Chapter Fifteen

"Here. Take this dress too." Corey threw a dark navy dress at me, and it landed in my arms, which were full with dresses. This was the sixth store that we'd been to, and I was exhausted. I didn't know how Corey did it. She was still perky, happy, and full of energy, where as I got tired after I tried on the second dress.

We'd already bought two dresses, eight pairs of shoes (three pairs of high heels, two pairs of flats, and three pairs of running shoes), three accessories, five cardigans, four skirts (blech. I'll never wear them), six shirts, and… wait for it….

Fourteen pairs of jeans. Fourteen. That's two weeks worth of jeans. Although I've got to admit, they're not the designery ones with the sequins that I never wear. She actually let me go into American Eagle, which she had never stepped foot in. Surprisingly, she seemed to take a liking to it, and told me that we'd be going to it often. The only problem was that she went overboard, thrust me a ton (as in about fifty pairs) of jeans, and shoved me into a dressing room. After that, I had to put on a fashion show and show her how each pair looked on me. She was delighted with the results, and bought me ten pairs of jeans from there. The people who worked there were probably giddy with happiness, since we spent so much money there. Along with that, she also bought me four pairs from Seven For All Mankind. Sure, the American Eagle jeans were of normal price (an average of about 35 dollars each), but the Seven For All Mankind jeans? 120 dollars each. So the grand total for just the jeans were… drumroll please… EIGHT HUNDRED AND THIRTY DOLLARS. I am not even kidding. Do you know how much seven hundred and eighty dollars can buy you? It could buy you… actually, I don't know what it could buy you, but it could feed lots of hungry kids around the world.

And don't even get me started on what Corey bought for herself: six dresses, ten pairs of shoes, six accessories, seven pairs of jeans, eight shirts, and three skirts. I don't want to sound rude, but really. When was she ever going to wear that many clothes? I felt so guilty for spending that much money on ourselves.

"Ooooh, this one's so cute! It'll look fantastic on you." My maniac sister tossed a gray dress at me. "I think that's enough. Let's hit the dressing rooms!" I stared at her armload of dresses. How could she try on all of those?

As we arrived at the dressing rooms, people openly gaped at us. I blushed and ducked my head, breathing a sigh of relief as I entered a changing stall. Looking around at the humongous stall, I hung up all of the dresses, and then pulled out the one that Corey had said would look "fantastic on me".

When I finished pulling it on, I didn't even bother to look in the mirror. Instead, I called over to the next stall, where Corey was, "Are you ready yet?"

"Yup."

We both stepped out at the same time. And then gasped at the same time.

Corey looked horrible. The yellow dress made her skin look greenish and pale. It also made her nose look too big. I don't know how to describe it, but it just made her look… ugly.

"Ohmygosh, you look awesome!" Obviously, Corey was thinking the opposite of what I was thinking.

"I do? That's nice. Can I take this off now?" To tell you the truth, it was pretty comfortable, since it was made of cotton. The only problem was that I felt super exposed. The dress was scoop neck and had a plunging neckline. It was sleeveless, clung to me, and stretchy. It was kind of like a racerback tank top, except a lot more fitted and it reached two inches above my knee.

"We totally need to buy it!" she squealed.

I looked at myself in the mirror, and saw my own eyes widen. Wow, it actually did look good on me. This was the first time that I thought a dress looked okay on me. I'm not saying that I hate the way I look, but I'm usually not the type to wear dresses, you know what I mean? Like, some girls can get away with wearing dresses everyday, and it'll look all casual, because they're the girly type. But if I wore dresses everyday, it would look unusual, like a tiger wearing a pink bathrobe while reading a book. I'm more of the type to wear jeans and a t-shirt.

So when I saw myself in the mirror, I was shocked. The dress made me look girly. Like I was meant to wear dresses everyday. Like I was a girly girl. It made my skin look tan and glowy, for some reason, and it made my hair look sleek and shiny. Hmm… maybe shopping wasn't as bad as I thought….

"Wow…." I managed to breathe out. "Is that really me?" I pointed my finger up at the reflection, and the girl in the mirror also pointed her finger. "Guess it is…." I turned to Corey, who was grinning ear to ear.

"I am so proud! We found a dress that looks good on you! But…" she frowned, "when will you ever wear that? It doesn't look like a dress that someone would wear to the Homecoming Dance…." She shrugged. "Oh well. It's a miracle that we found a good dress! We're buying it!"

For once, I didn't object.

"Well, how does my dress look me?" she asked, and then twirled.

I wrinkled my nose and shook my head. "It looks… it looks… yuck. No offense or anything."

"None taken."

The next dress I tried on looked just wrong on me. And so did the next. And the next. And so on. I guess the first dress had been a miracle. Just as Corey was about to give up, I showed her the next dress. And she absolutely loved it, although I can say that it didn't suit me at all. The whole entire navy blue dress was covered in shimmery dark blue glitter, which the light reflected off of. Like the first dress, it was scoop neck and had a plunging neckline. Unlike the first dress, it had long sleeves, and was just about as short as my track shorts, except three fingers lower (all in all, it was four finger's length beneath my butt. If I were to bend down… I don't even want to think about it). It was backless too, and not at all comfortable.

"EEEEEE! This is our lucky day! We found you two dresses! Well, not including the two other dresses that we got at JCPenny, but those don't look nearly as good as these do." She sighed happily, while I tried unsuccessfully to tug the bottom of the dress down.

"Are you sure about this? Sure, the first dress was good, but I'm not sure about this one."

"IT'S PERFECT FOR HOMECOMING!" Her face lit up. "And it'll look adorable with the black flats we bought from that one boutique!"

My shoulders slumped. Well, there was no turning back now. She was definitely set on buying this dress, whether I liked it or not.

I walked numbly into Mom's car.

"So how was shopping?"

I groaned at the same time that Corey yelled, "FANTASTIC!"

"Really? What happened?"

"Well, we found Anna a few dresses. Dresses! For Anna! Isn't that surprising?"

Mom raised an eyebrow and gave me a pitying look. "Really? That is a surprise. I never thought that Anna would ever buy a dress."

"Not just a dress, Mom. A few - no wait, a bunch - of dresses. And she looked fantastic in them. We'll show you a mini fashion show when we get home."

I moaned again. No. No more changing in and out of clothes. My feet were sore. I had a huge migraine. I never wanted to see a mall again. Not even a grocery store.

After we went and bought the two dresses, Corey had shoved me to yet another boutique and bought me three more dresses and herself four more dresses. Then, we went to a shoe store and bought a few more pairs of shoes to go with our new dresses. Next, we went to Nike and bought some more shirts, shorts, even more shoes, some socks that you wear with flats, regular socks for exercising, jogging sweats, track pants, sweaters, jackets, headbands, hair bands, wristbands, and even hats. The reason we bought so much at Nike is because according to Corey, athletic clothes look "really good on me, especially the jackets". I don't even understand why we bought the hats. I don't even like wearing hats.

And I'm not even done yet. She dragged me over to Abercrombie And Fitch where we bought more jeans, shirts, those poofy outdoor jackets, zip up hoodies, and tank tops. Do you know how much all that cost?

So in total, we bought me seven dresses, fifteen pairs of shoes (four pairs of high heels, four pairs of flats, one pair of Vans, one pair of Keds, and five pairs of running shoes), eight accessories, five skirts, ten shirts, six pairs of shorts, 18 pairs of socks, three pairs of jogging sweats, two pairs of track pants, five sweaters, six jackets, six headbands (it came in a pack), 120 hair bands (it also came in a pack), three wristbands, two hats, two poofy outdoor jackets, four zip up hoodies, eight tank tops and camis, seven cardigans, and 17 pairs of jeans.

Do you see how long that list is? That is what I call a shopping spree. I don't even want to list out what Corey got, but let me tell you, it was at least how much I got, plus a few pajamas and slippers. I felt sorry for Sendy's dad. He was gonna have a heck of a bill on the unlimited credit card that he gave to Corey. Let me give you an approximate number that we spent. About… $6500. And that was just for me. For me and Corey… about $13500. You could buy a car with that. I just hoped that John was laid back and didn't care.

I dumped all of the shopping bags and boxes (I had about 17 bags), and Corey followed suit. She had 21 bags.

Mother whistled. "Wow! How much did you spend? John didn't know what he was doing by giving you kids his credit card."

"Yeah." Corey gave a sheepish smile. "We kind of got carried away."

I nodded. I was just glad that we were family, so he couldn't get too mad. Plus, I hoped that Sendy usually spent a lot more than us whenever she went shopping, so that our sum of money didn't seem all that big.

Ha, what a joke. Why was I kidding? Of course we spent more than Sendy. What person would spend $13000 on shopping?

Corey and me, that's who.

I flopped onto my bed. After shopping for hours and hours on end, and then having to put on a fashion show for Mom, I was ready to sleep for ten days straight. Also, when Mom had told John how much we'd spent… it was not a pretty sight.

Somebody knocked on my door and popped her head in. "Oh, I forgot to tell you!" she said cheerfully. "We're going to the spa tomorrow! We'll be getting massages, haircuts, manicures, pedicures, facials, things like that. It'll be soooo fun! We're going at 12 PM tomorrow." She stepped into my room and plopped onto my bed. "I'm thinking that you should wear that white and pink floral dress that we bought with those bright pink flats that has the big flower on it. You should probably bring the pink cardigan, too. Oh yeah, and I invited Gina. Wait, since the dance is in a week, maybe we should go to the spa on Friday. Yeah, I'll just move our reservations at the spa for next week. Well then what should we do tomorrow? I got it! We still need to buy some lotion and make-up. Would Gina want to go shopping with us though? Oh well, I'll just call and ask her again. So that's our plan for tomorrow. Got it? Okay, good night. I just wanted to tell you all that so you'd be ready tomorrow." She flounced out of my room before I had time to process all of what she said. The white and pink floral dress? I didn't even remember it, since I'd tried on so many dresses.

I padded over to the bathroom to brush my teeth, floss, and to use mouthwash. After that, I went to bed and lay there, just thinking. In the flurry of shopping, I'd forgotten all about Grant. I still couldn't believe he was back. When Mom, Corey, and I had moved to Oregon, one of the things that I was happy about was that I'd gotten rid of Grant forever. Back then I'd thought, What's the chance of me ever seeing Grant ever again? Close to zero. But here he was, in Oregon, living right next door to me.

Wait a minute.

I sat up, shocked.

He was living right next door to me.

When Mom had told me that after the track meet, I'd barely heard her say that, because I was so surprised at seeing my enemy. Was he really living next door?

I collapsed back into bed, new thoughts swirling in my head.

Since we were neighbors, that meant that we were going to see each other a lot. And because they just moved here, Mom would most likely ask them over for a welcome dinner. In the summer, she would probably invite them over for a barbeque or something.

I turned over onto my stomach, dug my face into my memory foam pillow, and screamed.

"Anna, you'll be sitting next to Grant," Mr. Hulsman said.

I nodded my head and picked up my things, moving them over to the seat next to the boy Mr. Hulsman had called "Grant".

"Hi, I'm Anna." I smiled widely, trying to be friendly. The boy nodded, his dark hair falling into his face. "What's your favorite color?" I tilted my head to the side and added, "Mine's green."

He looked over at me, and my voice got caught in my throat. His eyes were such an icy blue color that it almost looked like… well, ice. My smile froze as he said slowly, enunciating each word loudly and clearly, "Why do you want to know, creep? Leave me alone." Then he turned away, leaving me paralyzed.

"Hey Grant!" Tim, an athletic guy wearing a basketball jersey, grinned at him and lifted a hand as in to say "hi".

"Hey Tim. How's it going?" Grant's face broke out into a cute grin, and electrical shocks ran down my spine. His eyes warmed up, and instead of looking like icicles, they looked like the clear blue water when the sun shone into a swimming pool. Why was he only mean to me? Why did he seem to hate me so much?

As Tim started to talk, Grant slid me an evil smirk.

I woke up with my legs tangled in my blanket. Sweat was coming off of my face in buckets. I sighed. That had been my first memory of Grant. It had been the moment that I knew that it was hate-at-first sight, at least for him.

And that was when I also knew that we were going to be enemies for the rest of our lives, beginning at the third grade.