you have a good time…. And really, is that so bad? Before the… incident you guys had a lot of fun together, right? He’s had to have grown up in three years… it’s not fair to pass judgment on him for something that happened when he was fourteen.”

“We were all moderately stupid in eighth grade,” Macen agrees.

Two trains of thoughts happen simultaneously: one, maybe if I did suffer through a few hours with him maybe he would leave me alone after that, or hell, I could buck up and actually talk to him about what’s wrong and then he’ll be forced to leave me alone; two, it had been a long time since he insulted me so harshly… I thought back to eighth grade, to my twelve-year-old self and all the silly and not-so-silly mistakes I made. In addition to that, the fact that my two best friends in the whole world are trying to get me to make peace meant more to me than how much I might actually hate Christopher O’Crosphen.

“Fine.”