Changing With Autumn

Chapter 4

“O-M-freaking-G! You are so late!” Erika screamed at me as she answered the door.

I swear she had to have been standing with her face in the window like a madman watching for me to pull up because I didn’t even get a chance to fully knock on the door before she practically yanked my arm off as she dragged me into the house from outside. She was pulling me through the living room with so much force that it wasn’t until I almost fell on top of her that she really got the chance to even look at me. 

We were about to walk into the hallway when she froze in mid step. The look on her face told all before she had even opened her mouth to speak. When she threw her arms in the air in exasperation I knew that she was about to let me have it.

“What the Hell are you wearing? I said to wear something cute, and this is so not cute.” She waved her hand up and down in front of me with a look of frustrated disgust on her face.

Judging by the rising look of annoyance on her face I knew that I didn’t make the grade of whatever expectations she had for me for the night. I don’t know what this girl was thinking I would show up wearing, but apparently, she had other ideas than the outfit I had come here in. The longer she inspected me the more and more the look on her face turned into a shocked disappointment. It was like a little kid thinking they were going to Disneyland only to find out their parents tricked them into going to the dentist or something. Like what was she really expecting from me? Some form of dress or skirt or something? Um, ew. She really shouldn’t have expected anything else.

“Oh Hi Willow. I’m so glad you were able to make it tonight. I hope you didn’t get in too much trouble with your parents for ditching out on them for yet another weekend.” I rattled off to her sarcastically and tried to stop any thoughts she might be having of “fixing this mess” as I knew she would put it because I could already see the wheels in her head turning.

“Yeah, yeah. Hi Willow. Blah, blah make it. Blah, blah trouble. Better? Now back to the problem at hand. What in the actual Hell are you wearing?” She was holding a piece of my favorite ripped band T-shirt between two fingers and looking at it as if it were a three headed donkey wearing a diaper and juggling poisonous snakes. 

“You said cute, this is cute. I mean I went with the one without the paint stains on it at least.” I looked down at the outfit I had planned out thoroughly. 

Well I actually hadn’t planned it out at all. I was wearing the same clothes that I wore to school that day. In my defense though, I did make sure that I didn’t wear the paint stained shirt when I got dressed this morning so I was just gonna assume that it was still a valid point now even though I was just going to omit all of that and not tell her. There was seriously no point in dragging out this argument with her. 

Plus in addition to my defensive argument I really didn’t have the time to actually focus on changing my clothes. I wasn’t expecting my mom to be home from work early so I didn’t have the time to plan out my plea to leave for the weekend. On top of all of that, I didn’t start on the right foot when I came through the door later than my mom had expected me to already be home. It wasn’t a pretty battle that’s for sure, but in the end, begging and pleading and, I’m not ashamed to admit it but even throwing in a few fake tears won out. I did my chores as quickly as I could and got out of that house before my dad got home. It’s much easier to convince mom and have her break the news to dad, rather than have to ask dad and do double the begging.  

“Ugh, Willow. You’re wearing jeans and a band t-shirt.” Erika snorted, “I’m not even 100 percent sure if they came out of your dresser or if you pulled them from the dirty laundry basket.”

“Firstly, ow.” I said, offended at the downplay of my clothing awesomeness.  “Secondly, um no. I’m not just wearing jeans and a band Tee. I’m wearing ripped jeans, which is  like an “in” thing now, and I’m wearing a bleached out My Chemical Romance t-shirt. MCR is amazing and totally in right now.”

“Willow, you can’t be serious.” She said with her hands on her hips and massive sass in her tone. “First of all, those are not THE ripped jeans that are IN right now, those are jeans you took a pair of scissors to in your bedroom. Second, your bleached out MCR shirt, you bleached, added safety pins to and cut up yourself. Plus, My Chemical Romance is only IN with the emo crowd. Lastly, you’re wearing black converse with sharpie stars that you drew on the toe for crying out loud.” She finished her rant with a choked out yell/cry thing and as an added touch for emphasis she pointed dramatically at my shoes while stomping her feet.

“Hey,” I said, offended. “I worked hard on this outfit. I didn’t just take a pair of scissors and start hacking away. I seriously sandpapered the legs on the jeans and everything. Plus this bleached shirt is super wicked and resulted in a near death experience when my mom saw the stain I made on the carpet in my room.”

“Uh? Ok, sure. Would you like to explain the untouched, blacked out makeup then, and even worse the complete disregard to the hair? Like you didn’t even try at all. You don’t always have to be so, like, dark and just blah.” Erika whined in her most defeated voice. 

“Earth to Erika. Do you even know me? You are seriously telling me that I look too emo?” I grabbed her face between my hands. “I am emo!” I laughed and released her face while shaking my head.

She rolled her eyes at me and sighed. “All I’m saying is that there is so much wasted potential here. Under all of this dark and dreary is a major hottie just dying to show some t**s or something. You know what, whateves, it doesn’t even matter ‘cause there is no helping you. We’re already late and it would take way too long to fix this.” She said as she waved her arms in a large circle around me. “Let’s just get a move on woman” she grabbed my arm and continued dragging me the rest of the way down the hall. 

Ha! I thought to myself. I knew she was already planning on fixing me as soon as I walked through the door. In all honesty though, her method of “fixing me” was kinda scary to think about. I could just see it, me being her own personal little dress up doll. Spending hours to get my look just right and then her having me twirl in the mirror wearing a pink polka dot knee high dress with curls swinging and bouncing in the air. I almost gagged at the image in my mind and I couldn’t help the shudder that went down my spine.  

“So where are we even going anyways?” I asked, trying to take my mind off the horror of my mental image and hoping that she would give me even a little hint of her plans.

“Nope, it’s a surprise.” She giggled as we continued on to her room.

“Seriously, you know I don’t like surprises. I’m not very good at not being prepared.” I pleaded. 

I didn’t do surprises and knowing Erika we were probably going to do some high school social event thing. The only thing I hated more than surprises was high school socials. I wanted nothing more than to just blend into the background at school. I was happily prepared to spend my days and nights enveloped in my introvert bubble. I swear, if social interaction was required for breathing I would suffocate almost instantly. So trust me when I say there is literally no exaggeration in my statement that I didn’t do the whole social interaction thing. 

“Nope. I won’t say a word. My lips are sealed.” Of course she had to make the zipped and locked gesture to add to her vow of silence for the added dramatic effect. 

I rolled my eyes at her gesture. Knowing that she would not budge on the subject and there was no way I was going to get any information out of her. I simply followed her to the room and prepared for the worst. With Erika there were a lot of scenarios that would seem like an amazing time to her and a worst case scenario for me. Unfortunately, the possibilities were endless. 

Erika’s outburst about being late wasn’t as extreme as she had made it seem since she was nowhere near ready to leave. So for the next thirty minutes I sat on her bathroom counter while she chatted rapidly about the night ahead. I listened to her ramble about how she had made such great plans for us for the night. She kept repeating and gushing over how much fun we were going to have and how I was just going to love it! My dreading continued to get worse and worse. 

I watched her as she applied the many different makeup products perfectly and flawlessly. She put on colors in various bright shades that I would never even try nor want to pull off. The longer I sat there the more and more I was getting bored and I started playing with all of the random products she had scattered around. I didn’t even know what some of these were for. There were bottles of green liquids that the label read as color correctors, there were concealers, and foundations, then there were makeup setters. I was so confused the deeper and deeper I went into her makeup bag of mysteries.

Was there some class that I wasn’t aware of in school that taught girls what all of this crap was for and how to wear it? I mean, I guess I was just basic with my simple and daily look of black eyeshadow and eyeliner. I liked it and thought it looked good and no matter how much Erika tried to give me her version of I makeover I continued to refuse. Why try to switch up a good thing right? I had never understood why girls needed to wear all of this gunk on their face. I may have looked dark and plain, but I wasn’t walking around like a painted canvas with a warning sign afraid that someone would smudge the wet paint. 

When I had first got the go ahead from my parents to start wearing makeup my mom had assumed I would be one of those girls that were all giggly and giddy and wore the pinks and purples in the color palette that she bought for me. What she didn’t expect was for me to come out in the darkest colors. Each day I would come out with my black eyeshadow and each day she would make me go back and wash my face “before my dad saw me.” Eventually she got sick of the back and forth bantering and just let me do my thing. She hoped I would get bored with it and it was just a stage I would grow out of, but much to her disappointment the dark makeup just continued to get darker. 

She never was able to really hide her disappointment that I didn’t show any interest in being some beauty queen, and I could tell that she always struggled with herself to stay quiet when I wore something she deemed particularly too dark for her taste. I mean, her sighs and looks of longing when she forced me into clothing stores she wanted to browse weren’t very subtle. Every time she asked me what I thought about a particularly not ever going to happen outfit she pulled from the rack, I could see her mood drop slightly. Then the mask would completely slip out of her hands and the look of horror would shine through every time I drug her into my favorite stores.

“Ok, how does this look?” Erika asked as she finally put on her finishing touches of her makeup.

“You look fine Erika. You always look great. I don’t know why you even try so hard. It’s not like you need to. Every head is going to turn wherever you go even without the gunk on your face.” I said to her genuinely although I was also largely persuaded by my need to get out of this bathroom and just get a move on with whatever torture was ahead of me.

“Aww… I knew you were into me lesbo.” She smiled at me, blew a kiss and gave me a wink.

I rolled my eyes at her and decided that I was regretting agreeing to this night with her more and more. Just as I was planning my escape and thinking of doing basically anything from faking period cramps or if need be, going to the extreme of plotting my own death to get out of tonight she jumped up ready to go. She took one last look at herself in the mirror and after the tenth try of perfecting her hair she deemed herself flawless enough to be seen in public. 

“Alright girly, I’m gonna grab my bag and we are out of this b***h. Oh, and we are taking my car. There is no way we want to show up in the beater.” She smiled at the affectionate nickname she gave my clunker of a car. 

I glanced at myself in the mirror giving my reflection a pleading look as I followed her out of the bathroom and tried to pump myself up, but I couldn’t help but fret about the horrors of the night ahead of me. Dragging my feet the whole way through the house and out the door I couldn’t help but admit that at least whatever the night had in store for me would be interesting with Erika by my side.