“Breakfast is ready!” her mom howls from the kitchen.
But all Natalie can do is pace around her room. She’d been thinking all morning how to break the news of a party to her parents. She wasn’t sure how her parents would take it. While she wanted to tweak some details, she’d be lying if she had there weren’t going to be alcohol or drugs, not that she would ever take some—well at least not because of peer pressure.
Regardless, she didn’t want to lie to her parents about the party. In the end, she decided that some honesty is probably the best idea.
Before her bottomless pit of a brother could eat all the food, she rushes down to the kitchen. She takes a seat by her brother, who is shoveling eggs into his mouth like it’s the last thing on Earth.
She decides to put some into her stomach before telling her mom. It’d be best to wait and not interrupt her mom’s morning routine of cooking while dancing to some up-beat 80s song. Sam leaves after several minutes, so Natalie capitalizes her chance. If she could get her mom onboard, her dad would undoubtedly follow and her mom was usually more relaxed with this kind of thing anyway.
“Uhh, mom?”
Debra hums.
“I was wondering if I could go to a party? Min and Kelly will be there, too,” Natalie asks, making sure to sound hopeful so her mom would feel bad.
“Who else will be there?” her mom asks in response.
Okay, this Natalie could work with.
“Just some kids from school and my friend that you met recently, Jace.”
Her mom makes some kind of happy noise. She turns around from the sink to face Natalie.
“Is he that boy you brought over?”
Natalie nods and her mom asks about the time of the party. Luckily it was on a Friday, so not a school night.
Debra lets her daughter stew in hopeful anxiety before taking pity on her.
“But no drugs or alcohol or anything weird, okay?”
Happy with her mom’s response, which was surprisingly underwhelming, she replies with a smile and gets ready to leave for school. Though, she didn’t really know what her mom meant by “anything weird.”
The rest of the day passes as usual. She walks with her friends to school and spends her first period, the only class with Min and Levi, messing around. Min and Levi were closer than ever and would probably announce their couple status soon.
The hours pass by like a tedious blur, then it is lunch. Eyeing the overcrowded cafeteria, she looks for her friends. She spots Min waving crazily.
“Hey, guys,” she greets them and is met with similar happy responses. Despite the rough switch from their relaxing weekend to school, they kept their spirits high.
Kelly starts a conversation about what to wear for the party and the conversation carries for some time. Then Min brings up the topic of college applications. It was already the middle of November and the craze of college apps would begin soon. Time got away from them and lunch was already over. Before separating to their respective classes, they make plans to go shopping after school, Levi included. Tomorrow was the party afterall and she could always use some retail therapy with her friends.
The classes finally end and they—well Levi drives them to their favorite thrift store. Natalie loved shopping in thrift stores not only because she could actually afford something from her dwindling funds earned from babysitting, but also because of the endless variety of clothes available.
They separate again and Natalie is left wandering through the aisles, eyeing each piece of clothing as best as she could. She was not yet sure what she wanted to wear, but had an idea of something cute and charming that she could still feel comfortable in. She knew Min wanted to go for something different—something nice but not of the cute variety.
Maybe a sexy dress? Who knows with Min, she thought. This is the first actual party they go together, the first big party with people they aren’t really close with, so they wanted to dress up both for fun and to look good.
Natalie gets lost in her thoughts and begins mindlessly rifling through the dress section before losing interest. She finds many kinds of dresses, but they’re too short for her comfort and her parents likely wouldn’t let her walk out of the house in those dresses. She decided to move on from the dresses, which kind of look over the top anyway and opted to search for cute tops she could wear with a nice pair of jeans.
She picks out several tops and puts them in her shopping cart. She’ll choose her favorite later. In the meantime, she decides to look for Kelly and find out what she found. She spots Kelly in front of a mirror holding up a dress to her chest.
Natalie walks her by and leaves her cart by a manneqinn. She points to a cart near Kelly.
“Is this yours?”
At Kelly’s nod, she begins looking through a mound of clothes. Kelly certainly found much more than she did. Several pretty skirts and blouses piled haphazardly.
“What do you think?” Kelly asks.
Natalie hums ambigously, distracted from plundering Kelly’s clothes.
“I love the skirts, especially this one.”
Natalie holds up a short, fitted skirt with ruffles at the bottom.
“What about this dress?” Kelly asks again, this time with a touch of impatience. Natalie turns her head, inspecting the dress. It is a cute, dangerously short wine-red dress with a square neckline and thin straps.
“It looks amazing,” Natalie replies. It wasn’t her usual type or Kelly’s. But she did love the design and color of the dress.
“It’s kinda fancy, though,” she continues
She didn’t want to dissuade her friend from wearing what she wanted, especially if she felt bold enough to step out of her comfort zone and wear this coquettish piece of a dress, so she adds, “but if you really like it, go for it.”
Kelly shrugs noncomittedly.
“I do like it, but it’s also too nice for the party, I’ll just save it for another thing.”
She places the dress on her cart and asks Natalie about her own clothes, which she shows off. After several minutes of checking for frayed stitches and any other flaws in their thrifted finds, they move to look for the other half of their group.
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