I entered the loft and landed on the futon in two long strides, grabbing my laptop from beneath the plush, feather-filled pillows. Typing in my password and logging into my account I found I had a message waiting for me from Derek. My heart picked up pace, clicking on the tab to see what it read.
“Katie-baby! So I was thinking, when are we going to meet up? I’m dying to meet you in person. Are you free tomorrow night?”
“Oh jeez”, I mumbled.
It wasn’t that I didn’t want to meet Derek, because I definitely did. But tomorrow night? That was such short notice. What was I supposed to wear? I needed a hair appointment desperately.
“My nails”, I thought to myself, picking them up and examining them. They’d been bit down, just little stubby nubs now, from hours of boredom in Professor Robert’s honors chemistry class. I doubted Mia could fit me in for an emergency nail appointment this afternoon, besides, I had already made plans with Meg to go to the mall later. Then another thought entered my mind, what if Derek wasn’t as flawlessly gorgeous as his was in his profile pictures online? I pondered this, clicking though his picture albums labeled “Summer Fun” and “Just me”.
“No way”, I thought. “Don’t be foolish Katie”.
I took a deep breath and typed out my response.
“Yeah! I can do that. What time?”
I hit send before I could even think about erasing the message and sat back on the bed. Did I really just do that? What was I thinking? *Bing* I had an answer from Derek already, he must have been sitting right by his computer waiting.
“Meet me at Shelby’s Café at seven (: “.
I didn’t type out a response. I just slammed the laptop screen shut and threw my head back against the plush pillows.
“Oh My Gosh”, I uttered.
I was literally going to meet Derek tomorrow night. My mind started going crazy, filling with scenarios of our first meet. Better not think too hard about it, I’d have a heart attack before tomorrow even got here. I took a deep breath and walked downstairs to tell Meg.
“So guess what”, I said, walking up behind Katie, who was busy typing away frantically on her laptop.
“Huh?”, she grumbled, barely audible without looking up from her work.
“Derek asked me to meet him tomorrow night. I think I’m going to go.”
Meg stopped working and looked up from her screen.
“Where?”, she asked skeptically, raising her eyebrows.
“Shelby’s Café, seven p.m. I’m going to have to look for something to wear at the mall this afternoon. There’s like nothing in my closet”, I told her.
“Interesting”, she said, a flicker of curiosity ran across her face. “It’s about time he manned up and took you out.”
“We’ve only been talking for a few weeks, Meg”, I said, rolling my eyes.
“Yeah, still”.
She returned to her work, signaling the conversation was over. She had been so short when it came to Derek lately. I was really getting sick of it. What was it to do with her anyways? I shook it off. There was no sense getting into a fight when we were just now starting to spend more time together. I went back upstairs to my room, sitting down in the florescent green bean bag chair my father had sent me as part of my graduation gift. I grabbed the remote from the stand, flicking through the channels until I found a documentary about sea life.
“Good enough”, I mumbled, laying back in the lumpy chair, still slightly put off by Meg’s poor attitude.
I listened to a 35-year old granola man, with a slim frame talk about the habitats of sea animals for the next two and a half hours, nodding off from time to time, waiting for Meg to finish her paper.

“Katie! Are you ready to go or what?”.
Megen was standing over me looking a bit ticked off. My head was groggy in the way that a mid-day nap leaves you. I rubbed my eyes, trying to wake myself up.
“Yeah, ready. I must have fallen asleep. How’d your paper go?” I asked sleepily.
“Eh, fine I guess. My head is killing me though, I’m ready for some retail therapy. Let’s go sleepy head. I’ll wait in the car.”
Meg bounced off down the stairs of our small apartment to the car. She was relieved, that much was obvious.  I thought about my own work, which I hadn’t even started. I really needed to get on that.
“Oh well”, I thought, grabbing my coat from the mini closet Meg and I shared. I took my purse off the door knob and walked down the stairs to the car.
“Ready to go?”, Meg asked, she really was in a chipper mood.
“Oh yeah”, I said.
She turned the XM radio to a pop station I recognized as her favorite and turned it up loud as she pulled out of the drive and onto the highway. I really was excited about going to the mall. I didn’t mind shopping, and I was more than happy about getting to spend time with Meg again.
The ride was short, it only took fifteen minutes to get to the Maine mall on a day when the roads were filled. We made it there in ten minutes, Megen singing “Hit me baby one more time” the whole way, her own special rendition of Britney Spears making me smile. Meg and I had been best friends since we were three, where we met at a daycare service both of our mothers left us at while they were away at work.
“Ah, such a nice afternoon to do some much needed shopping”, Meg sighed dramatically, parking the car in the overly large mall parking lot and hopping out of the car eagerly.
“It is pretty out today”, I offered, getting out of the car and jogging to catch up with her.
Meg opened the large mall doors and glided in, almost as if this were her second home.
‘Here we go”, I breathed, following her into the mall, so many signature scents from all of the different stores warming in my head.
Meg headed for the first store she came to, which happened to be the Shoe Department, her favorite. She had so many pairs of shoes, too many actually, but she always wanted more, some new style that was slightly different from the last. She made her way to the very back of the store, where there were rows upon rows of high heels on display.
“You need a pair. It’s a must for your date tomorrow night”, she said, her eyes scanning frantically over the wide selections.
“It’s not a date”, I told her, shifting uncomfortably on my feet.
“Oh posh”, Meg said, pushing that thought aside. “It’s not a choice.”
Meg had always been more girly than myself. It wasn’t that I minded girly, it just had never seemed to fit me as well as it always had Meg. Girly looked good on her; with her short pleated skirts and matching cardigans, stick straight hair and bold hair accessories.
“How about these ones?”, she asked, dangling a pair of black shimmery shoes with a heel that seemed to be at least five inches long.
“Too, tall”, I told her. “I could never walk in them.”
I watched her as she studied the shelf, pulling another pair from the display. A similar shoe, but with a silver outline around the toe and a much more manageable heel.
“Hmm”, I said, taking them from her and examining them for myself. “I kind of like these. You’ve always had good taste.”
“Right?! They’re perfect for you!”, she said excitedly.
I laughed. After double checking to make sure we had the right size we headed for the checkout to pay for the heels I knew I would only be wearing on this occasion, forty dollars, gone. Then we headed to the next store, a retail store named XXV Apparel. There Meg found a very “fashionable” top she claimed she could wear to a family dinner next month, and I found a simple blue dress, a flowing fabric that would match well with my new heels.
After finishing shopping we ate at the food court then headed back to our apartment. It was already six o’clock when we came through the door, Dug greeting us, panting with excitement upon our return.
“I’m so pooped”, Meg said, flopping onto the couch in the living area.
“Me too”, I responded, plopping down beside her and dropping my new purchases on the floor beside me.
Meg seemed to be thinking for a moment, “Hmm, want to watch a movie or something on Netflix?”, she asked, already flipping picking up the ancient remote and flipping through the comedy section.
“Sure”, I told her.
I smiled to myself. It was nice to finally be spending time with her again. I felt reconnected to my other half.
We spent the rest of the evening watching “She’s the Man” and stuffing our faces with over-buttered popcorn, Meg laughing at all of the even remotely funny parts, me just trying to stay awake through the whole movie.
It was nearly two in the morning when Meg woke me up.
“Come on, get up and go to bed”, she said groggily. “You have a big day tomorrow.”
I groaned, following her up over the stairs and collapsing into my bed. I drifted off to sleep quickly, dreaming of my date with Derek tomorrow night, all that could go wrong.

The next day passed quickly, Meg left to spend the day with her mother, who was in town for only a few days and I spent the day getting ready for my “date” that night. Trying to salvage my nails, dying my roots back to my box hair color I had been self-dying with the past few months, and taking a nice long, relaxing bath. I took Dug for his afternoon stroll and came back to fix myself lunch, ramen noodles and a pb&j sandwich. After finishing I checked the clock above the stove top, 5:36.
“Guess I should start getting ready, huh Dug?”, I asked, who was sitting happily at my feet in the kitchen panting, grateful for the rare company that happens in the early hours of the evening in our apartment.
I went upstairs to fix my hair and apply makeup. I was hoping Meg would be home by this time so she could help me, she had always been way better with cosmetics than I had, and I questioned my ability to make my makeup look “sexy” and not scary.
I decided to straighten my hair instead of letting it fall in the shoulder length waves it naturally did. I never straightened my hair, let alone applied much of anything for makeup besides a few dabs of eyeliner. So when I finished with both and looked up to find what looked like a totally different twenty year old staring back at me in the mirror, I was shocked. My jaw actually dropped.
“Whoa”, I said to myself, examining further into the mirror. “Who even are you?”
I grinned, happy with the outcome. I wonder what Derek would say? Even better yet, what would Meg say? We’d been friends forever and she’d never seen me look like this before. I checked my phone for the time again, 6:21. I hurried out of the bathroom and into my bedroom to put on my dress and heels. I was just slipping the dress down over my thighs when I heard the front door open and close.
“Katieeeee! Where are you?”, Meg hollered from downstairs.
I could hear more than one set of footsteps, she must have brought her mother back with her. I sighed. It wasn’t that I didn’t like Mrs. Harvey, because I did. It was just that sometimes she could be a bit over the top, a little too much to take in at once. Meg had inherited some of that trait from her mother, but on a much more tolerable level.
‘I’m up here!”, I called back, slipping my feet into the sparkly heels and straightening my dress.
I could hear both of them trudging noisily up the stairs way before they came into sight.
“Hey!”, Meg said, full of energy, her cheeks flushed a soft pink, the same color they always were after she returned from a therapeutic visit with her mother.
“Holy crap, look at you! You look amazing Katlyn.”
“Thanks”, I replied a bit sheepishly, tucking my hair behind my ear and looking down at my feet.
“You really do”, Mrs, Harvey added. “You’re beautiful, just like your mother.”
I felt a familiar ting of pain register in my chest at the mention of my mother. She had passed away in a car accident just two years before, three days before my high school graduation. I still couldn’t talk about her without choking up, and the mere mention of her name was enough to make the tears swell behind my eyes. Meg nudged her mother lightly on the arm with disapproval.
I cleared my throat.
“I’m good, thanks”, I told her, trying to smile.
Everybody seemed to just stand there for a moment, not knowing what to do or say next. I hated awkward moments like these, and always tried to avoid them.
“Oh, I know! Katie here take these”, Meg exclaimed, running out of my bedroom and into her own.
She came back with her pearl necklace her great-grandmother left for her, along with the matching earrings that went with it.
“Oh. Meg, I can’t take these”, I told her, stepping away as she went to put the cream pearls around my neck.
“Yes, Yes! You are, just for tonight”, she insisted, spinning me around so she could fasten the necklace around my neck.  “And these too”, she smiled, placing the matching earrings in my hand.
“Thanks Meg.”
I fastened the clip on pearls around my ears and positioned myself in front of the tall mirror behind my closet door.
“They’re the perfect touch”, Mrs. Harvey said, coming up behind me in the mirror and placing her hands gently on my shoulders.
I felt beautiful. I truly did. The soft blue dress complimented my feminine curves and my box-dyed hair color.  I ran a hand through my hair.
“What time is it?”, I asked, searching for my phone to check.
“Oh, 6:55!”, Meg exclaimed. “You should probably get going.”
I grabbed my clutch and walked down the stairs, Mrs. Garvey and Meg following close behind me. I hugged them goodbye when we reached the door, grabbed my keys and made my way to the old pant chipped Honda in the garage.
It was only a two minute ride to the Café. I parked the car and checked my makeup in the mirror.
“Stay calm”, I told myself. “It’s just a casual date.”
There was a knock on the car door. I jumped, turning to see where the noise came from.
A man was standing outside of the car. He looked down at me with a grim smile, the studs in his eyebrows shinning in the evening street lights. A chain hanging from his jean pockets, tattoos painting his neck and arms, and piercing covering his face. My heart rate picked up. Who was this man?
I rolled down the window a half an inch, making sure the doors were still locked.
“Excuse me?”, he said in a raspy voice. “Are you Katie?”
“Yes?”, I questioned quietly, my hands shaking with discomfort.
“I’m Derek.”