Truth & Dare by Liz Miles Page B

of trouble came when they threw “imaginary” numbers at us. I mean, seriously, imaginary numbers? And now I was drowning in a pool of derivatives and integrals. Now I could hardly find numbers at all in the homework: it was all ds, xs, ys, and squiggly symbols.
    “Take it step by step,” Connor said. “Like, in problem fourteen …”
    “Forget problem fourteen.” I threw an arm around his neck.
    “Fine with me,” he said and kissed me. “You’re the one whose exam isn’t done.”
    “I can’t think about it any more.” I’d just begun to kiss him again when my phone trilled.
    “Don’t answer it,” Connor whispered.
    “That’s Annie’s ring. If I don’t pick up, she’ll just keep calling.”
    Connor groaned while I scooped the phone off my nightstand. “Yeah?” I said.
    “Bridesmaid Emergency,” Annie said.
    “What do you mean?”
    “We got the dresses, and they are repulsive .”
    “What? No. Emily said she knows how bad the dresses usually are, and she promised …”
    Annie cackled. “Just wait till you see them. We’re all going to look ridiculous.”
    “But Emily has such nice clothes, and she promised …”
    “Apparently there’s something that gets turned on in the brain when you become a bride. Some kind of filter that makesyou inflict horrible dresses on your friends and delude yourself that they look good.” Someone screamed in the background. “You hear that? Monica just tried hers on.”
    “Where are you?”
    “At the bridal shop on Vega. Come on over and get fitted, and see the horror that is your dress.”
    We hung up. “Change of plans,” I said to Connor. “The bridesmaid dresses are in. You want to bike over to the store with me?”
    “No,” he said, reaching for me again.
    “Later.” I kissed him once more and hopped off the bed. “Annie says they’re awful, but you know how dramatic she is. Let’s go see.”
    “Sarah,” Connor said, “I don’t give a crap what the dresses look like.”
    “Don’t you want to see how I’m gonna look?”
    “You could wear trash bags and you’d look great.”
    “Keep saying stuff like that, and I’ll let you be my boyfriend.”
    “I heard your current boyfriend is a great guy—bought you chocolate brains and everything.” He tried to pull me back down on to the bed. “So exactly how humiliating is it that you’d rather look at these dresses than make out with me?”
    “These are bridesmaid dresses,” I said, yanking a comb through my hair. “Almost nothing comes out ahead of that. And hey, you beat calculus hands down.”
    I felt only a small pang about leaving my exam half done. I still had a day and a half until Monday morning, right? Plenty of time.
    • • •
    Connor biked over to the bridal shop with me, but he left without even coming inside. The store was a flurry of lace andmeasuring tape, veils and mirrors. Monica stood in front of a triple mirror while a woman with pins in her mouth knelt at the hem.
    “Whaaaaat?” I said.
    “Told you,” Annie piped up from a nearby chair where she had collapsed in a bundle of fabric.
    “What’s with the color? Is it supposed to be that color?”
    “It’s called pineapple,” Annie said.
    “Who picks out pineapple as their wedding color? And what’s with that thing on the shoulder?”
    “It’s a bow,” Monica said.
    “It’s too big to be a bow. It’s like a giant cabbage landed on your shoulder.”
    “It’s not the bow that’s the problem.” Monica brushed a bit of it away from her cheek. “What I don’t like is the asymmetrical neckline. I’m too lumpy for a dress like this. It looks like half of it’s missing or something.”
    “You’re not lumpy,” Annie and I said together, automatically .
    Both Monica and Annie looked sallow, even jaundiced, in the mustardy color. I could only imagine how my olive skin would look. We’d all look like candidates for the hepatitis ward.
    “What about Emily’s sister?” I said.
    “With her posture,