Blind Ambition | ✓

42 | King Dallas's Last Decree

I quit the baseball team.

Despite the bruise my ego had sustained, it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. People would talk, but those bruises would fade. The physical consequences of everything I'd swallowed and snorted had subsided over the following weeks, but that meant everything I'd tried to keep down had bubbled back to the surface. Even my father seemed overly calm with me after we'd come back from my Clemson visit, and he kept his distance from me, as if he was afraid if he got too close, I'd spontaneously combust.

I kept having dreams that someone had put my body through a woodchipper, but maybe it was only because I'd been laying in bed watching replays of the movie Fargo on HBO. Even so, it sure as hell felt like that.

I wandered the hallways in a daze, I'd been skipping any class I had with Kaia, and it seemed like I'd become a passenger in my own life, just waiting to get off at the right stop - the one that would put me in South Carolina and far, far away from here for the rest of my life. Underneath all of the headaches and the exhaustion and the twisted sickness in my stomach, I could feel my heart hurt. It was one bruise that wouldn't so easily heal.

"Can you just hold still please?" Rochelle groaned as she grabbed my chin and twisted my head back to face her. "And before you start whining again, remember you're the one that asked me to do this."

"I know, I know," I sighed.

I leaned back against the countertop in my bathroom as Rochelle continued to pat some kind of cream underneath my eyes. It smelled like perfume and burnt rubber mixed together.

"Just like, don't make it so noticeable," I continued.

Rochelle scoffed. "Dallas, the bags under your eyes are so bad, it looks like you got punched in the face. Twice. Subtlety isn't really an option for you if you want them to go away." She paused as she took a step back to survey her work. "Then again, you have me, and I think I've just done some of my best witchcraft. God bless NARS concealer."

She motioned for me to turn around and look in the mirror above my sink, and sure enough, the smokey smudges under my eyes had vanished. Coupled with the fact that I was freshly showered and shaven, I had almost forgotten what I looked like when everything was normal.

"You're a genius, Rochelle."

"Now put this on," she handed me a glass jar with a pink gel substance in it. When I hesitated, she scoffed again. "It's fucking moisturizer okay. You need some color and life in your cheeks."

I rolled my eyes and did as I was told, then readjusted the collar of my black dress shirt in the mirror. "I wonder what kind of snide comment my mother is going to make about my chosen prom attire."

Rochelle handed me my dark charcoal grey blazer, completing my dark and dismal getup. Tonight could very well be the death of my pride, so I had to look the part. "I think she's kind of over giving you grief about your hatred of ties. Besides, you've got kind of a sexy goth thing going on."

"Yeah, sure," I chuckled. "Sexy goth in my Gucci tennis shoes."

I gently kicked the back of her shin with the toe of my crisp white sneaker. It was some kind of long-standing, unspoken rule that if you chose to wear a dress to prom, short dresses were for Junior Prom and gowns and long dresses were for Senior Prom. But Rochelle being Rochelle, opted for a tiny, iridescent pearl dress that barely touched her thigh, with knee-high lavender boots. As usual, she found a way to look pretty and badass at the same time.

"Can you do me a favor?" she asked, pulling her long dark hair over one shoulder. "Tighten the strap on my right shoulder?"

I nodded and moved behind her, gently tugging the thin strap of her dress further up her bare shoulder. Before I could pull my hand away, she clamped hers down on mine and gave me a squeeze. "One more favor?"