I shook my head and breathed heavily. “No, he is just so creepy.”

My sister put the car in reverse and sped from the driveway. “Yeah, tell me about it.” Her eyes said a lot more than she was willing to share.

She snapped out of her thoughts. “So, you got the dress?”

I nodded. “And something else. Look at these.” I unzipped the bag and pulled the letters out. “Have your seen these before?” I held out the papers.

My sister looked at the stationary. “Yeah, Giselle was getting letters for a while last fall. They were from a secret admirer. No biggie.”

I pulled out the one that had caught my eye in the pile at Giselle’s and held it up. “Did you ever read them?”

She shook her head. “We glanced at them but they were so stupid, all romantic and quotes from Shakespeare and crap.”

I read out loud, “Giselle, my summer rose, your lips will shine for me, glisten with my name upon them. I will bring you to ecstasy with a drop of my aphrodisiacs. You'll moan my name and ride my—” I stopped and looked at my sister frowning. “This is disgusting. You're aware this isn’t Shakespeare, right? Please tell me that all of the years of high school have not been wasted. Shakespeare never said the word ‘cock’ in a poem. If he had, it would have been about a rooster or a pun or innuendo of sorts."

She glared at me. "Spice down, saucy pants. You're being hamtarded about this."

I laughed at her using all the swear words I'd made up for her and asked, "Giselle didn’t have a clue who it was?”

She shrugged, driving us back home to get the dress fittings started.

I pulled my phone out of my pocket and looked at the million texts Giselle had sent me. It was pages of new texts. She went from excited to completely desperate. Guilt flooded me, seeing the anxiety in my friend's words.

I pressed talk and waited for the cell to ring.

“Hello.” Her voice was so weak it sickened me.

I closed my eyes, fighting back tears. “Hey.”

“Dude, where have you been?” Her weakened words cut me deeply.

“I’m so sorry. I slept through the last five days. I just couldn’t seem to shake it. How’s it going there? Your dad said something about a donor.”

I could hear her shallow breath in the phone as she tried to talk. “Yeah, I hear the final verdict tomorrow, I think. Right now, they’re just trying to get me through the days. My dad was the only match in my family, but his liver is damaged from all the drinking. I think he feels pretty bad.” I cringed—how could he not feel bad?

“I am coming to see you this weekend, liver or no liver. I will be there this weekend, but right now, I need to ask you a question. It's going to sound awful, but just look past my snooping.”

“Okay, I’m not too worried about you and snooping to be totally honest.”

I sighed. “I went to your place to get the dress and when I was there, I looked in the closet. I found the secret admirer letters you got last fall. I have been looking them over, and I think the person who sent them poisoned us. But I need to know who you think it was.” I waited in silence for her to tell me to eff off and hang up.

“I don’t know. They just kept showing up in my locker. I guess I always thought it was Tommy. I assumed, because he had a crush on me, and he always got such good grades in English. It's surprising the way he comes off as a hamtard.”

I burst out laughing. “See how easy it is to use that word? Even Alise has been using it. Okay, so Tommy gets good grades in English? Really? I never would have guessed that. Were you sure he had a crush on you? Did he hit on you?”

My sister, who was listening in, rolled her eyes at me. “Who hasn’t he hit on? He’s a pig.”

I nodded, imagining him being smart enough to drug someone and plan it out. I had a hard time seeing it in my head.

“You think about the letters for the next little bit, as much as you can, and I will see if I can get some dirt on Tommy. I’ll get Alise to help me; she's good with dirty boys.” I smiled at my sister, who flashed a grin and turned off the car.

“I'll text you if I think of anything. I’m telling you, if I don’t get a response, I’m coming for you, Miss James. I am coming for you.”

The thought of that, made me smile. “Deal. I will answer anything you send.”

She hung up the phone, no doubt from loss of strength. I couldn’t believe how weak she had gotten. I looked at my sister as we sat together in the driveway, feeling not only bleak about Giselle, but also confused about the drugging pervert.

“It can’t be Tommy. I mean it could be, but I just can’t see him being smart enough,” I spoke, breaking the silence.

My sister nodded. “Yeah, he’s a goof. He’s a perve, but more of a harmless perve. Trust me, I went there once; he was very sweet and almost grateful. It was creepy, in a ‘he’s not as dirty as he seems’, sort of way.”

I frowned at her. “You had sex with him?”

She frowned back. “At least I know what sex is. You’re like a Mormon. No booze, no smoking, no drugs, no sex. Do you even drink coffee?”

I laughed, shaking my head. “Not really; every now and then I have some espresso. I don’t like to put that much strain on my adrenal glands.”

She rolled her eyes. “Oh well, yes—I forgot about that nasty little side effect. Let’s go see if the dress fits, Cinderella.”

As Alise and I got into the house, we heard a man's voice talking to our dad. I knew that voice, immediately. Instead of smiling like I normally would, I cringed.

“Shane, what are you doing here?” my sister asked, smiling at him and Dad. They were having what seemed to be an afternoon tea. I raised an eyebrow at them.

My dad started laughing. “They make the same faces. Do you see it, son?”

Shane laughed nodding. “That is funny. Grey-blue eyes and silver eyes making the same expression. I was hoping you were feeling better.” He smiled the biggest grin I’d ever seen on anyone’s face. The excitement in his eyes melted my heart. “Is that your dress? Are we going?”

His eyes were ridiculously hopeful. I couldn’t even imagine saying no. “Yes. I’m feeling a lot better.”

It was still a lie, but I had been out of bed for the whole day. I could have fallen asleep standing, but my mind was reeling with all of the things it had learned. Or at least, attempted to learn in the small amount of time.

Shane stepped forward and hugged me tightly. “I’ll be back in a couple hours to get you.”

With that, he ran out the door, excited. I closed off my heart to Aleks and let Shane in. It was the right choice. I was excited and tired of the tennis match going on inside of me.

I went to my room to start the process and to contemplate a small catnap. I sat in my room staring at the letters. I knew the writing from somewhere. I couldn’t place it. It reminded me of Blake, but when I thought about Blake and his chicken scratch, I shook my head. I knew it was like a word search. I needed to walk away from it and eventually the word would come to me.

Chapter Ten

Happiness is in the eye of the beholder . . . ???

The dress fit like a glove. Giselle and I were apparently the exact same size. It was an aqua-colored dress that was floor length in the back. It went from short in the front to long in the back, gradually, as it wrapped around me. The top was like a tight corset with the fabric folded vertically, but fastened tightly to the dress. It had an empire waist, with a large amount of the fabric pulled into a sweep, making it look like a belt. The belt went all the way around the dress, making up the small amount of back I had covered. It was strapless and the skirt of the dress was several layers of free-flowing, rippling fabric. There was a huge, oval broach under my right breast that was silver. It sparkled from the fake diamonds.

I shook my head in amazement as my sister smiled brightly. “You look hot. Like model hot.” She pulled a pair of sparkling, silver pumps from her closet and put them in front of me. I stepped into them and marveled at how I looked. I pulled my light-blonde hair out of its usual ponytail and shook my head to release the long locks.

Alise clapped. “Dad, you have to see this.”

“You even look a little tanned. Have you been tanning?” she asked, looking me up and down as I gave her my 'remember who you are talking to' look.

She raised her hands defensively. “I was just thinking that you seem a bit tanned.”

I nodded, contemplating it. I did look a bit tanned. “You know, it's probably just a little of the jaundice left over from the poison.” My normally extra-white skin did seem more golden, like Aleks'.

My dad came into the room. His eyebrows raised in stunned, shocked awe.

“Oh my goodness, Aimee. Alise, did you do this?” His voice was a whisper, not accusing at all. He sounded proud of her.

Alise shook her head. “No, this is all Aimee, and there isn’t even any makeup yet.” She took a black and aqua-colored bracelet and hung it off my left wrist. She smiled at me in the mirror. I looked to see my dad's eyes mist over. My sister's eyes were not long behind him, which made my eyes start to water.

My dad wrapped his arms around us both and began to sob. He held us and hugged us tightly, with shaking arms.

I felt myself losing my control as I joined what was left of our small family in a moment of sorrow. I felt the warm wind. I looked up, knowing it was my mom watching down on us. My skin shivered as I let my face burrow into my dad's shoulder.

He pulled away after a few moments and nodded. “You look beautiful, and if your mom were here, she would make me tell you so.” He walked from the room and I knew he was heartbroken.

Alise walked into her bathroom and started to wash her face to get ready for the big night. She looked over at me and smiled. "I'll do your makeup, if you want."

I shook my head. “Thanks, but I’m going to try to do my own makeup this time. I think I’m getting the hang of this girlie business.”