He's My Brother's Best Friend and My Enemy, This Can't Be Good!

It’s not that I was expecting Parker to ask me to prom, it was more like I just needed to know for sure. It was a couple weeks away and almost everyone had already been asked. I knew Parker and I were dating and by default that meant we were going together but when he still hadn’t mentioned anything about it I grew worried.

Miranda had planned to go dress shopping with some of the girls today. Since Ava was going I decided to tag along with her. Lately we had all been hanging out more. It was probably because our boyfriends had all been attached to each others hips. Not that I minded too much, Ashley and Sam were cool girls. We were like some kind of misfit clique of girls whose only thing in common was that our boyfriends all played football together.

“We should all get matching colors!” Ashley squealed. She was grabbing as many shades of pink she could find, almost falling over from the weight of the dresses.

“Yeah I’m not sure that’s the best idea,” I said. I had nothing against the color pink, it just wasn’t a color that looked good on me.

The five of us split up and found our way to our respective favorite colored sections of the store. I had never had to shop for prom before, the fanciest thing I owned were my dresses for winter formal. Usually I didn’t get stressed over this kind of stuff but lately I was stressing more.

“Did he ask you yet?” Ava asked. She had a couple dress in her small hands ranging in shades from mint green to a lavander.

“No!” I exclaimed. “It’s not like I want him to be over dramatic about it. I just need him to acknowledge the fact that we’re going.”

“I wouldn’t sweat it,” Ava said before returning to searching the racks of dresses.

I had no idea what I wanted to wear. This was going to be my first and probably last high school prom ever. There was no way I was going to attend mine without Parker and he would be all the way in California. I only had one night to make it perfect. I pulled a few different designs before heading to the dressing room with the rest of the girls.

Miranda decided that instead of all of us trying on dresses at one time, we should go one at a time so the others can properly asses the dress. It sounded like a good idea until I realized that some of them had ten plus dresses in their hands. It was going to be a long day.

Ashley--having the most clothes out of all of us-- decided to go first. She had a very eccentric taste in dresses to say the least. I’m not sure she knew what she was looking for. She had so many dress varieties from short to princess that I didn’t think she was going to find one that worked for her. Thankfully I was wrong. She came out of the dressing room for the tenth time wearing what appeared to be a two piece dress, upon closer inspection it was one piece with sheer fabric covering her midriff area.

The dress was of an aqua color with lace appliqués around the neck and upper torsos area. There was a slight opening near her middle where the sheer fabric appeared before tapering of into a silk, form fitting aqua skirt.

“Holy shit Ash!” Miranda exclaimed jumping up from her seat to see the dress closer.

“You like it?” Ashley asked.

“Ashley it’s gorgeous.”

“You have to buy it,” I encouraged.

For a moment it looked like Ashley wasn’t going to take the dress but thankfully she did. Squealing as she ran back into the dressing room to change. She then took Miranda’s seat draping the dress over her lap, not wanting it out of her sight.

Miranda’s dress experience went a lot faster than Ashley’s did. Miranda always had a vision of what she wanted to wear so most of her dresses were of similar design. After trying on a couple dresses she settled on the third one she tried on. It was a strapped dress with a deep v cut to it. More loose than form fitting, just like Miranda liked it. She settled on the blush color of it instead of the dark blue. It fit her perfectly.

“It’s so you,” Sam gushed. She then got up from her seat and took Miranda’s place in the dressing room.

I was interested to see what Sam would pick. I had never been really close to her but from what I could tell she wasn’t into the whole girly scene too much. Sam only had to try on one dress, falling in love with it instantly. She decided on a low to high cut to show of her soccer playing legs. The dress was all black with rhinestones on the corset like top before turning into crinkled patters of tool below her waist.

“Damn Sam!”

“Whoever said athletic girls can’t look gorgeous in dresses obviously hasn’t met me,” Sam said getting a laugh from all of us.

As Sam went to change Ava and I exchanged worried glances. Neither one of us really wanted to go next. We decided to play rock, paper, scissors to decided so there was no hard feelings. I won the first round and Ava rose from her seat, dresses in tow towards the dressing room.

I was excited to see what Ava was going to try first. Her dress choices all had a similar pastel color palette too them that was perfect for her complexion. Not to mention she had a petite frame that allowed her to look good in anything she put on. Ava came out of the room wearing a mint dress with rhinestone embellishments around the top of the sweetheart neckline and forming a flower on one side of her waist.

“Ava!” Miranda yelled.

Ava instantly blushed dropping her head to hide her red face. She soon recovered enough to look at herself in the mirror, running her hands across the rhinestone embellishments across her waist.

“Avs it’s beautiful!” I said getting up to stand next to her.

“You don’t think its too much?” She asked absentmindedly bitting her nails.

“No! Ava it’s perfect!” I encouraged.

She glanced at herself in the mirror a couple more times. I could tell she was apprehensive. Finally she shook her head smiling. She took one more glance at herself before walking into the dressing room confidence radiating from her. Max sure was a lucky boy, she was the cutest damn thing.

Realizing I was the only one left without one sole dress on her person I headed into the dressing room. I was more of a comfort over look kind of girl so most of my dresses were simple one color dresses. No one was wowed by any of them. There was one dress I had picked up for some reason that was different from the rest. It was a nude dress with red, floral lace appliqués on the torso. It went from a form fitting lace up corset to a floor length tulle skirt. It fit me comfortably so I decided to show the girls. I was not expecting the reactions I received.

“What happened to Josylne?” Miranda joked.

“You need to wear things like this all the time!” Ashley squealed.

I scolded them for making me flustered before heading over to the floor length mirror to take a look at myself. The dress was breathtaking, there was no question about that. It wasn’t me though. The dress was going to outshine me, there was no way I could compete with it.

“It’s pretty but I don’t think its for me,” I confessed turning around to face the girls.

“Josylne you’re crazy,” Sam commented.

“Josylne you look gorgeous. You have to get it,” Ava added.

I knew none of the girls were lying to me but something about the attention I was receiving was making me uncomfortable. I liked to be more in the background of things and something told me this dress wasn’t going to let me do it.

“Come on Jos! You said you’re only doing prom once. Do it right,” Ava suggested.

I smiled at her before heading back into the dressing room. She was right, if I only got one prom then that was the perfect dress for the occasion. The girls cheered when I came out of the room with the dress draped across my arms. We headed to the counter to pay for our belongings. After we decided to get some food in our empty stomachs, who knew dress shopping was such a work out.

“Has anyone heard from the boys?” Miranda asked checking her phone to see if she had any missed messages from Jayden.

“They probably haven’t even noticed we left,” Ashley muttered checking her phone.

Ashley was right about that. Lately they had been ignoring us a lot more than usual. I didn’t really blame them though. They were also all leaving each other soon. I tried not to think about everyone graduating too much. It only put me into a bad mood.

I was knocked out of my trance by a familiar beeping noise. Thinking it was my phone I reached into my pocket, only to discover it wasn’t my phone that went off. Actually, my phone appeared to be dead, leave it to me to forget to bring my charger when going shopping with the girls.

“Its Max,” Ava said distractingly. She typed out a quick message before her phone chirped again indicating another message. “He says they’ve been trying to call you Jos.”

“I just realized my phone died,” I shrugged.

“He said they need you at the field.”

“Tell him I’ll come later. We all drove together,” I reminded her. Whatever they needed could wait. I wasn’t going to make the girls drive me all the way over there. Knowing them it was probably something stupid anyway.

“We can take you now,” Ashley suggested.

“I wouldn’t mind seeing the boys,” Sam added.

Ava texted Max back telling him that we were on their way. After paying for our dinner we headed back toward Mass High. I had no idea why the boys were even there. Coach never called Saturday practices during off seasons, especially not this late in the evening. They were definitely up to something.

We arrived at the field shortly. Since no one was at school on Saturday we parked in the closest row to the field and walked over to the entrance. The boys must have all came separately as there were other cars in the parking lot. The sun was beginning to set rapidly so the stadium lights were on in preparedness for the abrupt darkness.

The five of us found our way onto the field only to be met with its emptiness. The boys were no where to be found. If this was their plan to get us all here and then scare the crap out of us I was going to be pissed. Suddenly the lights went out leaving us in complete darkness as the sun had finally set.

Music started playing faintly from the intercom of the booth. I couldn’t make out what song it was right away as it was instrumental. After a few more seconds I realized “Thinking Out Loud” by Ed Sheeran was playing. It was then my heartbeat started to quicken. This wasn’t your ordinary prank, this was something else. I turned toward where Ava had been standing only to find that she had moved back, along with the other girls.

“What are you guys doing?” I asked turning to face them leaving my back toward the home bleachers.

“Turn around!” Miranda gasped.

I obeyed turning around to find the bleachers lit up with lights. At first I wasn’t sure what was going on until I realized the little tea lights on the bleachers spelt something. My heart began to race as each letter lit up one after the other. First P then R and O and M and finally a question mark.

I turned around briefly to look at the girls faces, cheesy grins emitted on all of their faces. Were they in on this? I turned back around to see the five boys walking down the bleachers holding something. There was no sign of Parker yet. I was met with Aaron who handed me a single rose that had a note on it that read “please,” followed by Jason who’s card read “accompany,” then Jared’s “me,” and Jayden’s “to,” and finally Max’s which read “prom.”

After receiving the last rose, Parker emerged from the top of the bleachers. He walked slowly down the stairs. I was in a bit of shock so it took me a minute before I started walking toward him. We met halfway, still on the field but not quite centered on it.

“So what do you say?” He asked sheepishly.

“All you had to do was ask me,” I said, playfully pushing him.

“What fun would that have been?” He smirked.

“You’re such a dork!” I said kissing him. “Of course I’ll go to prom with you.”

He kissed me again before turning around to face the guys and giving them a thumbs up. Everyone ran up to us after that. Obviously they were all in on this plan.

“Just so we’re clear. This was all Parker’s idea and we told him you don’t like over the top things,” Max said.

“He doesn’t listen well,” I said. I smiled up at Parker to which he pulled my in close to him, tucking me into his side. “I can’t believe all of you knew.”

“That’s not true!” Sam stated.

“Yeah, the boys mainly knew. We didn’t find out until Ava whispered it to us when we went to sit on the sidelines,” Ashley confessed.

“Dammit Ava!” I shouted before smiling at her. She shrugged innocently before returning the smile.

“Prom 2014, here we come!” Jason screamed.