What happens when the star baseball player hits a home run into the art studio window?
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All Sadie Lane Garner needed to make herself happy was a canvas and paintbrush.
With copious projects due and little studio time, she volunteers to clean t...
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OUR APARTMENT WAS no longer quiet when Friday arrived. It was full of semi-drunk girls dressed in as little clothes as possible, blaring music over the speakers. I knew it would only be a matter of time before our upstairs neighbors stomped on the ceiling.
We were going to the bars with the baseball guys.
While it was any other Friday night to them, it was show-time for me.
"Do I wear these jeans?" I asked, holding up a pair of light-wash torn jeans. Reva lent a lacy red bodysuit which magically elevated my breasts, and now I was looking for a pair of jeans to mellow out my top half.
"Light wash, high wasted. They make you look taller," Lucy said.
"You don't think the bodysuit and jeans combo is weird?"
"No, babe. You look hot as hell."
I smiled and shimmied into my pants. Iya was strewn across my bed, already down bad from the mixed drinks we made earlier. Lucy was checking herself out in the mirror, fixing tiny strands of hair and perfecting her lipstick line.
Reva and Penelope were across the hall in her room, picking out outfits.
"I'm so happy for Reva," Iya cooed.
"Me too. It's about time she found her happiness."
"What about you guys?"
"Me?" Lucy paused and straightened her back. She grinned at herself in the mirror, her black, pin-straight hair grazed her shoulders. "I am thrilled being single."
She appeared behind me in my full-length mirror and hung her arms over my shoulders. She pressed the front of her body into my back and asked, "What about you, Miss Garner?" I could smell the sweet perfume on her body.
Iya propped herself up onto her elbows in the reflection, waiting to hear my answer.
I laughed. "I wish I had your confidence, that's what."
She spun me around. "Confidence is a game you play with yourself, and there are many types. I know you're confident when it comes to school and art, so why not manifest that confidence in social situations, too? Pretend to be the version of yourself you wish you were, and you'll eventually trick your mind into thinking that is really you."
I blinked.
"Its works," Iya mouthed from the bed and Lucy continued.
"You think this is how I came out of the womb?" She motioned to herself and I nodded, chuckling.
"No, I made this. I worked hard on myself."
"I don't think I can lie to myself, though." My shoulders slumped, but she pulled them upright.
"It's not lying. It's training your brain to know your worth. If you carry yourself with your head hanging low, people can sense that. Even your brain believes that. So, why not carry yourself with your head high? Confidence is sexy and we're very intelligent, intuitive creatures when we want to be." She winked and grabbed the red tube of lipstick from the dresser.
