Chapter 17

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"Okay I'm done" I declare when away from the counter with my dress in a plastic bag.

The dress is lavender purple, maxi cocktail dress, that had spaghetti straps, low v neckline, a crossover draped skirt with a front split.

"You're going to look amazing in that dress" Laura smiles, "you should wear it to my debutante ball!"

"Yeah I think I will" I nod, "I don't have many party dresses"

Laura then holds up two dresses.

"Which do you prefer?" She asks.

The one that she holds in her right hand is a elegant navy blue lace party dress. The other is a red, deep v neck, short sleeved, high waist, lace, party dress.

"That one" I point to the red one. "Definitely, one hundred percent"

"Yeah I think so too" she grins.

It's just the two of us shopping for dresses for the marathon tomorrow. Willow has been sick for a week with the flu so none of us have seen her.

"Hey, what about Willow? What is she going to wear to this dance Marathon?" I ask.

"She has a very nice navy blue jumpsuit that she's going to wear" Laura tells me.

Suddenly my cell begins buzzing.

"Sorry, give me a sec" I grab my cell phone from my back pocket.

"I'll go pay" Laura tells me before disappearing into the distance.

I press my cell against my ear.

"Dad wants me out of the house in an hour" Thomas announces.

"Yeah, yeah, I know" I roll my eyes, "did you pack your suit for tomorrow?"

"Yeah, I did" he assures, "remind me why we're crashing at Kyle's again?"

"The dance Marathon starts at six am so we're all driving together" I explain for the six hundredth time.

Apparently it's their tradition to do this every year.

"Okay, so why Kyle's place?" Thomas asks, unamused.

I regret telling Thomas about Kyle and Ms Pool. He's been hostile to Kyle all day.

"Ely has six younger siblings, Willow is recovering from the flu so her house is infested with bacteria according to Laura...Laura's parents are so snobby that they won't allow it, Tommy has some sort of issue that he doesn't like to talk about, so Kyle is the only house we can stay out" I explain.

"What was our excuse?" Thomas question.

To my surprise, we didn't actually need to make one up.

"I didn't need to make one" I admit, "no one wants to sleep at the same house as their history teacher"

Well beside Laura who loved the idea.

"Right" he loses interest fast, "see you soon" Thomas says.

"Bye" I end the call.

"Who was that?" Laura approaches me with her dress covered in plastic.

"My brother" I answer simply.

Calling Thomas my brother isn't as weird as it used to be. It's something that I've gotten used to.

"Did you tell him to get ready?" She asks. I respond with a nod. "Good" she smiles. "This is going to be so much fun!"

***

"We're here" Laura announces when  we enter Kyles home with Thomas behind us.

Thomas holds both our sleeping bags while I hold bags containing our clothes for tomorrow.

"Kyle bought lucky charms" Tommy cheers, walking through Kyles home.

"Hey, guys" Willow stands up from the couch in the living room.

I haven't seen her since she gave me a ride home from her biological mother's house, which was about a week ago.

"Willow!" I greet, running up to her and giving her a hug, "how are you feeling?" I pull away and smile.

"A lot better" she half-smiles, "although, I did give my entire family the flu. My brother isn't happy with me"

I didn't know Willow had a brother. I don't know why assumed that she was an only child.

"You have a brother?" I question in surprise.

"Wait you didn't know about Salix?" Tommy's jaw drops to ground while he takes a seat on the couch.

"Sorry, I just always assumed that you were an only child" I admit.

"There's Salix, Avery, and I," she tells me.

Suddenly Ely enters the room with a mug in his hand which he slowly brings to Tommy.

"Here" Ely gives Tommy a mug filled with coffee. "Be careful, it's hot"

"Marry me" Tommy flashes Ely his pearly whites, making Elijah roll his eyes. I smirk as Tommy sips his coffee. "Holy shit, that's hot"

I break out in a laughter. God, Tommy is adorable. He reminds me so much of my little brother Brandon, it's scary.

"Where's your mum?" Willow glances at Kyle.

"With Jimmy" He responds.

"Jimmy as in your stepdad?" Tommy directs his gaze at Kyle.

"Nah, Jimmy as in the mailman," Kyle says sarcastically, folding his arms.

"What about your sister?" Willow questions.

Sometimes I forget that Willow and Kyle used to date. There's still tension between them, that's the only way anyone would ever know that they have a history. They do seem to be acting civil tonight.

"Gemma's with them," Kyle tells her.

I didn't know Kyle had a sister. Geez, there's so much I don't know about these people. I guess they know nothing about me either.

"So we have the house to ourselves?" Thomas assumes.

"Yep" Tommy cheers. "We can raid Kyle's Mum's panty drawer"

We all glare at him. Kyle shoots him a dangerous look. I'm the first one to break out in a laughter.

"Anway....should we organize partners for tomorrow?" Laura looks around.

"Shotgun Willow" Tommy cries at the top of his lungs.

"Tommy you trader!" Laura screams, offended as all hell. "I'm your partner every year"

"Look you're a great girl and everything but I think its time for us to go our separate ways" Tommy starts, licking his lips. "I think that the two of us want two completely different things right now so-"

"Don't use one of your break up speech's on me, mister" Laura folds her arms.

"...Anyway" Ely blink a few times. "Laura why don't we be partners this year, it'll give us practice for the debutante ball"

"Fine" she grits her teeth. "So who's left? Its just Kyle, Jacob, and Emma"

"Jacob" I cry just as Kyle says "Emma"

I snap my head in his direction, my brows furrowed in confusion. My eyes widen. Why would Kyle want to be my partner? I thought we were fighting in secret at the moment.

"I don't dance," Thomas explains with a cheap grin.

I avert my gaze away from Kyle and instead to Thomas. Is Thomas kidding me with this? What's he doing? He can't possibly be serious right now?

"Wait, you're not dancing?" Laura questions.

"I don't dance" Thomas repeats.

"May I have this dance?" Thomas questioned.

"Umm," I hesitated.

"I don't bite" he assured.

"fine" I agreed as he wrapped his arms around me on the dance floor.

"So where's my brother?" He asked.

"In the men's room," I responded cautiously.

"Are you scared of me?" He raised a brow.

I looked him in the eye "I'm not scared of anything"

"Maybe you should be"

"So are you just going to sit and watch?" Laura raises a brow.

"That's exactly what I plan on doing," Thomas smiled.

Oh hell no. He's dancing with me whether he wants to or not.

"He can drive" Ely points out. "when one of us collapses from exhaustion, he can drive them home"

Yeah, he'll be driving me after the first two minutes, because there's no way I'm letting Kyle touch me.

"That's a good point" Willow agrees.

"Okay, so it's settled, you're the designated driver" Laura cheers.

"Just great" I groan.

"What was that Emma?" Thomas cocks a brow.

He's such an asshole. What is he playing at?

"Can I speak to you for a sec?" I question as we make our way to the kitchen for some privacy. "What was that?" I cry once we're alone.

"You said you were handling it" he folds his arms.

So this is him forcing me to handle it.

"Do you have any idea how long a dance marathon is?" I raise my brows, "And what was all that, I can't dance, crap about?"

"I had to get out of it somehow" Thomas smirks. "...We had good memories dancing, didn't we?"

I pause. Surely he doesn't want to stand here and reminisce about our past right now.

"We're not fifteen anymore" I start slowly, "you can't keep playing these little games"

"So I play games now?" He raises a brow.

He's trying to control me, manipulate my decisions, Just like he always has. That's what him backing out of the marathon is — it's a game that he has designed to force a confrontation between Kyle and I.

"Ugh you always have" I throw my arms in the air.

"Right" he nods before clenching his jaw, "cause I'm a manipulative dick"

"I didn't say that" I roll my eyes.

Suddenly Laura enters the kitchen.

"Guys, go sit down in the living room" Laura orders in excitement, "we have a surprise for the two of you"

You could cut the tension between Thomas and I with a knife, but we do as she says and enter the living room. I don't even want to look at him right now.

"Surprise" they all cry as we see a chocolate cake on the coffee table with eighteen candles. "Happy birthday"

"I can't believe you two didn't tell us," Laura says. "We had to find out from Mr Fitzgerald that it's your birthday"

"We know that your birthday is tomorrow but we're going to be dancing the entire day so-" Tommy starts.

"We decided to celebrate tonight" Ely finishes. "And we hear you two have a thing for chocolate cake"

"Aww you guys" I force a smile, "this is amazing" I lie.

Its not amazing. It's completely unnecessary. I know I'm mad a Thomas right now but this is not what he needs. We spend his birthday grieving, not celebrating. I look over at Thomas with sadness in my eyes.

"We knew you would appreciate it" Laura gives me a hug.

"Shall we sing happy birthday?" Ely suggests.

"Let's do it!" Tommy cheers.

"On the count of three" Kyle instructs, "one...two...three"

"Happy birthday to you" they all begin singing as Thomas and I stand in front of the cake, and they sit around the coffee table.

Thomas struggles to smile. His birthday is just another reminder that he's living life every day without his twin brother. They did nothing but fight, but I guess they had their moments.

My mind goes back twelve months earlier to when I was Cara Johnson, in St Cloud, Minnesota.

"Happy seventeenth birthday" my friend Sarah screamed in excitement as giving me a chocolate cupcake.

"Thank you" I smiled. We stood in the parking lot of our favourite diner at eleven am. "You know you didn't have to do all this"

"I totally shouldn't have, cause you to know it was so much work...with the whole going into the bakery, asking for one cupcake and handing the money-" she stated sarcastically.

"We wanted to make your birthday special" her boyfriend Ross told me.

"So whats your twin doing tonight Cara?" She asked.

"Probably going to go joy riding in my father's car" I started. "With some random girl who will do whatever he wants"

"He's got the right idea" Ross smirked.

"Ross" Sarah glared at him.

"Oh, I forgot to give you this" Ross pulls out a flask from his jacket pocket, "its filled with gin"

"We're all sharing" Sarah orders, "but since it's your birthday-"

"I can go first" I finish her sentence while taking the flask from Ross' grasp.

Suddenly my cellphone began buzzing from my hand bag.

"Ahh" Sarah groans.

"I'm sorry," I say, pulling out my phone. "I'll be a sec" with that I take a few steps away from the "hello"

"So what are you doing today, on this joyous occasion?" Thomas' voice was slurred.

"You sound awful," I told him.

"That's what happens when you drink a bottle of bourbon" Thomas informed me.

"Wait you're drunk? It's not even noon" I rolled my eyes.

"C'mon it's not like you're not pouring yourself a glass right now" Thomas assumed, making me look down at the flask in my hand.

"Make a wish" Laura smiles while Thomas and I blow out the candles.

I wish that I can be Isla Mills again.

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