The Day He Saved Me

CHAPTER 1

“I can’t believe you are going through with this. I think I might cry.”My best friend Abigail shrieked, clutching her chest with both arms as she watched me looking into the full-length mirror admiring the dress she lent me.

She had spent the last five days trying to convince me to come with her to her father’s birthday party. The first time she mentioned it, I immediately declined.

I wouldn't be caught dead in a fancy rich party with consequential people I don't know. Besides, I'll be too self-conscious.”  I had thought. The second time, my response was the same as the first.

What do they say about the third time being a Charm?”

The third time she asked I had to give in because my best friend was relentlessly stubborn and wouldn't take no for an answer. She went as far as making a PowerPoint presentation on how the party was going to be fun and I wouldn't be alone because she'd be with me most of the time.

We met last summer at the coffee shop I used to work in. Marcel, my boss, was the grumpiest French man I’d ever met in my life. He was fond of calling me names and lashing out at me at any slight inconvenience.

 was throwing his usual tantrums when Abigail stood up to him and defended me. We hit it off right away thereafter. She made me quit my job with Marcel and offered me another job at a place she claimed to be owned by a colleague of hers.

“Hmmm”  I breathed out an unintentional sigh of relief

I glanced earnestly at myself in the mirror. The maroon velvet dress sits upon my skin elegantly adding color to my pale skin. My fingers trailed through the silver cord necklace. The shimmering brought light into my brown eyes.

The figure that stared back at me in the mirror was different, beautiful _and had the look of something that belonged to the world she was about to enter. Looking like this was novel to me.

“Promise me you won't leave me brooding by myself because I'll be brooding” I mumbled, peering at her through the mirror, her eyes meeting mine.

“I promise” she reassured as she crossed her heart with her index finger.

“You look exquisite” she babbled and gave me a once-over glance wearing a satisfactory look on her face.

“ You should be a model. Ugh! Why wouldn't you audition? Just one time.” She whined, holding out her index finger signifying one.

Abigail always had this delusion that I was capable of being a model because of my skinny frame. Being skinny doesn’t mean I wanted to venture into a career path that would leave me judging myself all the time. Not everyone can be a model.

“Abigaiiiillll” her name came out like a slur, I glanced at her with pleading eyes. Before she could say a word to chip in I rushed on. “I don't have the height for it. And I would probably have a panic attack at the thought of strutting on the runway or posing in front of a camera”

It may be the way I related with her but she sometimes forgets that the person she is encouraging to be a model isn’t cut out for it.

It was a back-and-forth thing with us, a never-ending cycle. Some days, it was a career change, other times, a potential love interest, and now this party. She never failed to send a challenge which has me second-guessing my potential. down my path.

“Alright, alright I hear you. Let’s go touch up your face and style your hair” she said as she looped her hand into mine, pulling me towards the vanity mirror at the other side of her room.

The first time she brought me to her room, we were drenched in the rain because she had spontaneously wanted us to go for a walk in her backyard. It started pouring instantly and we were so far gone that it took what seemed like a lifetime to get into the house.

She led us straight to her room to get changed into fresh clothes.

Forgetting the reaction that forced itself out of me seemed impossible because I was in awe of her room. I stood at the center of the room, mouth agape.

Growing up in a foster home had not availed me the opportunity to come across a girl like her. Heck! Living in the hellhole with that monster hadn’t, not to talk of seeing a room that looked like the one that came out of an interior design magazine.

The room was thrice the size of my studio apartment I call a cubicle. An alien scent of vanilla filled the air and the fluorescent bulbs shone brightly. A queen-sized bed placed on a thick fabric woven of wool having an oblong shape with a border design and luxury furniture with gold leaf detailing took a large portion in the middle of it. There was a floor-length mirror at the far end of the room and also a vanity mirror at the other end.

She had called me into another room. Following the sound of her voice, my eyes came in contact with a closet that reminded me of Hannah Montana’s.

“Your room is a dream” I had said to her. She replied with a smile and tossed a towel to me.

“Sit” she uttered, motioning to the chair.

She ran her fingers through my hair. “Your hair is luscious and silky” she observed as she glanced at me through the vanity mirror and gave me a heartwarming smile.

“Really?” the word rushed out of my mouth like a squeak

“Yeah, is it surprising I said that?”

“It is.”

What she noticed about my hair definitely took me by surprise.

The vague memory of when my mum used to style my hair played in my mind. She was the only one who materialized in my mind as the one who cared for my hair.

Paying attention to my hair was not my cup of tea. Not at the foster home and not now.

My hair had never received an ounce of care from me. I was either too tired, too hurt, or too busy. A thing or two would come up which impedes me from making efforts to take care of it.

The only time I tried treating my hair was when it was infested with dandruff because of the constant pulling of it. It itched so bad I had no choice but to seek the immediate attention of a Salonist.

“Hold on” she blurted as she proceeded to pull out a drawer, revealing different equipment of which I don’t know what most of them are called.

“Close your eyes '' she muttered. The tingling sensation of my hair being parted into two like the Red Sea was comforting.

“Ouch” rolled out of my tongue pitched when the heat of an object burned my scalp.

“Sorry,” she paused. She placed a hand on my shoulder in an attempt to comfort me. It worked.

The heat sensations trailed down to the length of my hair which was my waist. She resorted to the process numerous times.

“Open your eyes”

I slowly opened my eyes, trying to prevent the light shining brightly in the room from blurring my eyesight.

“Tadaaaaaaa” making a squeal as she dazzlingly waves both hands.