Confidence like A Dress

Taleela's POV

"This is a nice dress, yeah?" Susan asks, twirling around in front of her mirror.

I sigh and slap my forehead. "Of course it is!" I nearly yell in frustration. "This dress looks nice on you, girl. You're not the one doing the fashion show."

Susan begins to sulk, and I roll my eyes. I know how crazy she is about Linda, but she needs to cut herself a fucking slack, damn.

She's dressed in a short flaxen dress with a shallow back. A plunging neckline that suits her tiny breasts and cups it firmly. Her dark hair, tied in a ponytail, flops about as she moves towards her shoe rack to get one of her sneakers.

Susan is a sucker for sneakers, and every footwear is a sneaker. I don't think she has heels or sandals gracing her minimalist shoe rack.

When she returns to where I am sitting, she's wearing a black pair of Nike Air Force. I nod.

"You picked out something nice for once," I say to her, and she rewards me with a glare. I raise my hand in surrender while laughing. "I'm going to my room. I need to sleep before classes today."

I yawn widely and ignore the look of disappointment that suddenly floods over my roommate's face. I'm messing with her. She looks so cute each time I mess with her, and I love to see that look of slight disappointment on her face.

"Weren't we supposed to go together?" She asks, following behind me. "You promised."

Feigning surprised, I gasp. "Oh, is that so? I forgot that I made a promise." My voice is laced with sarcasm, and when she notices, she frowns at me, and I laugh, giving her a look of apology.

"Give me twenty minutes. I'll be done." I say to her and hurry down the narrow hallway.

She calls out from her room just as I push my door open. "Do not waste my time, okay?"

I nod, laughing. "Okay, I won't. I'm dressing casually, by the way. I'll be attending classes before the show ends. Don't see the need to dress elaborately."

Suddenly, she's standing beside me. When I turn to see her, I jump in fright. "Christ! What the fuck? How did you get here so fast?"

Susan shrugs, less concerned. "Please, I want you to dress nice. It's Linda, remember?"

I frown slightly. "And if she's the one, so?"

Susan shrugs again. "I want you to look real nice. Maybe she'll talk to me once she sees you."

My frown deepens. I am honestly confused right now. "What do you mean by that?"

Susan scratched her hair with care, and her lips turned up like she was afraid to tell me what was up. "Err... the thing is...."

I close my eyes. "We don't have all the time in the world, and you know? What's it? You have something to say. It's obvious."

"Linda fawns over you." She said finally.

"She's gay?" I ask, my eyes widening in alarm. Never in my whole life did I think that Linda would be gay.

But, Susan shakes her head, negative. "No, she isn't. She's not gay. She admires you a lot. I see it in her eyes. She even said it once while you were getting coffee one morning."

"What's there to admire about me?" I scoff and enter my room. Immediately, I slip off my clothes and go into the bathroom. Susan comes to sit on the side of the bed facing my bathroom.

"She says that your fashion sense surpasses any that she has seen. You have a way of dressing that doesn't scream sophisticated but still gets everyone's attention. She also said that she noticed that you do not dress to impress, but you still end up impressing everyone."

"I guess it's my confidence, baby. I wear it like a fucking dress. That's why she feels intimidated. She doesn't admire me. She's only intimidated by me."

When I turn to look at Susan, she has a stoic and solemn expression on her face. I laugh shortly and step into the bathtub to have a quick bath.

Once I'm done, I step out immediately and pull one of my towels as I proceed out of the bathroom. Susan is still seated on my bed. She seems lost in thought.

"Something tells me there is something other than Linda's fashion show. You're too excited. Too excited for it to be about Linda's Fashion show."

"Nah, it's just Linda, nothing else," Susan says. "Her quirky sense of fashion is what gets me the most. Her style is out of this world."

I shrug and go to stand in front of my mirror. "Just saying."

"Do I leave the room?"

I turn to look at Susan with a bewildered expression. "Fuck, no. Stay."

"Oh, okay," Susan replies and slips back into my bed. I wonder why she's acting all weird all of a sudden.

I do not entertain her weirdness, though. I focus on dressing up in less than fifteen minutes. I have less than fourteen minutes left, and I love to keep to the time.

Going to my vanity table, I pick up my bottle of moisturizer and apply it to my skin. From the mirror, I can see Susan watching me, and immediately our eyes jam, and she looks away directly. My shoulders shake in laughter.

In no time, I am done with my skin. I go to my closet and pick out the first outfit I see.

I unhang it from the hanger and lift it above my head to give it a good view. "Yeah, this is the outfit."

My closet is a collection of organized and already arranged outfits selected personally by me. So, I do not waste time searching for what to wear.

When I see memes talking about how ladies take a whole lot of time to decide on what to wear, I laugh with a slight cringe. I am not indecisive. I know how to be precise. That is why I picked this outfit as soon as my eyes hit it. I already know it's the outfit for today.

"Damn, that's nice looking. I wonder where you get your outfits from." Susan said from where she sat on the bed.

I chuckle and give it- my dress, a second look. Only if she knew.

"I have good eyes."

Oh, it's a simple outfit as usual, but we all know how it would look when it is on my body.

A crop top with a thin strap. Tight enough around my bust for me to go braless. My belly button was pierced and adorned with a silver ring, glints in the sunbeam hitting it. My moss leather skirt comes next. I let my towel drop to the floor before I unzip it down and wrap it around my waist, that's a bit wide. Bending over a little, I pull the zipper back up and arrange the waistline, so it's in proportion with my torso.

I throw on my jacket, and Susan pops a question.

"What shade of grey is that, though?"

I am on the verge of replying to the famous movie fifty shades of grey, but I stop myself. "This is mink. It goes well with green and black."

"I honestly don't know how you do it, girl," Susan mutters. Her eyes are coated with slight admiration.

"C'mon! You're good at playing dress-up. You don't give yourself so much credit." I say to her as I go over to my shoe rack to get a simple sandal to go with my outfit. The thin straps get to me each time I slip them on. How they wrap delicately around my feet in a crisscrossed line, how the glittery silver burnishes against my skin. Beautiful. I bend over to buckle it before straightening and going back to my vanity table to style my hair, apply minimal makeup consisting only of ash-colored eyeliner, shaping of my thick brows, apply lip liner and glitter gloss on my lip, and make sure my face is moisturized with sunscreen.

When I am done, I spread my arm and turn to look at my friend. "I'm done, bitch!"

Susan laughs and gets to her feet. "You look so beautiful. Anyone would want to have you. Your skin makes me jealous."

I tell her what I tell her each time she says that to me. "Be comfortable in your skin. You'd find true happiness, sweetie."

"You're right." She replies.

"Give me a sec; I want to get my backpack."

"A tote would look nice on your outfit, You know?"

I pause and think for a while. "You're most definitely right, my dear. I'll go with a tote."

In no time, we're out of the house, locking the door after us as we laugh loudly over an event that happened in our first year.