Hidden Girl

24- Chatty Kathy

"Who are you?" Katherine finally asks me after a couple minutes. "I've never heard Alex say anything about you."

"I'm Aurora-" I begin to start politely but Alex butts-in.

"She's Aurora, my best friend and I wouldn't trade her in for the world," Alex tells Katherine as he wraps his arm around my shoulder protectively, but he speaks as if I'm not there. "She may be somewhat obsessed with bands, but I care for her down to her very core. The most beautiful place I have ever seen snow is in her hair and on her eyelashes. She's the most beautiful girl I have ever come to know."

By the end of his speech, my face is red and Katherine's jaw is wide open at his words. She attempts to speak numerous times but she doesn't know what to say. I look up to see that this whole time while Katherine has been figuring out what to say, Alex has been looking down at me.

I shyly smile up at him and I swear his face glows. He kisses the top of my head just as Azalea comes to talk to us.

"Hey, Aurora," she says to get my attention. "Jenny and I were going to go shopping for dresses for that dance tomorrow."

"O-M-G," Katherine jumps up and down. "I ALMOST FORGOT! I NEED TO BUY MINE! CAN I COME WITH?"

Azalea takes this one since she's the most confident one out of all of us. "Well um no. This was just going to be a squad bonding moment."

"Squad?" Katherine asks, even though Jenny and I are equally confused.

"Yes, the squad," Azalea says like it's the most obvious thing in the world. "Jenny, Aurora, and I. We call ourselves that, don't we?"

Jenny and I quickly nod our heads in agreement. Well I guess we have a new name for our group. "The Squad". Fancy.

"And we actually need to go right now," Azalea says as she begins to shove Jenny and I towards the door. "It was nice seeing you again!"

"Run while you still can," Azalea whispers to us and we speed walk to the door while Azalea heads back to whisper something in Alex's ear. He growls at whatever she said, but she just smiles and walks away grinning like an idiot.

She walks right past us and out the door. Jenny and I shrug our shoulders and follow her out into the cold almost-Christmas weather.

...---...

Jenny and Azalea finds their dresses in seconds. Jenny gets a gorgeous black dress that touched the floor. Azalea, on the other hand, ended up getting a white dress that was shorter, but just as adorable. We almost ran out of stores and I still hadn't found mine.

"It's here somewhere," Azalea reassures me as we look through more racks. I find a cute black one and show her. She shrugs her shoulders, not knowing how she feels about it.

I walk over to the changing rooms and go into the one that we've set up as home base since we've been trying to find that special dress for me for a long time. Jenny and Azalea sit in the area outside the changing room while I change into the black one.

I step into it and it looks...

"I look like an oompa loompa," I call out to them. I look pretty bad in it, but they force me out anyway.

"Turn around," Azalea tells me as she raises her phone to take a picture of it, I guess. I spin once and frown at her.

"I look so ugly in this," I frown at the mirror, not able to look at them. They're dresses match them perfectly and they look so perfect, then there's me, the awkward ugly one who can't find a dress to save her life.

"I saw one that might work," Azalea smiles as she runs out of the room in search for it.

I collapse on to the seat where she was sitting. Her phone sits down next to me and I enter the password, 1-2-3-4. I open it to play Flappy Bird, but instead I find something I'd rather not see.

Azalea texted Alex a video, and I play it to see it's me spinning and then telling the mirror that I'm ugly. I see Jenny watching the video over my shoulder and we read the next text messages together.

To: Alex

Attached video

You can still ask her.

From: Alex

Shut up. You know I don't like her like that.

My heart breaks at his text and I easily get the message.

He'll never like me like that.

But why does it hurt so much to know this?

"I'm sorry," I hear Jenny say quietly to me as I continue to stare at the phone. I continue to stare at the phone, my whole body feeling numb. Why do I feel like this?

"You weren't supposed to see that."

I look up to see Azalea standing in the doorway with her hand over her mouth, not knowing what to do.

"It's okay," I reassure her with a strained smile. "I never liked him like that anyway."

She simply nods her head sadly and holds out the dress in her arms. "You're name is Aurora, so I figured I should pick the same color as Princess Aurora's from Sleeping Beauty."

I nod my head, my body still feeling numb. I take the dress from her and step into the changing room. I slip into it quickly and walk out of the changing room, not bothering to look at myself.

Jenny immediately gasps and Azalea gets a big smile. I decide to ignore my real thoughts, and I look into the mirror.

It's perfect.

It has a a tight upper body that is a light pink lace over a little darker pink. It has a flowing skirt that was almost like standard wedding down material for the skirt. I feel wind on my back, and I finally turn to see that it's backless too, but not too bad looking. It doesn't make my body look awkward or anything, if anything it makes me look good for the first time.

I search for the price tag and my eyes go wide when I find it.

"I can't afford this," I admit to them finally after double checking that I was reading that right.

"It's fine," Azalea shrugs her shoulders. "I'm paying for it."

"I can't-"

"Too late," she smiles. "I already bought it."

"What?" I yell at her. She really shouldn't be doing this.

"Yep," she bites her lip to contain her smile from growing bigger. "I knew it would be perfect, so I already got it."

Instead freaking out further like she expected, I charge her with a hug.

"Thank you so much," I tell her as I squeeze the living daylights out of her. I'm so fortunate to have friends this.

"No problem," she replies as she releases me. "Now let's get going. I made us nail appointments."

Jenny just smile at each other. Only Azalea would be going down to the very detail to make it perfect.

All during the nail appointment, Azalea and Jenny kept reassuring me that the dress was perfect for me, and finally I just gave up complaining that tomorrow is going to be a disaster.

I just never expected it to end how it did.