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“How was your day, Christina?” mom asked as I jumped into the car

“The usual, school is school. So, can I know now why I’m being picked up?” This had been bugging me since mom told me last night, we don’t socialise or spend any time together if we don’t have to. Mom and I have just never been close, she had my sister to do this stuff with and I thought it suited us both, until now.

“Your winter formal is on Saturday,” she replied

“And?” I questioned, still not understanding what was going on

“You need a dress,” she replied with a tone that said it should have been obvious.

“But I told Eric I didn’t want to go to the dance, you were there when I said it.” I tried pointing it out to her.

“Nonsense, every young lady should attend a dance with a nice young gentleman on their arm, and you can’t wear anything from your closet to it!”

“But I don’t want to go.” I tried again.

“Enough Christina! you are going and that is final. For once you will behave like a nice and normal young lady.”

And there it was ‘normal’, I’d always thought that mom suspected more about me than she let on, even before Jenny announced the rumours going around school to my sister. But this seemed to all but confirm it. Mom was trying to force her stubborn middle child to stay on the ‘straight’ and narrow.

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Dress shopping had been hell, and seemingly endless, any dress mom liked I hated and vice versa. We finally managed to agree on one when the store had five minutes left before closing, both of us conceding on styles purely to put an end to the debate, as neither of us relished the idea of trying the trip again tomorrow. The dress, in the end, was a plain black halter neck dress that finished just above the knee, mom would have gone brighter and probably with frills with me looking like I’d escaped from some 1980s nightmare, however, the dress itself wasn’t half bad, just a shame it had to be wasted on Eric.