What A Stupid Name - Steven ConklinxOc

-04-

This morning was rough. I had woken up to the whirring blender going off downstairs. As I walked into the restroom, with my clothes in hand, I gasped at my appearance in the mirror. 

The small bruise on my face had turned into a black eye. I winced as I lightly traced it with my finger. To cover it, I worked quickly, grabbing my makeup bag. First, I used a cleanser. Then, I added a bit of yellow and green color corrector to cancel out the purple and redness on my eye. Over that, I used a light concealer. 

My stomach wasn't so pretty either. A discolored bruise sat on my stomach, right under my chest. I guess that means bye-bye bikinis. 

I walked downstairs, and sat on the couch by Conrad. In his hand, was one of Jere's famous hangover smoothies. Jere was busy cooking something, Laurel sat at the island doing something on her laptop, and Belly was next to her, eating a bowl of cereal.

"Do you have any plans today?" I asked, as I held his drink for him. His head was on my lap, and his body was sprawled over the couch.

"No, but I believe you do." He pointed towards the stairs, where Mom came running down excitedly.

"Belly is going to be a debutante." She smiled, pulling her into a hug. "Oh, this is going to be so exciting! We have so much to do."

"I'm sorry. Like, Belly? My sister? Like that thing right there?" Steven asked in disbelief. I rolled my eyes. And I believe I have every right to. His eyes flickered to me for a second, he tightened his jaw. What an asshole. 

"Well Jere and I better get going, I don't want to be late for my first day of work." He added, quickly walking out of the door. 

"He can wait in the car, I'm not done." Jere laughed.

"What did you do?" Connie whispered, his eyes looked up to mine. 

"What did I do?" My lips were pushed into a straight line. It's not my fault. "You were at the party last night. In case you were too busy smooching Nicole, he was being an asshole." 

"Oh! We have to go shopping for Belly and Alice." Mom beamed. "There's the tea, the auction, the ball, of course, and the rehearsal."

"This sounds... expensive." Laurel scrunched her nose.

"Oh, don't worry, Laur. It's on me. It was my idea after all. And.. We still need to style you for your book party."

"Belly, are you sure you want to do this? It doesn't seem very you." 

"It's not." Conrad spoke up.

"Dude, you're not helping." I poked him.

"Now, which one of you is going to be Belly's escort to the ball?" Mom asked, looking between Conrad and Jeremiah, who was rushing to finally leave.

"Not me, I went last year." Conrad shook his head.

"Yeah, and I swore off balls." Jeremiah turned slowly, realizing what he just said.

Everyone laughed, I snorted at the face he made.

"The dances, guys." He chuckled.

For the rest of the morning, Belly and I went shopping with the moms. We bought cute summer dresses, gloves, and other accessories. Next up, was finding us white dresses, for the ball.

"Okay, three down. How about this one?" I smiled. The last few dresses I tried on didn't really suit me. But this one, I felt really good about.

The sleeves weren't too thick or too thin. The floral pattern was minimalistic, white and soft pink flowers littered the dress, but it wasn't crazy in detail.