Page 90 of Tell Me I'm Enough

She looks at the clock and then back to me.

“Studying can wait, right?” she laughs out. “All the stores will be closed soon. If we went now—”

“Come on,” I tell her, packing up my stuff.

“You sure you want to go with me? You can still back out. I promise not to be offended.”

I shake my head. “I offered, Simone. Now get your ass up and let’s go try some dresses on.”

She looks at me funny. “Areyougonna try on dresses too? Need to pick yours out for the gala?”

I narrow my eyes at her, smirking. “Maybe.”

* * *

When we walk into the formal area, Simone heads straight for the racks.

“Ok,” she says while looking at all of the clothes. “We wantclassy but not trashy. We want sparkle, but nothing that screams disco ball. Something that says ‘I’m put together,’ but also ‘I can drop it low on the dance floor.’”

“That’s a whole lot of personality crammed into one dress,” I say.

“I’ve got a lot of personality to put in it, Mason.”

Simone starts pulling dresses from the rack. “You’re in charge of being brutally honest. Can you do that?”

“Oh, I can do that,” I say, smirking. “You know I’m good at that.”

She takes a handful of dresses—a metallic silver one, an emerald green one, a sequined black one, and some awful pink thing with ruffles that I can only pray she doesn’t actually try on. Then she goes into the dressing room.

First up is a long, dark green satin dress. When she walks out, she smooths it down over her hips nervously.

“What do we think?” she asks.

I squint. “You look like you’re about to go to the rich side of town’s Christmas Eve church service.”

She lets out a little laugh. “Okay, fair. Noted. Next.”

The next one is the pink ruffled monstrosity. She steps out and does a twirl in it. It looks like cotton candy threw up on her.

“Oh my gosh,” I say immediately. “Absolutely not. You look like a cupcake on crack.”

She doubles over laughing, knowing how ridiculous it is.

“It’s that bad?”

“Yes. Take it off. Burn it, please. It’s hurting my eyes.”

She goes back in, still laughing, and I wander around the racks, waiting.

After a few minutes, she calls out, “Don’t laugh.”

“That’s not reassuring,” I say back.

The dressing room door swings open, and I gasp—on purpose.

I found some random clearance dress shirt and scarf, and threw them on while she was changing—the ugliest patterned button-up I could find and a scarf tied like a shawl, paired with my basketball shorts and socks.

She almost chokes. “What are you wearing?”