1. Chloe
2665 Words
1 CHLOE
[14 YEARS EARLIER]“Honey, I really don’t think this is going to…fit.” Mom gritted out an annoyed growl as she tugged on the back of my dress, nearly strangling my boobs as she attempted to draw the zipper up.
Holding my breath so I wouldn’t inhale and cause my rib cage to expand another millimeter, I met her cringe of apology in the mirror I was facing in my bathroom, and I knew she was giving up.
With a whimper of protest, I moaned, “No! No, no, no... Please.”
But she was done.
Closing my eyes so I could no longer see the excess pudge bulging under my arms around the top of my strapless dress, I buried my face in my hands, mortified. “This can’t be happening. It fit perfectly last month when we bought it.”
“I know.” Mom touched my shoulder and squeezed warmly. “But you must’ve hit another growth spurt since then. You’re a blossoming girl, Chlo.”
Blossoming? Right. In my waistline maybe. I hadn’t grown in height since last year.
Gah, this was so freaking embarrassing.
“I can’t believe I gained that much in a single month.”
“It’s probably just water retention from hormones,” Mom tried, stroking my hair this time. “You’re having your period, right?”
Dropping my hands, I spun to frown at her. “You’re not making it better.”
She appeared helpless for a moment before snapping her fingers. “Hey, what about that ice-blue dress you have? You look super cute in that, and it’s stretchy enough to fit a changing body.”
The aghast look I sent her was born from pure horror. “I can’t wear something I wore in middle school.”
Was she kidding me? I’d be a laughing stock.
I was already the fourth-biggest girl in my ninth-grade class. I couldn’t be the most immaturely dressed too. I had to have something going for me. And the trendy, fashionable cut of this dress was supposed to be it. I was going to be the girl with style.
How was Caine Spinnaker going to notice me otherwise?
“Are you sure you can’t zip it up?” I asked Mom, turning up my begging eyes to maximum capacity.
She lifted her brow, not impressed by my lack of faith in her. But then my eye power must’ve kicked in because her shoulders collapsed, and she hissed out a deflated breath. “I mean, how much do you value breathing?”
“Tonight? Not at all. I need to get into this dress. Mom, please.”
Doubt filled her expression, but then she said, “Alright, fine. Turn around and suck it in, baby girl. This is going to get uncomfortable.”
“Screw comfort.” I gratefully showed her my back and grabbed onto the edge of the sink to brace myself while it felt like I was being squeezed through the eye of a needle.
My mother and I both let out a warrior cry as the zipper finally creaked into place, fully closed. “There.” The satisfaction in Mom’s voice mirrored the leap in my chest.
It was done.
I exhaled my relief and glanced up, only to cry, “What the hell?! I look like a freaking sausage.”
Mom scowled. “You do not.”
“Whatever! My boobs are a hot second from falling out of this thing.”
“Well…” Her gaze dropped to them, and she winced before glancing up. “Okay, yeah, they do look like they’re trying to escape.” Nodding in encouragement, she asked, “So are you still a no on the blue dress?”
Ugh. I was going to have to re-wear my old middle school clothes, wasn’t I? But when I opened my mouth to give in, the doorbell rang from the front of the house.
“Oh, no,” I whispered. It was too late to back out now. “They’re here.”
Mom and I gaped at each other in dread.
“Hey, the twins are…” Dad appeared in the open door of the bathroom, only for his words to stall short as he took me in from head to toe. His frozen expression slid toward Mom. “When did she get boobs?”
“Apparently this month,” Mom muttered, her voice rye with amusement.
Dad glanced at me again but kept talking to her. “Well, they’re not going to get any bigger than that, are they? Because I’m going to have to invest in a shotgun for all the perverted little fuckers in her school who’re gonna ogle them inappropriately.”
I rolled my eyes. Leave it to Dad to make it sound like I was getting prettier or something. He always had a knack for making me feel better about myself, even though I knew I’d gained weight everywhere, not just in my chest.
“Hello? Chloe…?” I heard Bella call from the hallway. “You ready yet? It’s time to…wow.” She appeared next to Dad in the doorway, and her eyes immediately widened. “You look like you could pass for twenty-one.”
Dad jerked an incredulous glance toward Bella and promptly turned back to Mom. “This is just a practice dress, right? And she’s actually going to wear something else to the dance? Right? Please say yes.”
“Hell no,” Bella answered, reaching past him so she could grab my hand. “She looks hot. Let’s go, Chlo. Gracen’s double-parked at the curb.”
“I…uh…okay.”
I glanced helplessly back at my parents as I was dragged from the bathroom and down the hall.
Mom took Dad’s hand and waved at me. “Don’t worry. You look lovely and grown up,” she assured. “Just have fun, okay?”
“But not too much fun,” Dad warned.
“Don’t worry. I’ll take care of her,” Bella called back, to which my father sniffed.
“That’s what I’m worried about.”
“Hey!” Bella cried indignantly before she turned forward again and bumped her shoulder into mine while we made our way toward the front door. “What’s got him into such an overprotective dad mood?”
“Uh…” I made a face and then admitted, “My boobs, I think.”
She glanced at them and made a sound in the back of her throat before answering, “Well, I guess he has a reason, then.”
“Oh God,” I moaned, hugging my arms across my chest to cover them. “Do they look that bad?”
“No. They look that good,” she countered supportively as she forced me to uncross my arms so she could hook her elbow through mine and tug me from the house, barely giving me time to pause and collect my purse and jacket first. Pulling me toward a car idling in the dark on the street, she opened the back door and called over her shoulder, “Ten bucks says Caine’s going to try to accidentally run into your awesome new boobs at least once tonight.”
“Ugh,” I moaned and felt my face flame red hot as I crawled into the back seat. “He is not.”
Yeah, I never should’ve told her who I was crushing on.
“Is too,” she countered as she followed me in and then shut the door behind her. “No guy could resist those knockers.”
“Whose knockers?” Gray asked, glancing over his shoulder and into the back seat from where he sat behind the wheel. Frowning at Bella, he muttered, “Do you both have to sit back there? You’re going to make me feel like a freaking chauffeur.”
Gracen was Bella’s twin brother, and we were all in the same class together. We’d been raised more like triplets, though, always grouped together since our mothers were best friends and first cousins.
Except we didn’t look like triplets. Both Bella and Gracen had perfect physiques, the perfect statuesque height, and perfect dark hair, while I was a curvy, short blonde that stuck out like a sore thumb when I was around them.
But I loved them, anyway. They were my people.
Bella pulled me into a one-armed hug as she scowled at her brother. “I don’t want Chloe to feel all alone back here.”
“Then send her to the front with me, and you sit in the back,” Gray argued.
“Whatever,” Bella cried indignantly. “I’m not sitting in the back by myself.”
“Gah,” he grumbled. “You’re such a pain in the ass. Fine. Make me sit all alone in the front.”
He geared the car into drive, and we took off down the street.
“So whose boobs were we talking about again?” he asked. “Please say Malia Ross’s.”
“Why in the world would we talk about Malia Ross’s boobs?” Bella countered, blinking in confusion at the back of his head.
Gracen shrugged. “I mean, did you see the shirt she wore to school this week?”
We’d all seen what she’d worn, and it had made what I was currently wearing look conservative and damn near nun-like.
“You mean, the one that got her put into detention for violating the dress code?” Gracen’s twin guessed dryly. “Only after I pulled out a microscope to see that she was actually wearing a top. She looked like a freaking p**n star.”
“Exactly.” Gracen nodded, his voice full of relish. “Beau heard some p**n industry rep actually did contact her for a gig.”
“And you believe Beau?” his sister asked dryly.
“Well…” Doubt filled Gracen’s voice. “Maybe not. But it could be true.”
“She definitely has the body to be in one,” I decided. Unlike me, she was only big in the boobs.
The lucky b***h.
“Hell yeah, she does,” Gray agreed full-heartedly.
“Hey, I dare you to ask her to dance tonight,” Bella teased.
“As if!” Her twin snorted. “A senior goddess like her would turn down a dweeb freshman like me in a heartbeat.”
Laughing, Bella teased, “You said it, not me.”
“You said it, not me,” he mimicked, lifting his voice unnaturally high.
“Wow, so mature,” Bella shot back. “It truly perplexes me why you’ve never had a girlfriend.”
“Probably because they all take one look at my sister and run screaming.”
Bella snorted, and the two continued to bicker the rest of the way to the school.
I appreciated their constant back-and-forth, though. It helped me not think about all the jittery nerves I had running through my system.
I don’t even know why I cared so much about making a good impression at this dance. I’d been attending classes with all these people for three months now and gone to middle school with most of them and even grade school with a good portion; I’d had plenty of time for my mojo to kick in if it was going to.
But tonight just felt…different.
The event was purely social; not just about classes and school work. And I wanted to feel accepted, not like the freak I usually felt.
All the anxiety surged, however, when we pulled into the school parking lot, and I caught a glimpse of the gymnasium rising above the other buildings. I could hear the thump of bass from the music inside, and all my insecurities mounted.
Turning toward Bella, I gripped her hand for comfort. “Are you sure I look okay?”
“Yeah. Why?” She sounded confused about why I would possibly question that, which helped. If she didn’t see anything wrong, then that was good. But I still felt self-conscious and exposed.
I considered putting on my jacket, but it was such a warm night, and neither Bella nor Gray had one on, so I left mine in the car as well.
A warm breeze hit my bare shoulders, reminding me how much of myself I was showing off, however, and I squeezed my hands at my sides as I meekly followed the twins, growing more and more reluctant by the second.
“There’s Beau,” I heard Gray say as he steered us in a new direction.
Glancing up, I saw our fellow ninth grader sporting a black leather jacket and leaning against the side of the gymnasium alone with his hands shoved in his pockets.
“Yo, Gamble,” Gracen called, and Beau glanced up, straightening away from the bricks to greet us.
I’d known him for as long as I’d known the twins. His parents were close friends of both the twins’ parents as well as mine, so we’d been raised as if he could be another cousin, even though he wasn’t. There were five of us, actually, who belonged to our parents’ group that had started high school together this year.
Beau skimmed a quick dismissive glance over the twins and me and frowned. “Didn’t Bentley ride with you guys?”
“Her dad’s going to drop her off,” Bella answered.
“But she’s still coming, right?” Beau persisted, looking hopeful.
A jealous hitch dipped in my stomach. But Beau was, like, stupid in love with the last person in our freshman group. He was always watching Bentley or looking for Bentley or asking about Bentley or teasing Bentley mercilessly whenever she was around, and it made me wonder if anyone would ever like me the way he obviously worshiped her.
I kind of didn’t think so.
“So I guess we’re still waiting to go in, then,” Beau grumbled, leaning back against the building, his gaze straying restlessly toward the parking lot in search of the star in all of his fantasies.
I sighed and settled against the wall as well, finding a protective little nook between Bella and Gray as Bella grilled Beau about where he’d heard the Malia Ross p**n-making rumor.
Meanwhile, other people were steadily filing past us, entering the gym to get to the dance.
When I spotted Caine amidst a group of other guys passing by, I shuddered in nervous excitement and huddled closer to Gray.
Caine hadn’t come with a date either. I wondered if he was the type to ask girls to dance. I hoped so. I wanted to sway in his arms before the night was over.
“Cold?” Gracen asked, glancing down at me when I rubbed the sides of my arms with my hands.
“What?” I glanced up at him, blinking the Caine-dream from my eyes.
“Want me to run back to the car for your jacket?” he offered.
“Oh. Uh, no, thanks. I’m fine.”
I returned my gaze to the gym entrance, but Caine and his friends had already gone inside. A wistful sigh left my lungs. He was just so beautiful. I’d give anything for him to notice me.
If only I could—
A car with a loud engine pulled into the parking lot, stealing my attention from the now-empty front doors.
Turning, I watched a dark Chevy squeal its tires on asphalt doing a quick burnout before it raced to a place in the front row that wasn’t even a designated parking spot, and there, it finally jarred to a screaming halt.
As the motor stopped rumbling and the headlights went out, I rolled my eyes.
What a freaking show-off.
“And…Luke’s here,” Bella announced in a dry, unimpressed voice.
- Writer
