“Wedidn’t play dress up.” I didn’t, Ihatedputting on clothes and pretending to be other people. It made me feel like an imposter, even as a kid.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“I never dressed up.”
“Oh right.” She shook her head and laughed a little as she buttoned up the back of the dress. “I forgot, you hated that. Isn’t it funny how memories work? Your brain just sort of fills in the blanks. But you’re right, you didn’t. You would just what… read or worked on your homework and Adam would dress up with us and create all those worlds. Oh, and remember those scavenger hunts and obstacle courses he’d build for us?”
“Yeah, I do.”
He had the best imagination. I never had that. I was always the realist. If there was an empty cardboard box, he saw a car, a puppet theater, a castle, a robot, a rocket ship, a boat, a plane. I saw, wait for it, a cardboard box. He was funny, too, he could keep the girls entertained for hours doing impressions or making up word association games, so they were never bored. And he had the patience of a saint, he never got irritated with them, no matter how annoying they were.
Which is why it surprised me he wasn’t a dad before now and also why I knew he’d be a great one even though the news of the girls had been sprung on him.
“Okay, all buttoned up.” Birdie straightened, and her head bobbed up from behind my shoulder. “Wow. Every dress you put on is just…wow.”
The dress was a satin A-line off the shoulder with capped sleeves, fitted bodice, with a deep V illusion neckline. It did look… nice.
“It’s your designs,” I told her.
“No, it’s you.” She shook her head and squeezed my upper arms. “I’mso happyyou’re doing this since you’re never actually going to get married.”
Yeah, there was that. Except today, right now, as soon as I stepped out of those doors, I was going to a church to walk down the aisle to a man, to theonly man,I’d ever pictured walking down the aisle to.
I was doing my best not to have a full-blown panic attack.
Birdie studied my face. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I’m fine, yeah, let’s just get this done.”
“At least this is the last dress. You got through the others so fast. It’s too bad you hate modeling. You actually are a natural.”
“I think Zion was just saying that to be encouraging and to get the shoot over with.”
Birdie let out a huff of laughter. “Zion Ash might be a lot of things, charming, hot, fabulous, funny, hilarious, well-traveled, hot?—”
“You already said hot, do you have a crush on the photographer?” I whispered.
“He’s gay,” Birdie pointed out the obvious.
“Clearly, but do you have a crush on him?”
“He’s sohot.”
I couldn’t help but laugh with joy. My little sister had never shown interest in anyone but Dylan “The Douche” Hart. It made my heart so happy that at least I knew she could find someone else attractive and Dylan hadn’t brainwashed her or something.
“Are you sure he’s not bi?” I questioned.
“Billie.” Birdie’s tone was clearly a warning.
“I’m just saying.” I held up my hands in surrender.
“Anyway, he would never lie about his work. His photography is everything to him. If you weren’t any good, I don’t think he’d be cruel about it, but he’d definitely let me know we couldn’t use the shots. As it is, he doesn’t know how the editors are going to pick which ones because we have so many amazing shots. He literally told me, “You can’t take a bad shot.”
“Stop.” I rolled my eyes.
“I’m serious. It’s not just because you’re pretty, he said it’s because of the symmetry of your face. The camera loves it.”
I’d always hated photos of myself. But when I thought about it, I started hating them around the age of ten, which was when everyone started telling me how much I looked like my mother. From then on, every time I saw a photo of myself, I saw her, and it just…hurt.
