AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“You’re not wearing it for me.”
She sucked in a very noisy breath.
iii.
SHE WAS WEARINGthe skirt forher, obviously.
Well…
The skirt had been procured and then she had to wear it. That was all. There didn’t have to be a reason to wear an article of clothing that now was part of her wardrobe.
She had gotten the skirt at Hot Topic. She was at Hot Topic in the first place because she was at the mall in Winchester. She didn’t think malls even existed anymore, but there it was, like a perfectly formed piece of her early childhood, and itsmelledlike a mall and it even had a food court.
So, she was at the mall because of Tommy.
He texted her, and he was like, “I’m at the mall in Winchester. Can you come and pick me up?”
Which wouldn’t have been a big deal, but she was with her friend Jennifer at the time, and the two were going to be having this girls’ night thing, sort of. Dahlia had the night off, and they had planned staying home and drinking fruity drinks and watching theFifty Shadesmovies. But then Tommy texted her.
So, it ended up being thisthingwith Jennifer, who was annoyed with her for not blowing Tommy off. Jennifer thought Dahlia should ignore Tommy’s text. Jennifer came along to the mall, and she lectured Dahlia for the whole drive—which was forty-five minutes, admittedly—about how Dahlia let Tommy walk all over her and that he wasn’t good for her and that he didn’t care about her.
It wasn’t as if Dahlia hadn’t heard these things before.
But the point of being friends with people was not to make it into this scorecard where you said, “You have to work up this number of points by doing nice things for me before I do anything nice for you.” At least, that was not howshesaw friendship.
They got to the mall, and Dahlia texted Tommy, and he said he’d meet them outside of Hot Topic. Except they got there, and he wasn’t there, and two or three texts went back and forth.
We’re here.
On my way. Five minutes tops.
Five minutes later:You still on your way?
Yes, seriously. Sorry.
Which was when they went into the Hot Topic and looked around. In the back of the store, that was where they kept the more costume-y type clothing, not just t-shirts emblazoned with band names. There were a few corsets and a big, long lacy black dress and the skirt.
The skirt was black. It was short. It had two straps hanging down on either side of it with little metal circles attached to the bottom of them.
“I’m buying it,” she told Jennifer.
“Where are you going to wear that?”
“I want it, and anyway, I’m glad we came into Hot Topic, because it gave me a reason to see it. So, it’s like the trip was not in vain, right?” Dahlia grinned at her.
Jennifer rolled her eyes. “No guy is this great in bed, Dahlia. Nothing is worth this.”
Dahlia bought the skirt, and Tommy finally showed up.
“Oh, look, it’s Tommy,” said Jennifer. “Finally.”
Tommy shook his head slowly. “I wondered why you said ‘we.’” He was looking at Jennifer but talking to Dahlia. “You didn’t tell me you were hanging out with a friend.”
“Would it have mattered?” said Jennifer.
“She does this, okay?” said Tommy to Jennifer, managing to look embarrassed. He turned to Dahlia. “You can’t just drop everything for me like this all the time.”
“Mmm,” said Jennifer. “Youcan’t just text her and ask her to drive forty-five minutes to pick your ass up. What were you even doing here?”
