The next morning when I walked into the office building, I was greeted with an unusual amount of friendliness. Even people who were part of another company sharing the large building wished me good luck and offered smiles as they passed me by in the lobby. The ride on the elevator was the same, though nobody bothered to start up a conversation with me. Whether they were too scared, or didn’t care that much, I didn’t know, but I was glad. There were too many butterflies bouncing around in my stomach for me to act like everything was going to be okay. Because it wasn’t going to be okay. Too many things could go wrong. What if I messed up? What if I embarrassed myself? Actually, scratch that. I already knew that I was going to embarrass myself. So, what if I embarrassed myself more than I thought I would? During the entire ride up, I began to appreciate Michaela’s obsession with being the top model. Maybe it wasn’t too late to switch with her.

The doors slid open on my floor and, after smiling goodbye at those who were still in the elevator, I started to walk to my cubicle.

Stacy bolted up from her seat and ran to me as soon as she saw me. “Jessica Bryans! What are you doing here?”

I looked around confusedly. “Is this a trick question?”

“No! What’re you doing here? You shouldn’t be here,” she said, pulling me away from my desk.

“I work here…”

Stacy sighed and pulled me harder. “Obviously. What I meant was what are you doing here when you should be at the actual Fashion Festival getting ready?”

“I didn’t know I had to do that,” I said defensively.

“Well, now you do,” Stacy said. “Now go on.”

“Wait,” I said, stopping myself. “I left my bag at my desk.”

Stacy rolled her eyes. “Fine, go back and get it. But I want you heading to the festival ASAP, okay?”

“Fine,” I said obediently.

“I’ll see you later on the runway,” Stacy said, then went back to her desk.

Quickly following her instructions, I headed towards my cubicle again. I picked up my jacket that was lying on my desk. As I was putting it on, I noticed a shiny box sitting in the middle of my desk. Pulling off the little note taped to it, I opened the box. There was an assortment of chocolate (all my favourites) in the box, along with some purple (my favourite colour) tissue paper. I unfolded the note and read it:

Good luck!

There was no name, no signature indication who it was from. I suspected either Stacy or Jenna, since they knew me the best. Ripping off the wrapper of a mini Twix bar, I popped it into my mouth. Just as I was turning around back to the elevator, the door behind me opened.

“You like the chocolates?” a voice came from behind me.

I spun around on my heel to face a smiling Jake. A wave of emotions flooded me – anger, hurt, happiness, nervousness, anxiousness…you name it, and it was there. The thing about that was I didn’t know how to play out all these feelings, so naturally I just put on my b-tch face.

“They’re from you?” I asked in disbelief, my question sounding more like a statement.

“Yeah,” he replied. “I know how much chocolate calms you down whenever you’re nervous. I was going to get you some marble cake too but the line at Starbucks was too long.”

“That’s nice,” I said icily.

Jake winced at the coldness in my voice. “Jessica, can we please talk? I mean properly.”

“But –”

“No.”

Yes, my mind said, because inside I wanted to talk to him. But when did what I want ever matter to him?

“I just –”

“No.” Yes.

“Jessica,” he pleaded.

“I said no, Jake. Now, if you don’t mind, I have to get going,” I told him.

Jake sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “Okay. I’ll see you later, I guess.”

He walked back into his office, and his door closed quietly after him. Letting out a big sigh, I examined the box of chocolates, which I now know was from Jake. In a sudden movement, I tossed all it contents into the trash can underneath my desk and threw the box into the recycling bin.

Hopefully, I wouldn’t see him later.

*

A few hours later, I found myself sitting in a tall chair, with about 3 people huddled over me. One was tugging at my hair, straightening, frizzing, and doing a whole bunch of other stuff that I was sure weren’t good for my hair. Another was busy swiping all sorts of make-up onto my face. And the last one was plucking at stray hairs that “didn’t need to be there and were ruining my complexion”. It was very frustrating. All 3 of them constantly bickered about getting in each other’s ways, especially the make-up person and the hair plucking person; every time a hair was pulled out I winced in pain, causing the make-up person to make a slight mistake. Finally, after what seemed like hours of hard work at a master piece (says the people working on me; I call it painful torture), a small peppy girl with a clipboard ran into the room.

“5 minutes,” she shouted, then quickly ran away again.

I wished she didn’t come in and say that, because now, it seemed like all hell broke loose. All around me, people were shouting.

“Are you in your first outfit?”

“Is her make-up done?”

“Where are her shoes?”

“Oh my God, where is her rack of outfits?”

“Somebody call the director here!”

In the midst of all the chaos, I managed to slip off my chair and out the room. I was already dressed in my first outfit and my shoes were on my feet. My face was done, my hair was done, my legs were done, and my arms were done. Everything was done, so I had no worries. All around me people were panicking, and that didn’t help at all to my nervousness.

“Psst, Jessica!” somebody whispered.

I turned to see Stacy and Jenna peeking from behind a curtain.

Smiling, I walked up to them. “What are you guys doing? You’re not allowed backstage!”

Jenna rolled her eyes. “Since when were you a law abiding citizen? Besides, we wanted to see you before everyone else saw you.”

“Yeah,” Stacy added. “You look so gorgeous!”

“You think so?” I asked nervously. “I mean, it doesn’t look like it’s too much?”

“No, no,” Stacy and Jenna both said.

“It’s perfect,” Stacy added.

I smiled and felt my body slack a bit in relief. “Thanks guys.”

They looked around worriedly, then back at me.

“Okay, listen, we gotta go,” Jenna told me quickly. “But good luck!”

“Yeah, thanks! Go, go.” I quickly closed the curtains again and walked away as if nothing happened.

Reassurance from Jenna and Stacy made me feel a bit better. I was still nervous – of course I was nervous. I had never done this before, and the only real experience I had was the final run through of the show. Other than that, the only practicing I did was just in front of Jake, with no one else. Compared to today, that was nothing. There were probably thousands of people out there, and I had to face all of them. Not once, not twice, but multiple times, wearing a skimpy outfit, in skyscraper tall heels. The thing that rattled me the most was the fact that the people out there probably wanted me to feel. That’s the thing about people watching you perform. They watch you to fail.

I wandered around the set aimlessly. Five minutes seemed like a long time.

Standing in a corner, I saw Michaela and Scarlet (what was she doing here?) talking animatedly in a corner. I kept staring at them until Scarlet looked over and caught my eye. She gave me a dirty look before turning back to Michaela, with a new wicked smile on her face. Deciding not to waste my time on them, I looked away and began to walk somewhere else, conveniently bumping into somebody.

“Oh, shoot, I’m so sorry,” I said, smoothing out the wrinkles in my dress. I stopped my dress-smoothing to see who exactly I had bumped into. And obviously, it was Jake. Why does he have to show up everywhere I am?

“It’s okay,” he said.

I nodded once, then started to walk around him. His hand grabbed my wrist and I stopped dead in my tracks.

“What, Jake?” I snapped.

Jake gulped and his eyes darted around my face. He looked like he was about to jump into a pit of lions.

“Listen, Jessica. No just hear me out first,” he added quickly, after I opened my mouth to speak. “I’ve been thinking all day.”

“Well that’s a first,” I mumbled.

Jake smiled at my remark and continued, “And I realized something.”

I looked at him blankly.

“That I didn’t…realize before,” he said slowly, looking for a reaction.

“And what’s that?” I asked impatiently.

“Well,” he said, taking a deep breath. “Jessica –”

Before he was able to finish his sentence, the same peppy girl from beside snatched me away. “What are you doing?! We’re about to start in like 5 seconds and you’re up first! Go, go, go!”

I felt myself being pushed to the front of the line. Looking around for Jake, I saw him being ushered out and past the curtains by Scarlet, who threw me a triumphant look over her should. Whatever, I thought. She can have him.

Beside me, a techie patted me on the shoulder and began counting down with his fingers. 3…2…1.

Music started blaring outside, and lights flashing everywhere. The faint sound of the emcee’s voice started and I knew it was only a matter of time before I had to go.

“Good luck,” an icy voice behind me, who I recognized was Michaela’s, said. “You’re going to need it.”

Taking a deep breath, I nodded at the techie beside me, who just signaled me to go. My feet moved automatically in front of me and I tried to remember to do all the small things that Jake said. Michaela was right. I was going to need all the luck in the world to get me past tonight.

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thanks for voting for the last part! really. thank you guys so much

there's only about 5-6 more parts, then maybe an epilogue to the story, then we're done! i know this is a short story...but i don't want to add another problem. that'd be too much and then everyone's gonna be like gosh, when does this story end? haha :).

anyways, i really appreciate the voting, A LOT. please comment/vote and lemme know what you think!

goal for this chappie is 200 votes. hopefully that's not too much :D.

well, i'm off to eat lunch. happy reading!