True Love Is a Dream 1

Snow, snow everywhere and not a care in the world.
I wander about the room, taking in familiar faces, and some that I don't recognize. Everything smells like Spring, it's the flowers and scented candles delicately pieced together as each centerpiece. Melinda didn't get to have the dream Springtime wedding that she always told me she'd have. Instead, here we are in the dead of winter cramped into Melinda's wealthy parent's tacky "clubhouse's" dining hall with fake smiles plastered on our faces at a forced, and rushed, shotgun wedding. The silverware is real silver, the champagne glasses are real crystal glass.
Kudos for getting knocked up, Mel. Kudos.
I hate weddings, I always have and God knows that I always will. It is my personal belief that wedding are a persons was of saying, "Praise me! I have just entered into a life of eternal damnation and I want nothing more than to make you suffer along with me!" Misery loves its company. No need for me to celebrate my cousin's short-term happiness, we never got along anyway. I contemplate leaving.
Melinda is eighteen, exactly seven months older than myself. Somehow she managed to graduate a year early from high school, a feat that I will never understand. I suspect that her father bribed the school. I live in Melinda's shadow, she only went to my school for her freshman and sophmore years before her parents dragged her out of public school and forced her into some expensive private school for her last year, but in Melinda's two years at Hawthorne High she managed to make herself a legend among the students and the teachers. Ruthless party girl by night, polite but false overachiever by day. Melinda Crane and I share a last name, but we have nothing in common. My name is Zoey Crane, it's a simple name, but it's different and I like that.
I sit down awkwardly at an empty table and take in my surroundings. I'm at the side of the room; the center is absent of tables to create a dancefloor. I watch the dancers, they're entertaining enough. More than a few people are embarrassing themselves. One man is dirty dancing in a way that is worse than watching the latest slutty one-hit-wonder blonde bimbo in concert, something that I hadn't thought possible until now. I take my eyes off of him and scan the rest of the crowd, not willing to watch him any longer for fear of going completely blind. There's an older couple slow dancing despite the fast tempo of the music, they provide a strong contrast to the middle aged man who was dancing like a female stripper only five feet away from them. I feel warm when I see them, glad to see love between such an old couple, but maybe it was just the heat of the room. Snow wizzed fiercely outside. It was a sauna inside, but a blizzard outside.
Tick.
My heart stops and everything freezes. I saw him there in the crowd, looking... looking at me? He's with Melinda's spoiled sixteen-year-old sister, Christine. We look at eachother for a long aching moment before I finally break the stare, jumping out of my seat.
Tock.
The room speeds up as I dash out the doors into the snow to cool down. I can finally breathe again. The icey air stings my lungs lovingly with each breath.
I close my eyes and I see his face. Danny Diamond; the love of my life. I go through the alphabet from Z to A in my head to forget him. My heart slows and I look up at the black sky, letting the snow carress my cheeks.
"He really did get to you."
I turn in one swift motion to look at the person talking to me. It's Kitty Crane, the only decent of Melinda's sisters and perhaps the most beautiful. Her green eyes sparkle despite the lack of light, she's the only member of the family with green eyes. I've always wondered if her mother had an affair that resulted in Kitty. She looked nothing like the man who was said to be her father.
I didn't say anything.
"He's not worth it," she said plainly after a long silence. I looked at her for a long moment, she had no idea what she was talking about.
I went back to the reception without saying a word.
Kitty was different from her sisters. She was genuinely beautiful in her innocence. She's been attending private school from the moment she was old enough to enroll, and of her own free will. She's seventeen, her birthday isn't far from mine, but often times she seems much younger. It must be her small size.
I wander aimlessly around the building. There's some strange unmarked rooms. I decided to explore, trying my best to avoid seeing Danny and Chrissie together. The first few places I investigated are uninteresting until I find a room with a large bean bag, a couch, and a love seat. I plummet face first into the beat bag without bothering to turn on the lights.
Today is Saturday, on Monday I will start all new classes. Somehow my counselor at school managed to change my schedule completely in the middle of second quarter.
I drift to sleep. I don't know what time it is, or how long I've asleep when I wake up. I feel groggy and I wonder if my parents have left me here to fade into nothing. I hear giggles and the door opens, the light from the hallway blinds me until it shuts. I blink, willing my eyes to adjust in the darkness. More giggles. I can see the outline of two people now, a male and a female. Kissing noises. I feel sick to my stomach. They move closer to me and I move out of the way just as he tackles her onto the bean bag in a way that looks boarderline pornographic in the darkness. They either haven't noticed me or they just don't care. I move sleepily to the light switch and flick it on. I immediately wish that I hadn't.