dragons and disney and dates

Just around the riverbend!

So, we cut off our internet at home, so I haven't been doing my 5 Word Wednesdays in a while. I am deep into edits and rewrites for one story and don't have the brain power this week to immerse myself in my new one, so, I am dying. DYING! I needed something to write. So today I asked for five words, a random prompt, a song, a color - whatever - to stimulate a story.

And my fantabulous coworker Cheyenne obliged by giving me one of everything and challenging me to put them all in one story.

Challenge. Accepted.

And what are lunch breaks for if not for writing stories from the crazy randomness that is Cheyenne's brain? ;) So, here's her brilliant combo:

5 words:

cackle

roses

time

serendipity

speaker

prompt: a dragon in my closet

song: just around the river bend

color: yellow

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There’s a dragon in my closet.

This is what I think as my sister Lani tears through my clothes. She picks a discarded dress off the floor, her blond curls snagging on a hanger. “Grr,” she growls and yanks the hanger from its place as if it’s out to get her. She may start breathing fire any moment.

I turn down the Miranda Lambert man hater music blaring from my speaker. “What about your green halter top?”

Lani makes a face. “Too slutty for a first date,” she says. “I can’t show skin like that.”

“Wear a sweater,” I tell her.

She turns and glares, her curls surrounding her face like a lion’s mane. “It’s as hot as blue blazes outside.”

“Yes, and blue blazes are known to be fiery.”

She lobs my denim skirt at my face. “Watch it you ogre,” she says. “Next time it’ll be your turn for a first date and I won’t help a bit.” She claps her hands together like a Disney villain and cackles with evil laughter.

I giggle and throw the skirt back. “Ye,s you will,” I tell her. “Because you love me. And you’ll take pity because I’m younger than you.”

“By four minutes, you goon.” She flips through my dresses hanging in the closet. “You know, when I was your age I was growling like a tyrant trying to figure out what to wear on my date with Landon.”

Before she can think, I grab her neck and have her in a headlock. Lani’s favorite thing is to talk about ‘when she was my age’ and then tell me what she was doing all of five minutes ago. My favorite thing is to pretend I hate it, when really, it makes me giddy with happiness. Being a twin is twice the fun normal people have. Those poor single embryos!

Lani holds my green J Crew skirt up and looks in the mirror. Before I can tell her she looks good she throws it to the floor. “I’m running out of time!” Panic slams into her facial features.

“Okay.” I put my hands on her shoulders. “What we need is a plan. You need to narrow down. What color do you want to wear?”

Lani takes a deep breath and I can see the possibilities blurring through her brain. Brat. She looks good in just about every color with her sunshine colored hair. Whereas the red tints in my blond, compliments of Daddy, means I have to be more selective.

“What do you think?” she asks.

And this is why we’re going off to college together next year. We can function independently. We just prefer not to. Lani’s wide green eyes stare back at me and a curl has gotten flipped and sits awkwardly on her head. I put the curl in place. “Yellow,” I tell her. “It’s your signature color.”

“Because of my hair?”

“Because you are light that brightens any day. Now come on.” I grab her hand and place her between our beds, then start pulling every yellow thing we own out.

“I’m nervous,” she says as she frowns at a yellow polka dot shirt.

I hold up a pale yellow dress she wore for Easter. “Because of Blake?”

Lani nods, and every emotion she has shows in her expression; the way her brows furrow and her mouth tilts into a frown, and her eyes look like Bambi’s, vulnerable and scared. My gosh, I could murder Blake Benson. Freaking charmer broke Lani's heart. “Do you regret agreeing to go out with Landon tonight?” I ask her.

Lani holds the dress up and peers in the mirror. Her mouth twitches, the way it always does when she’s figuring out how to verbalize something big. “No. I just don’t want to get hurt again. I guess it’s safer to not date anyone.”

“True.” I take the dress from her and pull out a white skirt with yellow roses on it. “But you never know what’s waiting around the corner. You can play it safe, or you can take a chance and trust that you’ll be ok no matter what happens.”

Lani shimmies the skirt on over her shorts and smiles in the mirror. “So I should trust in serendipity? That bumping into Landon was meant to be?”

I hand her a white t shirt and a denim vest. “No. You trust that you want to go out with Landon because you said yes to his invitation to dinner. And you trust that no matter what happens, you’ll be better for it.”

Lani slips the vest on and flashes her green eyes at me. “And if he turns out to be a jerk?”

I smile. “We can borrow Dad’s shovel. Our yard is pretty big. Lots of nice places for burying things.”

She pecks a kiss on my cheek. “You know, when I was your age, I was trying on yellow outfits like a lunatic, trying to figure out whether or not I’d made the best decision in going out with this guy.”

"Well when I get to be your age, I will have you in a headlock!”

She darts across her bed before I can grab her. 

Brat.

But I love her.