Chapter 3: Trying on Dresses

Cassie POV:

            At noon, I met my mother, Mike’s mom, Mike’s 8-year-old sister Mallory, and my sister’s best friend Bethany at the wedding dress boutique.  My mother wanted to me to drive with her to the boutique, but I decided I cared more about my own sanity than dealing with mother for an extra 25 minutes in the confines of a closed vehicle. 

            The appointment started off just as swimmingly as you might imagine.  Mallory innocently asked if I was the “old maid” who was going to be modeling Megan’s dresses for them.

            Yes, that’s right.  At 21 years old, I am already considered an “old maid.”  Might as well invest in some extra cat litter now.

            Whatever.  I politely told Mallory that -while yes, I would be the one modeling wedding dresses for them today— there is nothing wrong with being 21 and unmarried.  In fact, it is perfectly OK for a woman to be much, much, much older and unmarried.  Many women intentionally choose to never get married, and the live happy and fulfilled lives.

            My commentary earned me a horrified look from both my mother and Mike’s mother, but luckily the salesclerk came out and greeted us before either could reprimand me.

            When the clerk asked me to confirm that I was the bride, my mother quickly stepped up.  “This is my daughter, Cassie.  She isn’t getting married, but she is going to model dresses for us that my daughter Megan can wear at her wedding.  Cassie and Megan have the same body type, but Megan couldn’t make it due to conflicting plans with her mate today.  It’s a good thing Megan had a conflict, though, because this may be only time Cassie ever gets to try on a wedding dress.”

            The clerk nodded, but seemed a bit confused.  My mother quickly clarified the situation, in a low whisper (which was nevertheless loud enough for everyone within a 10 feet radius to hear):  “Cassie is 21 and lives in a human town.”

The clerk instantly said “Oh, now I understand.”  She then ushered me back to a fitting room while everyone else began selecting dresses for me to try on.

While I waited for the first dress, I quietly thought of ways that I would make Megan make this up to me.  Somehow knowing the Golden Child wasn’t really the Golden Child wasn’t feeling like enough anymore.

After about 2 hours, I was beyond exhausted.  I must have tried on 50 dresses by that point.  My mother found reasons to reject each dress, but still insisted on taking multiple photographs of each one so that Megan could see them.  After the first 10 dresses, all the dresses started to look the same to me.  I suggested that 10 dresses were enough to give Megan plenty of options, but my mother insisted we keep going until we found at least 2-3 good ones.

By dress number 20, I started to wonder if my mother already knew which dress she wanted Megan to buy, and simply wanted to torture me as much as possible before she said it out loud.  By dress 35, I was pretty sure I was right.  By dress 45, I knew I was right.  And by dress 51, I thought my mother had flat out lost her mind.

Unlike the other dresses, even I could see that Dress 51 was unique.  And my unique, I mean it was the ugliest dress I had ever seen in my life.  When the clerk brought the dress into the room, she commented, “It takes a special personality to pull this dress off.”  That was an understatement.

The dress was all white, one-shoulder ball gown.  It had one long sleeve and one bare shoulder and arm.  The base of the dress was satin or silk; I’m not sure which nor do I care.  Either which way, it all sounds tolerable so far, right? Sure.  Except that the dress also had sequins, rhinestones, buttons, feathers, and lace.  Each element was laid on top of each other in alternating patterns, as though they had gone to a wedding dress convention together and were told to stand next to each other in lines.  Except that the person responsible for making sure the lines were straight left her glasses at home. 

My sister loves frilly, feminine designs.  She loves and wears anything my mother asks her to wear.  But even my sister has a line, and I knew this dress crossed it.  There was no way my sister would ever wear this dress.

My wolf started to pace in the back of my head as the clerk tried to coax me out of the fitting room.  “Even my wolf is anxious about me coming out in this dress,” I told the clerk.  She rolled her eyes and led me to my mother and the others.

Out of the corner of my eye, I caught my mother holding back a laugh.  Yes, I was right.  She probably had Megan’s dress selected 40 dresses ago.  This was about torturing me.  Well, this was the last dress.  I hope she enjoyed her fun.

There would be no pictures of this dress.  I did a mock bow and then turned to go back to the dressing room, when the most intoxicating smell hit me.  It was a combination of coffee and ocean waves all in one.  My wolf got more and more agitated.

I looked up and locked eyes with a 6’2” man.   He had short blond hair, hazel brown eyes, and muscles in all the right places.  He had an aura that exuded power. My wolf immediately started screaming “Mate.” 

As I was trying to catch my breath and process what was happening, I noticed a gorgeous blond woman standing next to him.  She grabbed his arm, pointed at me, and said, “Baby!  That’s it!  That’s my wedding dress!!!”

F--- my life.