City of Smoke // Brian 'Otis' Zvonecek ✔️

13 || GALA

When it came to shopping, clothes shopping to be exact, Rory always enjoyed going alone. She knew what she liked and what she didn't. She knew what looked good on her and whether or not something didn't quite suit her as well as she'd hoped.

But when it came to dress shopping, for the gala to be exact, Rory quickly came to the conclusion that she didn't know herself as well as she thought. And after trying on multiple dresses, all of which she quickly vetoed, Rory realised that she needed to call in reinforcements as this was not a task that could be completed alone. Not successfully anyway.

"I don't know about this one either." Rory said unsurely, biting at the skin on her lips as she stood in front of the tall mirror in the stores dressing room, where she'd been for what felt like hours. "I think... I think it's too revealing."

"Revealing is what you want." Sylvie half whispered, placing her hands on Rory's shoulders as she stood behind her, looking at her through the mirror "If you want to catch Otis's attention that is."

"But this isn't just about Otis." Rory sighed, folding her arms across her chest in attempts to cover it. This particular dress was super revealing and she had the slight suspicion that if she made one wrong move, her boob might pop out. "There's going to be Chiefs there. Our Chief. I just don't think I'd be comfortable showing so much off around them."

"Okay." Sylvie nodded, stepping back from Rory to look through the collection of dresses they'd acquired throughout the duration of their trip. "Then we'll go back to the beginning."

If Rory wasn't comfortable in the dress Sylvie picked out for her, then it simply wasn't the dress for her.

"Here, what about this one? It's high necked, with a little cut out at the chest but not too much..." Sylvie stated, her index finger pointing towards the diamond shaped cutout in the dress's chest area. "And it's not too short either."

Rory stepped down from the pedestal, lifting the skirt of the dress she currently wore so as not to end up stepping on it. Her eyes took in the dress Sylvie held in her hands but her mind didn't. In all honesty, this shopping trip had been exhausting. The exact opposite of what she'd hoped for as when she left the house this morning she'd been excited to try and find a dress that might impress Otis. But now she just wanted to go home and stick to her original plan, which was to skip out on the gala altogether.

"Maybe." Rory breathed out, her gaze shifting to the side where the row of dresses she'd tried on hung on the rack. "Ugh, I don't know... Maybe I should just skip the gala after all."

"Uh-uh. No way." Sylvie shook her head, setting the dress to the side before placing her hands on the sides of Rory's arms. "You have to go. If not to show Otis what he's missing then to show him that he didn't break you."

"But he did break me, Sylvie." Rory whispered, feeling the frustration build inside her as her eyes began to water again. "He's all I can think about. Him and... Amy." She added in disgust, hating that she was unable to stop herself thinking from about the two of the together.

"Screw Amy." Sylvie said bluntly, making Rory look back up at her after her eyes fell to the floor. "Okay, screw her. She's nothing compared to you and if Otis can't see that, then screw him too... Because you're amazing and you're beautiful... And the minute you step foot into that gala, Otis is going to see exactly what he was stupid enough to let slip through his clumsy fingers."

"But what about Connor?" Rory asked in a whisper as she wiped at her eyes.

"What about him?"

"I'm just using him to make Otis jealous and that- that's not fair on him. He doesn't deserve to be pulled into this mess." Rory stated, gesturing to the air around her, symbolising that the mess she spoke about was her life.