Punks Don't Wear Prada

I woke up to my mom knocking on the door.

"Danielle, dinner is ready," she called through the door.

I sat up and looked out of my window, it was getting dark. The near-summer sunset was casting a dismal glow around my room. My cheerleading and gymnastics trophies on my dresser looked menacing and dull.
Gigi, my dog, burst under the covers and licked my face. I smiles meekly and scratched his ear before getting up and sliding on a pair of my cheer shorts.
With my foot, I kicked my pants from yesterday under the bed.

I slowly made my way to my parents' formal dining room and slid into my brass dining seat.
My mom had our chef prepare a fancy chicken salad with grapes and walnuts. This brought some comfort to me, I don't think I would be able to swallow down a heavy meal.

My mom sat across from me while my dad sat at the head of the table, reading the newspaper. He was drinking his evening coffee while my mom sipped her 'evening' wine.
I snatched my wine glass filled with water off the table and guzzled it down thirstily.

"Honey, it's not polite to gulp," my mother reminded me, without looking up from her plate.
My dad set down his newspaper to look at me.

"How was your day?" He asked gruffly. Lately he was always in a bad mood. His company's trying to buy a plot of land but the land owners were giving them a hard time.

"It was fine..." I let out before picking up my fork.
My mom glanced at me.
"Danielle, what on earth are you wearing?!" She demanded, with a look of appall on her face.
I looked down and realized I was still wearing Merc's shirt.

"Oh, this is a friend's," I blushed.

My dad eyed the shirt wearily.
"It looks like a boy's," he said, "something you want to tell us, Dan?"

I shook my head.
"Emma loaned it to me, it belongs to her brother," I lied. Emma doesn't have a brother.

"Oh, I thought you stayed the night and Angela's?" My mother inquired.
Shit, I thought.

"I did, but she stayed the night too."
My mom looked back down at her plate. She took a bite before stating, "I am so full, I don't think I could eat another bite!"

My dad looked at her plate.
"Marie, you've barely had anything but your damn wine," he gestured to my mom's empty wine glass.

"Oh, I had a little snack before dinner," she said, brushing off my dad's wine comment and pouring herself another glass. My dad raised his eyebrows but didn't say anything else.
I finished my dinner and ran back up to my room with a bottle of water.

I glanced at my phone, I had five missed calls from Emma and a text from Josh. I sat on my bed and tossed my phone away from me.
Suddenly, it lit up from an unknown number's text.
I grabbed my phone and slid it unlocked.
The text read, "Hey, this is Merc, I found your shirt under my car seat. I'm guessing you'll want it back?"
To my surprise I smiled before I typed a response.
"No, it's fine. You can keep it."

He responded two seconds later,
"You sure? It's a nice shirt and all but it's not exactly my style..." he joked.

"Lol true, can I come by and get it? I have your shirt still too"

I suddenly got a little nervous, he didn't text back right away like he did at first. I went to my bathroom and looked in the mirror, my hair was messy and slept on, his shirt was disheveled and five sizes too big, my make up had slid all over my face, and my legs had a bunch of bruises on them. I remembered I had a welt on my forehead this morning, I pushed aside my hair and gasped. I had a killer bruise, I can't believe my parents didn't even notice it.
My phone vibrated from my bed and I ran to check it.
Merc had replied "Tomorrow?" I racked my brain trying to think if I had anything to do. Tomorrow would be Sunday, and Sundays are usually my relaxing days. I remembered that I had a hair appointment at nine AM, but that was it.
I went to type a response before I remembered how long it had taken him to reply, so instead I read Josh's text. All he said was "Hey babe. Heard u aren't feeling good. Can u bring me my cleats their* in ur trunk" replied telling him I'd bring his cleats tomorrow after my hair cut and he replied with a thanks. For some reason I was more excited at the notion of seeing Merc again than I was seeing Josh, and this realization scared me. It's probably just because of the context of our conversations, I justified.

I decided I had stalled enough to reply to Merc. I typed,
"How does 11 sound?"
He answered a couple seconds later.
"Eleven?! As in in the morning?!"
I laughed and typed,
"Yes, eleven in the morning! Lol."

He said, "Well tomorrow is your lucky day. See you at eleven, good night Danielle."

Goodnight? Goodnight?! Josh has never told me to have a good night before! What did this mean?! My heart began to thump and I immediately recalled Merc's dark blue eyes.
No, stop it. My heart shouldn't be thumping. I'm in love with Josh, my amazing, handsome, smart, perfect Josh!
I nodded in agreement with myself and laid down in my bed. I'd shower in the morning, suddenly I felt very tired, despite sleeping all day. As I was shutting my eyes, I remembered that Emma had called and suddenly all my memories of the weird document from the other night came flooding back, and my heart filled with sadness. Did my friends really think I was some pretentious snob who didn't care about anyone but myself?
I tried to think of any times I purposely hurt my friends, but nothing came to mind.
Well, a few things did, but they were events that I never intentionally tried to hurt or sabotage them.
There was that time I won homecoming queen my junior year when I didn't even run. Angela was so upset, she had spent the whole first half of her junior year preparing with buttons, spending a thousand dollars on her dress, hunting down the perfect date. And then when I became captain of the cheer squad this year, and Lanie had spent all summer at cheer camp, training to be the captain. I didn't even go to cheer camp that year, I spent the summer in Greece, with my grandparents.
And then there was that time when Amy, who wasn't even really a close friend, spent two months researching the history of our town for a school paper composition. I had written an essay for my history class, my teacher thought it was so good she submitted it without my knowledge and I only found out when my essay was plastered on the cover of the newspaper.

None of those things were my fault, but they had certainly brought all my friends pain. Maybe they were right, maybe I did need to tone it down a bit. Maybe, if I changed, then they could consider it me trying to apologize. I started imagining me, but a different version, with 'alternative' clothes on and a different outlook on life. One where I didn't have an optimistic outlook on life, one where I didn't strive to always be or look my best.
This could be fun, this could be exciting. I haven't ever tried to reach outside of my comfort zone. I always stayed in my little bubble, be it with friends, schoolwork, or clothing style.
I couldn't wait, I would start first thing tomorrow. I made a mental note to only wash my face, not exfoliate or detox it in the morning.
From now on I was going to half ass everything, and concentrate on only fun. Fuck the world! Who cares if I don't get into a good college! Who cares if I don't wear freshly ironed clothes, or get straight A's on all my papers! My friends would actually come to find that they liked me, not the fake, striving-too-hard me who always, apparently, has a stick up her ass.
With these thoughts, I drifted off to sleep.

I awoke to my alarm clock at seven thirty, and popped out of bed.
Oops, maybe I should've hit snooze a few times...
I shrugged and decided I shouldn't practice slothfulness despite the new me.
I hopped into the shower and washed my hair, and conditioned only once with regular conditioner.
I brushed my teeth but didn't floss, and I only gargled mouth wash for thirty seconds, instead of sixty.
Just as I said last night, I only washed my face.
Then, with a fluffy white towel still around my body, I went to the vanity in my room and brushed my hair. My vanity was a shiny, clean white. On it, I had glass jars full of make up brushes, two beautifully, jewel encrusted jewelry boxes, a cute little wire earring tree, and a picture frame containing a photo of Josh and I.
I stared at myself in my mirror.
My blue eyes shone back, light in contrast to the dark bags under my eyes. Where did those come from?
I decided not to slack on my make up this morning.
Putting on concealer and foundation powder, I was able to hide the dark circles, as well as the shiny bruise growing bigger on my forehead. I put on light brown eye shadow and some mascara.
I was about to close my make up drawer before I decided to maybe go for an edgier look. Taking out some black liquid eyeliner, I drew on a perfect cateye line. I had never tried to do this look before, and I was surprised at my success. Usually I left Emma to draw on bolder eyeliner, but she had never used wings before.
As I drew on the other one, I couldn't help but realize how nice the black looked next to the blue of my eyes. So far, trying things out of the box seemed to be going smoothly.
I let my long, blonde hair out of the towel and watched it cascade to my waist. My hair was something I would not be trying anything different with. I blew it dry with my chi hair dryer and put a dabble of product in it. I would let my stylist do the rest during my appointment.
I ran to my closet and nearly tripped over Gigi, he was relaxing on Merc's shirt that I had left on the floor. I decided to wear it one more day, and sprayed a squirt of perfume on it to mask any of my preshower scent. In my walk in closet, I slid on some white Marc Jacobs high waisted shorts and stepped into a pair of gladiator sandals my grandma had purchased for me in Greece last year. I looked in the full length mirror and grinned, I looked stylish in a way I hadn't ever before. I tucked in Merc's shirt and rolled the sleeves up a bit, it was hot out and I didn't know how well black would ventilate.

I glanced at the clock, it read 8:25. I had some time to eat a small breakfast before I needed to be at my appointment.

Downstairs, my mom and dad were nowhere to be found, so I just grabbed a Belgium waffle from the kitchen cupboard and an orange carrot Naked juice from the fridge.

I ran upstairs once more to grab my pink leather gucci bag and then ran back down the steps and out the door to my range rover.