When the movie was over and we were back at my house, I stood in the bathroom staring at myself in the mirror. The short turquoise dress sat on my shoulders and went all the way down to my knees. My bare legs looked pale and skimpy sticking out underneath the dress. I stared hopelessly at my shaggy light blond hair and my black wrinkled up eyes. Sighing, I washed off all the black makeup and pulled out some light colored makeup that Jen gave, but I never really used. I placed some pink sparkly eye shadow all over my eyelids and covered my face with blush. After I nearly smeared my lips with lip gloss and popped them together, I pulled out the straightened. As I waited for it to warm up, I went into my room to find Bailey on my computer playing some type of online game. I went over to my dresser and pulled out a pair of white leggings that still had the price tag hanging off of them. Bailey stared at me up and down and I watched as her jaw dropped and her eyes widened.
“What is that?” she asked, a horrified look spread across her face.
“It’s a dress,” I said in the most regular tone that could come out of my mouth.
“I know it’s a dress. What’s it doing on your body?” Bailey almost shouted, still looking shocked. She pushed the rolling chair she was sitting in away from the desk and took a good look at me.
“I’m going on a date,” I said, my lips pursed tightly together and my hands placed on my hips.
“So, why does that making any difference?” Bailey protested, folding her arms across her chest.
“I just wanted to look nice for once, OK,” I told her, annoyed.
“Oh, I get it. You finally found your prince charming and now you have to turn into a beautiful princess,” Bailey teased, fluttering her eyelashes.
I rolled my eyes at her and went back into the bathroom. After I finished straitening my hair until it sat perfectly flat on top of my head, I deiced it looked too boring so I got out my curling iron and began to put my hair into large curly locks. I messed them up a bit then strode back into my room.
“Now all you need is a tiara and some glass slippers and your ready for the ball, Cinderella,” Bailey teased once more. Ignoring my crude cousin, I struggled to put my leggings on. After nearly falling off my bed a few times while Bailey just sat there spinning around and around in the chair laughing her head off, I finally managed to get them on right. I slipped on some black flats and grabbed the car keys.
“I’ll be back later tonight. You stay here,” I ordered Bailey.
“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” Bailey said, rolling her eyes.
“I promise we’ll do more tomorrow.” I bent over and gave her a hug before I left the room.
Outside, the wind was calm and the dark sky was once again filled with tiny sparkling white dots. Snow covered the ground like a thick fluffy blanket. I climbed into the van and turned the radio down. Goosebumps ran up my arm, but it wasn’t because I was cold. As I drove over to Jasper’s apartment, I began to feel sick, my stomach turning in circles. When I reached the shabby apartment building, I saw Jasper sitting on the front steps. My legs started to shake as I slowly got out of the car and walked over to him. He rose to his feet and smiled at me.
“You look gorgeous,” he complemented, taking a step closer to me.
“Thanks,” I muttered under my breath, feeling my face getting hotter by the second. After a few minutes of awkward silence, I climbed back into the car and Jasper got into the passenger seat. I was about to start the car, when I thought about last night. “Hey why don’t we just fly around town,” I suggested. Jasper’s face turned pink as he sat there speechless. “What you didn’t think I thought it was only a dream, did you?” I asked, a large sly grin on my face.
“I don’t know what the heck you’re talking about,” Jasper lied, his face remained pink.
“I think you do,” I grimaced.
“Look,” Jasper said, starting to look worried, “you can’t tell anyone.”
“I wasn’t planning on it.” I stared at Jasper all serious now, wondering why he didn’t trust me.
Jasper stared out the window. I turned on the car and was just about to drive away, when Jasper pulled me out of the car, back onto his shoulders, and soared up into the air. Not wanting to face the fact that I was at least ten thousand feet in the air by now, I quickly shut my eyes. Once again I felt the hard wind blowing harsh against my face. When I opened my eyes, I was standing somewhere even higher than before. Jasper slid me off of his back and helped me regain my balance.
“I’ll be right back,” he said, leaving me alone on some strange skimpy building. My feet were glued to the ground. If I took only a few steps in any direction I would be falling to my death. My heart was beating out of control and my brain started spinning. Why did Jasper just leave me here? Did he leave me here to die because I knew his secret? Well that was his own fault! However, I couldn’t be mad at Jasper right now. Not when he was my only way safely on the ground. At that moment Jasper stood right beside me. He had a picnic basket in one hand and a red and white checkered table cloth in the other. “Don’t you ever leave me like that again!” I shouted, all the anger and fright coming out at the same time.
“I’m sorry,” he muttered staring at me, innocently with those large green eyes. “I promise I won’t leave you alone on top of a building in a different country ever again,”
“Wait a minute, where are we?” I folded my arms across my chest and pursed my lips together.
“Well, this is the tallest building I could find.”
“Where exactly are we?” I repeated, getting more frustrated with him by the minute.
“In Paris of course, on the very top of the Eifel tower,” Jasper exclaimed, holding his arms up.
“What!” I shouted, now starting to really panic.
Jasper moved up next to me. “Don’t worry, I won’t let anything bad happen to you,” he reassured me, rubbing his large muscular hands on my shoulders. He spread out the table cloth and sat down on top of it. I sat down on my knees. The air suddenly felt warm. Warmer than it ever had been before. I slipped off my brown American Eagle coat, my bare arm feeling strangely warm and the goose bumps had disappeared.
“You know this isn’t really the tallest tower in the world,” I muttered.
“Would you like me to take you to a taller tower,” Jasper suggested with a sly grin on his face.
I quickly shook my head. “No, is this the country you come from though?” I asked, looking down at all the tiny colorful lights below me.
“Uh, no,” he said, taking out two white candles and lighting them.
“Jasper, this isn’t exactly what I expected when I said we were going on a date,” I laughed.
“Would you like me to take you down then?” he asked, looking a little worried.
“No, actually, once you get used to it it’s pretty nice up here.” Smiling, I leaned in closer to the picnic basket Jasper had placed in the middle of the table cloth. “What’s for dinner?” I asked, my eyes widening with excitement.
Jasper pressed his lips together as he opened the basket. “Mm, we have spaghetti,” he exclaimed pulling out a large pile of spaghetti covered with sauce and enormously large meatballs. “Two ice teas and for desert Amaretto cheesecake.” Jasper handed me one of the ice teas and placed the cheesecake next to the plate of spaghetti. He picked up a metal fork and quickly twisted it, continuously between his fingers.
“Impressive,” I smirked, taking the fork away. I shoveled a mouthful of spaghetti into my mouth and watched as Jasper did the same. “Ok so, is this how you impress all your girlfriends?” I asked, sarcastically.
“Well, I really never had a girlfriend,” Jasper chuckled.
My jaw nearly fell wide opened, but I stopped myself. “You never had a girlfriend?” I asked, shocked.
“Well not exactly, my parents have been trying to force me to marry ever since I was sixteen,” he exclaimed taking another large bite of spaghetti.
I felt my heart sink and you could see the sadness in my eyes. “Who have they been trying to get you to marry?”
“Oh, just random girls,” he reassured me. “My parents have this thing where every man needs to have a wife they don’t care about whether I ever fall in love.”
“Have you ever been in love before?” I asked, biting my lip, not sure if I wanted my answer to be yes or no.
“It depends…..” Jasper grinned. “Are we counting back years, days, or seconds here?”
“Seconds,” I said, sounding eager to hear his reply.
“Then in that case…” Jasper leaned in next to me so that are noses were barley touching. I could feel his warm breath against my face. My heart began beating hard against my chest as I took deep heavy breaths, trying to keep up with it. Pressing my lips against his, my mind immediately went blank and I lost all train of thought. I wrapped my arms around his neck, my chest pressing slightly against his. As our lips remained glued together, I could hear the booming sound of fireworks and I could see many colorful lights out of the corner of my eyes. Finally breaking away from Jasper, I looked over to see the fireworks. They were larger than usual and were made of dozens of different colors. Some of them took the shapes of hearts other looked like flowers. However, after only a couple, they soon faded away. I turned to Jasper a large grin spread across my face.
“Nice touch,” I chuckled, kissing him once more.
“What are you talking about,” he asked, grinning as well.
As I wrapped my lips paciently around his, the fireworks went off again. This time louder and crazier than before. “That’s what I mean,” I whispered in Jasper’s ear. Grinning slyly, Jasper pressed his lips against mine. Jasper laid down on top of the red table cloth as I laid down with him resting my head on his left shoulder. “Do more,” I demanded. He sighed and not a minute later the large, colorful bombs of fire spread out into the black opened sky. We lay there, in silence as I continued to watch Jasper’s crafty fireworks. I never wanted this night to end, but as the fireworks began to slowly die down I felt my eyes once more begin to droop and it wasn’t long before I fell asleep.
My mind started to waken as I felt Jasper carrying me home. After he had carefully placed me in my bed next to my sleeping cousin, I quickly woke up. I rushed over towards my opened window, but he was gone. “Jasper!” I called. However, there was no answer. I turned to go back to bed, when I heard the rushing wind that signified Jasper’s arrival. Grinning from ear to ear, I rushed over to him and wrapped my arms around his neck. “Goodnight,” I whispered, brushing my lips swiftly against his. “And thank you.”
“Sleep tight,” he murmured into my ear before he flew away, leaving my standing breathlessly in my bedroom, Bailey’s loud snoring in the background.
