The Switch

Chapter Twelve | They Have Cucumber Sandwiches?

"You what?!"

"Rachel, not so loud!"

"Marina," my best friend sighed, "I would not have expected this. I mean maybe from, like, Becca or someone, but not you! Do you know how dangerous this is? I mean, you could be banished!"

Rachel and I were out dress shopping. After opening up my closet and thoroughly searching my wardrobe, I had deemed that there was nothing acceptable to wear to the party that night. So I recruited the fashion advice of Rachel. We had started talking about her target, then she asked me if I had gotten my target yet, and I kind of stammered and blushed. Rachel had raised her eyebrow and pressured me into spilling everything about Nick.

"Yes, yes, I know. What about this one?" I held up a sky blue dress with a blue belt of glitter around the middle.

"Not bad," she said, glancing up from shuffling through the rack next to her. "But seriously, Marina, will you think for a minute?" She turned toward me, looking me straight in the face.

"Mermaids," she said, putting one hand out to the side, "and humans," --the other hand went out, "don't mix." She ended the presentation by making an X with her two hands in front of her.

I sighed and turned back to the wall of dresses. "But Rach, you don't understand." A small smile crept onto my face as I thought about Nick. "I've never felt this way about anyone before."

Gagging noises sounded from behind me. "Ugh, I can't even imagine doing stuff like that with a human. They're just our food. And sometimes sex toys. But they're not worth a lot of our time."

I rolled my eyes and held up a dark purple dress with glitter at the bottom. Rachel nodded silently, and I added it to the four other dresses in my hand.

"I'm gonna go try these on," I told her, walking toward a dressing room.

"Okay!" She called back, already immersed in the shoe racks toward the back of the store.

The first three dresses I tried on and immediately discarded. One didn't fit right, and the others made my skin look too pale. Soon I was deciding between a light pink dress with flowers along the hem and the plum one that I had picked out last. After much debate and a couple selfies in the mirror, I decided to go with the dark purple.

I stepped out of the dressing room and put the ones that I had decided against back on the racks. My eyes wandered across the store, searching for Rachel. I saw her talking to a few boys over by the shoes. I started to make my way over to her, but something made me stop short.

She was touching their arms and laughing much harder than she should have. That was what she did with her targets. Hadn't she already eaten?

No, I must have been mistaken. She told me about spending the night with her target, but not actually drinking his blood. What was his name? Andrew? Aaron? Something like that.

As I sidled up next to her, I smiled at the boys. "I hope she's not being too much trouble?" I asked with a laugh. "I know Rachel here can be quite a handful."

Rach smacked my arm lightly and gave me a mock-pouty face. "I'm not causing any trouble, right, boys?"

They all vehemently shook their heads, utterly entranced by the two girls standing in front of them.

I rolled my eyes and plastered a smile onto my face. "Well, sorry boys, but I've got to take her with me. Bye." I winked and grabbed hold of Rachel's arm, dragging her away.

"Jeez, Rach, it's like you're a boy magnet or something," I muttered to her as she waved back at them.

"Maybe I am," she replied, giving me a smug look. "You're just jealous."