Fractured from the Fall

These Games We Play

Lily stood in front of the mirror looking at her reflection. She wore a short pale blue dress with spaghetti straps. It was fitted at the top with ruffles from the waist down and of course on her feet were her lucky cowboy boots. Her hair was pulled half up with big voluminous curls. She looked beautiful, perfect even, but she felt like shit. She barely recognized the girl staring back at her. She touched her still swollen lips. She wondered what would have happened if their make out session hadn't been cut short. Would they have been able to stop themselves? Would they have taken it farther? Would someone have discovered them and told Grant?

Last night, she had cheated on her boyfriend and they were about to head to the homecoming dance together. She didn't know how she could possibly be around Grant all night and dance with him when she felt so guilty over kissing Ford. And it wasn't just the guilt of her betrayal that was bothering her, it was the fact that she wanted more. Thank god Ford didn't do dances. That would only make all of this exponentially more difficult.

Just then Violet opened the door and walked into the room.

"Are you coming out? They'll be here soon."

"You look pretty," Lily said eyeing her sister up and down. She didn't do a good job of it, but she often felt the need to tell Violet the things a mother should have said, if theirs was still around. Lily didn't have anyone saying it to her, but it didn't mean she couldn't be that person to her sister.

Violet wore a flowing lavender dress, which of course went all the way down to her ankles, but Lily convinced her to opt for the strapless one. Violet had the chest to support it and while the dress was way more conservative than anything Lily would wear, her sister's cleavage upped the sex appeal for sure.

It was her little sister's first dance. That night at Benny's with the slip n' slide had changed everything for Violet, not just in the way that boys saw her, but in the way that she saw herself. She realized that she was more than just Lily Haliday's younger sister. She had spent so long hiding behind her glasses and thinking she wasn't as beautiful as her sister that she hadn't realized she'd become her own pretty amazing person, both inside and out.

"Thanks," Violet responded. "You too."

Lily smiled. The two seemed to have grown closer the last few weeks, or a least they were attempting to get along more. It was one of the reasons Lily agreed to bring Violet with her dance group (at her father's insistence). The other reason being that no mater what happened between her and Vi, she had a little bit of the older sister protectiveness in her.

Lily turned to check her reflection one last time in the mirror but even as she tried to focus on smoothing out her dress, she was lost in her thoughts, eyes unfocused, in a daze.

"Hey Lily," Violet spoke softly, noticing that her sister seemed distant. She was present physically, but Violet could tell her mind was clearly somewhere else. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, of course," Lily attempted to make the answer sound sincere, not wanting her sister to worry.

"You sure?" Violet stepped closer, unsure of how to comfort her sister, but wanting to try.

"I'm fine Vi," Lily said more sternly than she had intended, but if she couldn't convince Violet of it then how was she going to convince herself and make it through the night.

There was a knock a the door and Lily knew there was no turning back now. She smiled, trying to practice her fake happiness one last time before she left, but the girl in the mirror seemed to mock her.

***

The theme of the dance was "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing" inspired by the Aerosmith song. But as Lily stood next to Grant and perused the room she couldn't help but think how she wished she could miss this whole dance thing altogether. There was no way she was going to have any fun tonight and faking it sounded like an improbable task. Just smiling for the photos alone took everything Lily could muster. She felt like such a phony standing next to her perfect boyfriend pretending they had the perfect relationship when the truth was anything but.