The Twelve Days of Christmas

Chapter 26

Before I knew it, I was standing in the cold, stark white dressing room, constantly having yet more clothes thrown at me. Dylan was out picking different outfits and passing them to Alice. Before demanding to see every single outfit. Then the pair of them would stand there staring at me before talking way too quietly for me to have any clue what they were saying.

Some outfits they had thrown at me were completely impractical, and I had my thoughts known. I still needed to work in whatever dress up they chose. So reluctantly, they had decided against the cream floaty trousers and the formal blouse. Even so, I was standing there in a damn cocktail dress. I mean, it was nice, but completely impractical. The pink fabric was so pale it could barely be described as pink. No sequins, thank the lord, but it still shimmered as I moved. Its fishtail design made it difficult to move, and I couldn’t stop myself from squirming as they looked me over.

“Will you stand still? We are aiming for graceful, not like you have ants in your pants.” Alice sounded like a mother addressing a child, but it didn’t stop me from stilling instantly.

“Alice, Dylan, I don’t need a dress. It is impractical and won’t get used.”

Alice came towards me and held my hands in front of me and I knew it was because she wasn’t sure how I was going to feel about what she had to say. “Except you did need a dress and didn’t have one. We are trying to avoid that happening again. If you end up in that situation again, you need something you can feel confident in.”

“Except I did have a dress, Alice. It was beautiful, and I felt like a princess in it. Except, it didn’t make any difference what so ever. It wasn’t about my clothes, it was about my background or lack of it.” I could feel the tears threatening to strike. The burning in my eyes making me blink faster and trying my hardest to stem the threatening flood with happy memories. It wasn’t working, and I turned and stormed back into the changing rooms, but not before Alice had read the situation. I knew she knew because her face became even more pitying. I hated that look on anyone’s face, but even more so from her. Pity did nothing. People pitied you, then turned and walked away. It never made anyone help fix the situation.

There were stacks of clothes in the changing room with me. One pile of the approved outfits and one of rejects. They had already insisted on underwear that looked highly uncomfortable, which seemed even more ridiculous than the clothes. Alice said that it wasn’t about Alex seeing them, given that the whole point was to reject him, but about giving me an air of confidence. Apparently, underwear had a big impact on that sort of thing, although I was skeptical.

There were several outfits all ready to go. Way too many pairs of skinny jeans. Apparently, I had a bum that deserved to be highlighted. The tops, at least, were a little more conservative. Dylan had pointed out to Alice that anything low cut was a bad idea because of work. Nevertheless, all the outfits were perfectly put together and apparently i***t proof. I assumed the i***t Dylan was referring to was me.

Alice appeared back at the curtain and poked her head through. “Hey sunshine, you ok?”

“I’m fine!” Except I wasn’t, and I had made it way too clear to Alice that I was anything but fine by the way I snapped at her. I regretted it the second I did it and not because it revealed my real thoughts, but because she didn’t deserve to be spoken to like that. “I’m sorry. It’s just been a lot.”

“I know. Try not to worry. You don’t need the clothes to be too good for him, you only need them to show his blindness that you are. You would be too good for him in a bin bag.” She handed me a pair of heels, which would leave me performing a balancing act constantly.

“I can’t wear those.”

“You can and you will. There are another two pairs waiting for you outside.”

“Fine! I am seriously not happy about it, though.”

“You will be when you see the look on his face. Trust me, that one moment of regret and awe will make you feel a million times better about all of this. If I’m wrong and it doesn’t work, then I will come down there and kick his butt all over the palace. No one hurts my bestie like that and gets away with it.” There was no way she would do it, but the sentiment made me smile and chased the tears away.

We both turned our heads towards the entrance to the changing rooms at the sound of a commotion outside in the store. Looking back at one another with concern. There was shouting and banging. I couldn’t hear what was being said because it was too far away, but there was way too much aggression in the person’s voice to be anything good. “Stay here and get changed. I’ll see what’s going on.”

“Is that wise, Alice? Maybe you should stay in here with me.”

“I’ll be fine. Now, get ready.” She gave me a completely fake smile that was meant to be reassuring.

As she left, I did as she said and hurried into my subpar clothing that I had arrived in. I intended to leave the clothes in the dressing room while I found out what was going on. I half expected to go out and find a madman with a g*n trying to rob the place.

I slipped my trainers back on and opened the curtain at the same time. Screaming as I saw the big burly, angry mass in front of me. “What are you doing here?” The speech was barely more than a squeak. I couldn’t work out how on earth he had found me or why he was lurking in the women’s changing rooms?