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But I’m lucky and privileged to be part of this life, so I don’t have the right to complain. Besides, what’s the point?
Isn’t this type of luxury what other people strive for?
“Your dress is so pretty, Nicole. Is that Dior?” Hannah, one of the girls, asks.
I pause my obsessive watching session of the entrance and focus back on the conversation.
My dress is light peach-colored with subtle streaks of gold. It’s short enough to graze my upper thigh, but it’s not tight enough to make me look cheap. Its straps are an elegant gold and it’s low-cut enough to show a hint of my cleavage.
It’s a “You can look, but you can’t touch” dress at its finest.
My hair is loose and falls straight to the hollow of my back. I’m wearing my lucky peach-colored heels that allow me to stand taller than all the girls here.
The whole look makes me feel elegant and powerful, but most of all, beautiful. Like I can win battles and conquer mountains.
Or more like, a particular mountain that I haven’t even been able to scratch the surface of for years.
That’s how obsession works.
At first, you just want a glance, a touch, a word, but then greed takes over and you can’t get enough.
Ican’t get enough.
“It’s Dior,” I tell Hannah with a smile. “Uncle Henry got it for me.”
“You’re so lucky your dad is a willing sponsor of your lifestyle.”
Chloe, who’s standing right beside me, releases an annoyed sound. I’ve known her since we were eight and became sort of besties.
Mostly because the other girls were too intimidated by me to ever try and befriend me.
She’s a brunette and has doe brown eyes that make her appear kind and peaceful when she’s in fact the one who metaphorically lent me the “bitch manual.”
“He’s not her dad, he’s her stepdad. Didn’t you hear her calls him Uncle Henry? Keep up, Hannah,” Chloe says with a plastic smile and I stop myself from wincing.
Yes, Uncle Henry isn’t Papa, but I wanted him to be at one point. However, I knew early on that that was impossible. Despite what Mum used to say, he only ever cared about Astrid as his real daughter.
He might not buy her things, because she doesn’t want them, and is stricter with her than he is with me, but she’s the one he makes sure is asleep every night.
As if on cue with my thoughts, Chloe tips her chin to the entryway. “The real daughter is a bum with no grace.”
The group breaks out in snickers except for me. My attention slides to the entrance and sure enough, Astrid is walking inside with her usual aloofness.
She’s wearing shorts and fishnet stockings and has some tacky star pins in her light brown hair. Astrid is short, way shorter than me, but she never wears heels, or dresses, or anything that would bring out her natural beauty.
And still, Daniel is wrapping an arm around her shoulders and laughing out loud at something she said.
I’m caught in a trance—my lids slowly droop and my heart starts a war in my chest, then drops to my fluttering stomach.
It’s a mayhem of emotions that keep mounting with each passing second like overstimulation.
Overflow.
Overdose.
Daniel has always been beautiful, but his beauty is much more severe now. He’s beautiful not in an everyday-things kind of way, but as someone who’s meant to become an actor, a model, or make a living by selling his looks.
He’s grown tall and muscular over the years. Not in a buff way, but like a lean prince from a fairy tale. The blue Elites jacket complements his frame and envelops his wide shoulders like a second skin.
