Designer Dreams, Designer Shades

I exhaled sharply and finally grabbed the door handle. I’d been standing outside of the room for a good half hour because they said she was actually in there, and I didn’t know how she would react to seeing me again. Hell, I didn’t know how I would react to seeing her again. Our last meeting didn’t leave us on the best of terms, so I was pretty nervous…

Would she brush me off again? Call the hospital personnel and have me escorted out? Or would we have an actual, civil conversation this time? I kept my fingers crossed for the last one and quietly opened the door.

I saw that familiar head of dark brown hair down on her father’s hospital bed, and it was shaking with silent sobs. I bit my lip, trying to decide if I should intrude or not. I didn’t, but I quietly opened the door wider, crouched down to the ground, and placed the simple arrangement of flowers I bought for her down on the ground. Hopefully she would find and actually read the note I gave her.

I shut the door again and backed away, heading for the elevator again. “Oh, was Miss Vivienne not there?” the nurse that I had talked to earlier asked when she saw me leaving.

“Oh, she was, but she was asleep,” I lied for Darcy’s sake. “I can just come back later.”

The nurse nodded. “I can tell her you stopped by, if you’d-“

“No,” I said quickly, vigorously shaking my head. “I want to surprise her later…”

The nurse smiled now. “Aw, are you her boyfriend?”

“No, we’re just friends,” I replied, forcing a smile and wanting to leave now. I really hated it when total strangers tried to get up all in my business. I really hated telling people that Darcy and I were "just friends", too. I waved goodbye and left the hospital.

I went home, a verse on my lips and a chord progression in my fingers needing to be put down somewhere for yet another song inspired by Darcy when I saw another car in our driveway. I frowned, but just parked on the street. I swore when I recognized the vehicle, though...it belonged to Macy.

What the hell? I'd never brought Macy home to my parents before, or to my house at all, and I know we've been dating for a while, but she still doesn't have the right to just roll up into my house! "Macy?" I called her name when I opened the front door.

"...loves, like, Asian food, so I think we should grab, like, sushi and...and...what other Asian food is there?" I heard Harley ask. She was sitting down with Macy at our dining table, both girls hunched over a notebook that Harley was furiously scribbling in. I forgot that they were friends, even though she was a little older than Harley. Harley tried to replace Darcy with Macy, too.

...Yeah, that didn't work.

"Um, we can get Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Thai," Macy trailed off, her brow furrowed in thought.

"What are you dears up to?" I yawned, walking up behind Macy and loosely wrapping my arms around her neck. She always complained that because I wasn't very touchy it made her feel like I didn't like her or some other shit. I didn't feel like listening to her bitch about nothing today, so, yeah.

"Chris!" Macy squealed, leaning up for a kiss. I grudgingly obliged. It was one of those "I'm-not-in-the-mood-but-you-obviously-are-so-I'll-kiss-back" kisses. I didn't want to blind my little sister for life because, don't let Macy's cuteness deceive you, she's a fucking nympho. "I'm helping Harley plan a welcome home party for her friend," she explained, leaning back into my chest.

"That's nice," I said with another yawn to try and feign sleepiness. "Well, I need some sleep, I think."

"Aw, Chris, come help us!" Harley whined with a matching pout.

"You go ahead and sleep, babe," Macy urged me. "And we can go out and do something tonight, alright?"

Ah, fuck. "Not tonight, Macy...I'm sorry, but I'm exhausted." From staying up all night worrying about whether I should go visit Darcy and her father in the hospital.

Macy sighed, but nodded in understanding. "Alright...Chris, where did you come from? For once, you don't smell like cigarettes!"

That's because they don't allow smoking in hospitals... "See you around, Macy," I yawned some more, ignoring Macy's question and giving my sister a sharp look before taking the stairs up to my room. I made sure to lock the door behind me in case Macy decided to be a creeper and slip into my room while I was sleeping.

Asian food, huh? That totally made me think of our junior prom...


Darcy got asked to prom by some motherfucker on the football team. It was at a football game and he asked over the PA system with the cheerleaders holding up posters that spelled out “PROM?” I didn’t like that, though. I was planning to ask her in the school parking lot. I had a really cute way of asking her, too, but I wanted it to be cute for her, not for the whole school population. I didn’t want to do it in the way David Baker did – all public and in such a way that Darcy couldn’t say no. I tried not to let it get to me, though…we had next year, after all.

Darcy was totally not expecting him to ask her. David Baker was just the kicker for the football team, though, so he wasn’t all beefy and bulky like the rest of them. Darcy hated boys like that, and always told me so…which kind of gave me hope, since I was scrawny as fuck. After he asked her, they talked a lot – to the point where I almost felt like I was being replaced. It hurt, but I realized it was because they knew absolutely nothing about each other.

Darcy didn’t know this, but I found out that the guys on the football team had this list of the most bangable girls in school, and she was on it somehow. And she was, like, the last to be “picked” or whatever, so David got "stuck" with her, because it’s practically illegal for a football player to go to prom without a date.

What fuckery. The last one?

Darcy’s always at the top of my list…because she’s the only girl on my list.

I ended up asking a little sophomore on the tennis team to prom because I knew she wouldn’t say no. Macy was going with some guy on the soccer team, so that was that. I didn’t ask said sophomore in any special way. I don’t even remember her name. I just remembered we ate at the same restaurant as Darcy and her date – this Japanese sushi place, because the little sophomore was a vegetarian just like me. But they were with a lot of David’s football friends, and Darcy felt really uncomfortable around them.

I saw them at prom, too – well, not together. Darcy made like a wallflower and watched her date grind on every girl but her. I danced with the sophomore for a while before some other sophomore girls showed up somehow and stole her from me. I had no problem with that, though. I went to find Darcy, because David took her outside somewhere.

“Why did you even ask me to prom if you weren’t going to dance with me?” Darcy asked, mildly angry at him. They were arguing in the parking lot.

“Chill out, babe,” David laughed, obviously drunk. He made to kiss her, but Darcy pushed him away.

“Um, David, what the fuck are you doing?”

I was so glad I followed them to the parking lot. David impatiently opened the door to his car, trying to shove Darcy into the backseat. Darcy’s screams were muffled by his hands, but I grabbed him by the back of his collar and slammed his head into an adjacent car. I was only able to do so because he was so drunk. I was no match for any football player when he was sober. “Darce?”

Darcy crawled out of the car, pulling her dress down, and threw her arms around me in a bone crushing hug. “Please don’t tell my dad,” was the only thing Darcy could blubber out to me. I took her to my car and we went to IHOP.

Pancakes work wonders when you’re sad.