I know The Devil

Let it hurt until it can’t hurt anymore

I ran upstairs grumbling under my breath.

“And Prudence?” Mariah hollered in a suspiciously sweet tone, “Who do you think gave us your address?”

I closed my eyes. Yes, of course, Tristan.

“Don’t keep us waiting and don’t think about locking yourself in there. It doesn’t have to be hard if you don’t make it so.”

I sighed exasperatedly as I walked up to the room wondering how my life went from not great to not so great.

As I shrugged on an “I love boobs” t-shirt. Firstly, it was Rob’s and it was meant as a joke by one of his friends but I didn’t have much of an option to choose from when I had two crazy ass teenagers unsupervised in my house and I didn’t have many clean clothes to choose from considering it was the weekend and weekdays were for wearing the clean clothes.

Besides, I had a call I needed to make.

“What the fuck, Tristan?” I whisper yelled the minute he picked up his phone on the second ring.

“Hello to you too, Prudence. I have missed you. Guessing from your opening speech I can tell you have already met my adorable cousins?”

“You’re grinning right now! How is this even funny to you? We went from baby steps yesterday to you outing me out to the fashion police this morning?”

“Prudence, it is not as serious as you’re making it seem. I just__”

“Too embarrassed of what I wear and too much of a softie to tell me that to my face and so you recruited your cousins to do the job?”

“No Prudence… I’m so avoiding going down this path with you. I hate fights, and I’ll have to hang up because I’m a coward and I don’t want to fight with you.”

“Tristan please don’t hang up,” I begged reducing my voice then sighed. “I’m just surprised and upset. And scared, your cousins mean business and I just want to lazy around the house and not play dress up with a look alike Kim Kardashian sorry two!”

I smiled as Tristan chuckled.

“To be honest, my mom’s sister, their mother is away this weekend recreating her honeymoon with her husband and my mom convinced me to just watch the Bakers girls. They have been all over me since they got here, first they made a dig on my dating life and then they were on with my diet and everything… Don’t get me wrong I love those sweethearts but as you can tell nobody gave them the personal space talk so when they saw a selfie of you and me on my phone, after absolutely assuring them you weren’t my girlfriend by telling them the Law story.” I smiled a little, that made sense now, “They’re juniors in Evans so knowing Law only made them more intrigued with wanting to know you so they dug around just a little and they weren’t impressed with the pictures they found so although I think your dressing is cute and I’ll never be ashamed of you my sexy as hell vixen that could make a sweatpant with grease on it look intimidatingly great, I just thought you could use an extra… I don’t know?”

I smiled a little sensing how nervous he sounded. The guy was really a softie and was nothing like the monsters hollering my name now.

“Besides that’ll get them out of my way and let me plan my party. I’m just so sorry I didn’t give you a heads up and you are getting wrapped into all of these.”

“I know you’re. Besides, I think I’m due for a little fashion upgrade,” I grinned, “Because trust me hand me down sucks! Would you believe that I’m wearing a t-shirt that legit suggests I’m a lesbian. It says I love boobs!”

He chuckled, “Chic and informative.”

I looked down at my mismatched socks even as I chuckled, “Don’t forget sexy as hell!”

“Never.”

So that’s how I ended up in a changing room, with lots of clothes I could tell without trying on that I absolutely hated and the most intimidating girls I knew waiting for me outside to strut out with each of my dresses.

Squaring my chest and deciding this should be dealt with soon as my shift was upcoming, I walked out of the changing room in a beige-coloured mid-length gown.

Mariah shook her head repeatedly while Tamara eyed the saleswoman like she was the one who had been too busy throwing dresses from a different direction to my awaiting hands.

“This just gives off a teacher, clerk, accountant vibe and those jobs pfft… Are not what you want teenage boys to be thinking when you walk into a room.” Mariah commented after a while.

“But at least we can see’em legs and trust me they are incredible. You should never wear a pair of trousers in your life ever!” Tamara chirpily added ignoring the big frown on my face at the thought of not wearing trousers ever… Like that would be so inconvenient especially when you don’t own a pink Maserati and need a bus to get to school, I thought but they didn’t know what life like that entails. Besides it was just a compliment, I should smile and just take it instead of evaluating how practically impossible it is.

I was about to walk inside to change into another dress when the saleswoman snap her fingers like an idea just occurred to her, “What is the occasion?”

I smiled back at her just realizing it was the first time the Baker twins were allowing her to have a word input with me.

Mariah scoffed, “Like there should be an occasion to look good! I hate that assumption.”

The saleswoman had a stricken face before I held her hand, “Unlike these two… I believe that there should be an occasion to look good. My t-shirt should give you a good enough guess of what my lazying around sweatshirt looks like… I’m here for a dress because my friend is throwing a party. A beach party but I’m not so confident about wearing a bikini in front of the whole population of students that’ll be there.” I smiled conspiratorially at her, “I just need something that’ll allow me to show off and dip my legs inside the water… Just baby steps.”

“I know just the best dress for you the minute you had walked in.”

She politely smiled at me before she left to get the gown while I bit back asking her why she didn’t just give me this gown she had already visualized me in the minute I walked in but I had my answer the minute I heard giggles from the twins. Those two could be quite intimidating, I wasn’t one to talk especially since they were able to get me out of my house in minutes and I watched them talk themselves out of a possibly mugging situation with a gang with compliments and a free ice cream coupon on our drive out.

One thing was certain whatever genetic make these girls were of, wasn’t in any way linked to Tristan at all and it was dangerous. Could start World war 3 if not curbed early.

She brought out a floral printed backless gown. It stopped midthigh and was unbelievably perfect and still so simple.

“I love it,” I whispered.Upstodatee from Novel(D)ra/m/a.O(r)g

“I know you would.” She beamed.

“Go try it on or something!” Mariah coaxed looking up from her phone, “I have a med and ped situation in like soon. We don’t have all day.”

I wanted to add that I had a job to do which was by comparison more important and nobody had sent them on this little errand but I couldn’t because a part of me was visualizing myself in the floral print gown and I couldn’t deny that though this wasn’t going to be an everyday thing and the baker twins were a headache and that is mildly putting it, dressing up wouldn’t kill once in a while though I’m so not considering never wearing pants! Yes, I’m still thinking about that.

I swung my bag of floral print gown trying so hard to not remember that I just spent Two hundred and fifty bucks on a dress since that’ll dampen the triumphant grin that was now on my face as I followed Mariah to where her car was parked since she was the only one who and I quote didn’t have an urgent thing to get back to asap.

“I can’t believe we spent hours for you to buy just one gown… We had a black American Express card that would have bought all those dresses without stress. It wasn’t even a designer’s stop per your order!”

I chuckled as I stepped into the car the minute she disengaged her alarm system as I wondered how much a designer dress would have cost if a mall with a clearance 50% off sales day poster hanging in front of it could sell a dress at such an exorbitant price.

“At least I got the dress,” I mumbled as she slid in.

She pouted, “You shouldn’t have insisted to pay for the dress like that, it was not a big-ish.”

I’d have cringed on a normal day at the thought that not only was she among the set of teenagers who used unnecessary abbreviations while typing she also says it out, I shrugged.

One less thing that made me relieved since that was the opposite of Law Tyler.