The Will to Love

Chapter Three

Jaymes stared at her reflection in the gilded mirror with its browning edges, admiring the snug, navy blue dress she'd struggled for the past ten minutes to pull on. Ryan stood behind her, her fingers working diligently to pluck away at the tight fabric and straighten the dress.

"You won't be able to sit down." Ryan warned her. Jaymes stole another glance at her reflection. Wanting to prove her sister wrong, she moved towards her bed stationed in the middle of the room and lowered down. Ryan stood watching her with her arms crossed, a triumphant smirk on her face as Jaymes had to bend to the side with her arms stretched out behind her to slide down onto the bed. Grabbing one of the many accent pillows on the bed, Jaymes whipped it at her sister. Ryan ducked and hurriedly snatched the pillow in the air and chucked it back. The two sisters chased after one another, each brandished with their weapon of choice, a pillow for Jaymes and a rolled up sweater for Ryan. Jaymes chased after Ryan through to the living room of their apartment, swinging the pillow wildly. Jumping over the couch, Jaymes tackled Ryan to the ground and hit her with the pillow, ripping her dress in the process.

"Victory!" Jaymes exclaimed. Ryan gently kneed Jaymes in the stomach and threw the sweater in Jaymes' face. They wrestled for a few moments until they heard a soft rapping at the door.

"Can you two stop fighting and open the door?" Their mother announced from the other side of the door. Jaymes and Ryan shared an incredulous look that asked, "what is she doing here".

"Oh, come on, that's like asking pigs to fly with those two." Jaymes heard her father reply. She rose and helped Ryan to her feet. She wordlessly motioned to her dress and then the door. Ryan nodded and shooed her away.

Seconds after entering her room, Jaymes heard the front door's locks switch and the sound of Ryan greeting their parents. Turning away from the door after locking it, she bent her arm back at an awkward angle in an attempt to get a firm grip on the zipper's clasp. Her movements became feverish as she heard her father ask about her whereabouts. As her nail clipped onto the hole in the clasp, Jaymes carefully pulled the zipper and shrugged the dress down the rest of the way. She flung the dress aside and fled inside her closet. Racks bursting with clothes lined every wall with a glass case at the end wall holding her shoes and purses in a neat disorder. Jaymes rifled through the clothes, searching for an appropriate dress to wear for her date with Robin in half an hour.

This date would mark their third in two weeks. The first dinner date had been awkward, rifled with prolonged small talk about the weather and their careers. Much was unspoken between them and what should've been a long night ended an hour and a half early. The second date had been a coffee date earlier in the week which had gone much better.

Her increasing nerves at their impending date manifested in the incessant shaking of her hands and a queasy feeling settling at the pit of her stomach. A dull ache bloomed across her chest, worsening whenever she thought of Robin. She hadn't felt this way since high school when she'd first met Robin. Jaymes stopped her search for a dress to indulge in the memory. She smiled to herself as the image of a sixteen-year-old and hot-headed Jaymes storming off a track field after having not made varsity track and running into an eighteen-year-old Robin flooded her mind.

Jaymes settled on a simple, mid-length black dress with translucent sleeves after wasting several minutes trying on dress after dress. She rifled through a small, teal chest buried beneath the coats on the left of her closet for a clutch that matched her dress. Jaymes gathered all her items and toured her room, sticking her necessities in the small, black clutch; a tube of lipstick, a slender stick of mascara, a thin pack of make-up wipes, her car keys, her license, credit card and a few cash bills. She snapped the purse shut and placed it underneath the crook of her arm. She'd already set out her heels, with the straps unlaced for her convenience. As she was placing on her heels, Ryan knocked on the door.