Page 112 of Honey Pot

“No kidding!” I slapped his shoulder and groaned. The dress I had somehow wiggled into pinched my stomach with dark blue scratchy sequins and rolled around my thighs. I couldn’t even get it zipped up properly with the fabric bunching up.

“This store sucks. Why did we come in here?” Cael asked, staring over me. Blue eyes were always so quick and curious, sometimes making me feel even more insecure than I already was.

“Eyes up here,” I barked, and he snapped them up to meet mine with a soft smile. “It’s the only store that carries my sizes.”

“That can’t be true. What about at the mall?” He asked.

“That’s a two-hour drive into the city.” I shook my head.

“So?” He shrugged in the dark sleeveless tank he was wearing, his eyes glittering under the fluorescents. “You’re forgetting your boy has a license now!”

“There’s no way Daddy is going to let you drive me into the city without a parent. Especially not after you got in trouble!” I laughed at him, shoving him back until he was practically out of the changing room.

“Let me deal with Mr. Matthews.” Cael winked and let the curtain fall over.

Let me make this right.He didn’t say it but his glossy blue eyes gave him away. He still felt terrible for what happened, but he was treating me like I was made of glass now and it made me feel small.

Cael was gone all of ten minutes, leaving me waiting for him at the front of the store with my cardigan folded over my arms. He had a cell phone, I didn’t. Something about it being too expensive and not worth the money if Cael had one and we were always together.

I suppose it made sense to our parents, but it became another reason I depended on him constantly. I couldn’t leave the house unless my parents could reach me, which meant I wasn’t allowed to leave the house without Cael.

Although it was his idea to attend homecoming in the first place, I couldn’t have cared less. I’d rather spend that time in my room or by the creek, listening to the birds and writing in my journal about their songs; but he had preached the need for a proper high school experience, and, like the naive idiot I was, I followed him step for step into the unknown.

I hated how easily he convinced me to do the things I feared most.

When Cael appeared around the corner with a cheesy grin and a twinkle in his eyes, I knew that whatever plan he had devised had worked. “Mr. Matthews is a chump.” He winked and linked his arm with mine.

“Turns out the supplies we need to put together our science project can only be bought in the city. Yes, Sir, of course, Sir, I’ll have her back before dark,”he mocked my Dad’s voice.

“He’s going to expect a science project, you know that, right?” I laughed at Cael.

“That’s later Cael’s problem,” he snorted and pushed open the door for me.

The truck was parked in the back row of the small parking lot, but from the door to the truck, my nerves bubbled violently, and I stopped in my tracks. Pressing my heels down into the cracked, sun-worn pavement with a shaky breath.

“Clem?” Cael turned to look at me, only realizing I’d stopped when he reached his truck.

“We don’t need to go into the city,” I shook my head and adjusted my small bag on my back. “I don’t need to go to homecoming.”

“What do you mean?” He closed his door and sauntered the few steps back to me.

“It’s too much fuss over…” I stopped talking and started to fiddle with the straps with my fingers.

“Now I know you didn’t just say that to me.” Cael chortled. “It’s not a fuss to find you a pretty dress for our first homecoming, Clementine, so what if we have to drive into the city? We can turn the music up real loud and drive too fast on the highway!”

Cael had this way of making everything sound fun, even when I was sad.

“I hate that we have to do that,” I argued, but Cael just scoffed. “You don’t get it, you’re–”

“I’m what, Clem?” He stepped forward and waited.

“Average!” I grumbled. “You fit everything, and trying on dresses that I’m too big for makes me sad!”

“Trying on dresses that don’t fityou,” he corrected me. “You’re not too big for them.” He closed the distance between us and pulled the bag away from me. “So you’re saying because you don’t fit the Polly Pocket plastic Dandy’s is selling, you don’t deserve to go to homecoming?”

“None of the other girls have to go into the city for a dress they’ll wear once, Cael. It’s not–”

“Fair, I know,” he said, picking my chin up with his finger. “That’s why I lied to your Daddy, so that I could level the playing field.”

---