“A costume.”
“That’s not a costume. That’s… You look like a model from one of those…you know, that shop with the chicks in their underwear. The, uh, dammit…”
“Victoria’s Secret?” I guessed, trying to help with his confusion.
“Yeah, that one. Now go upstairs and change.”
“No can do,” I replied.
“You’re my little sister, and I’m not going to let all those animals see you like this.”
“By ‘those animals,’ I presume you mean your friends? Do they know what you think of them?”
“Harper,” Hoyt hissed.
“Hoyt,” I said back, not blinking.
“What’s going on?”
I tensed up as I heard his voice, and when our eyes met, my knees trembled.
“Hey, Harper.”
“Hey, Trey,” I whispered, cheeks burning.
He was dressed as Peter Pan. And he was adorable.
“Say something, dude! Tell her she can’t go dressed like that with all the morons that are going to be there,” my brother ordered him.
Trey looked me up and down with an impassive expression, andI felt disappointment spread through my body. I don’t know what I expected, but it wasn’t indifference.
“Don’t be a jerk. Let the girl be. Everyone knows she’s your sister. Nobody’s going to dare bother her,” he said.
That word stuck in my chest like a sharpened dagger.Girl.I hated it. It sounded so patronizing, so disrespectful, so… I wished I could turn invisible just then.
My brother wasn’t convinced, but he finally agreed, and soon he’d walked off, following a brown-haired girl in a pink bikini with a mouse tail pinned to her rear end. Apparently he couldn’t focus on two things at once.
“Have fun. I’ll be here if you need anything,” Trey said before turning toward a fairy in a push-up bra who came over with two glasses, handing him one just before they took off.
As for me, I stood alone in a corner watching everyone drink, dance, and hook up.
Luckily, Hayley and Scott showed up not long afterward and rescued me from that increasingly uncomfortable situation. I knew some of their friends, and I was able to have fun with them without it turning into an effort.
A few hours later, the party was at its peak. The room was full of people, bodies twisting under the faint light to the rhythm of music that sounded like a bombardment. I caught sight of Trey dancing with a girl in a nurse costume who seemed determined to give him a thorough physical examination. She was stunning, and I felt insignificant alongside her. Really, there was no one there I could compete with.
But he looked away from her, and our eyes met. There was something in his expression I couldn’t put a finger on. I turned around, ashamed that he’d caught me staring, and tried to focus on the people there around me. But I couldn’t follow the thread of the conversation. My mind kept turning back to one thing. Him.
I regretted being there, regretted being stubborn, regretted my absurd determination to cross the country just to be at that party. Sure, I wanted to see him one last time, but the price was too high, and I could only stand to suffer so much.
Had I really believed he’d notice me?
I tried to ignore him the rest of the night, but I couldn’t. Every time I heard his voice, his laugh, or saw him dance, I turned.
Unrequited love is a disease that has no cure, and the only treatment is disappointment. Waking from the dream, realizing it wasn’t as beautiful as you’d imagined.
But Trey would never disappoint me.
He’d never get the chance to.
