"Two more days until your festival, Val!" Reed squealed, digging through my closet. "Ew, Val, what's with all the dresses?"

"Yell at my aunt, not me." I said to my girlfriend, who giggled and kissed my cheek. "Remind me again why I fell for you?"

"Well for starters, my accent is gorgeous." I said, laughing my butt off and falling on my bed. Reed laughed as well and said, "That it is, Valerie, that it is. Anyway, are you excited for Saturday?" 

"A little nervous, but yeah, I'm excited. I've never played flute in public before, so this should be interesting." I giggled a little and then Reed pulled out the pan pride dress I wore to the school dance.

"How about this?" Reed asked, clearly joking. I tried to stifle a laugh and I shoved the dress back in my closet. "Dude, I'll look like a circus clown playing flute! Everyone else is wearing black and white, I think it's a rule now!" Reed laughed and then pulled out a pretty white ruffled dress with embroidered flowers. 

"How about this?" she asked. I gasped and grabbed the dress out of Reed's hands and headed to the bathroom to see how it looked on me. After I put it on, I twirled around in the mirror.

"It's perfect." I gushed. Reed smiled at me and said, "I can't wait to see you shine. Also, what are you thinking for your hair?"

"I was thinking maybe a ponytail?" I said. I rarely wear ponytails. I usually wear it in pigtails, or in French braids if I have time to do my hair. Since it's the summer and the weekend, I probably will have time to do my hair in braids. But I wanted some variety for this special day.

"Come on, Val! Your hair looks so cute in pigtails and whatnot!" Reed screeched. I laughed and said, "Come on, you can't expect I'll wear pigtails every single day of the week!"

"Val! Reed! Time to go to dress rehearsals!" George yelled. Reed smirked at me and I said, "Don't you dare..."

"One thing's universal, life's no dress rehearsal! So why not make some waves before it's through? Go big, or you've blown it! It's time that you own it! Let's make it clear that tonight belongs to you!" Reed started singing at the top of her lungs, awkwardly dancing along like the geek she was. 

"Oh my God, Reed, if you start singing at the festival on Saturday, I will be incredibly angry, you know that, right?" I snapped to my girlfriend. She loudly cackled and then skipped out the door. 

I followed behind her, rolling my eyes.

_________

"Hey. If you want me to play guitar for backup," Reed said, holding up her guitar, "I got you."

"You should've auditioned for this thing if you wanted me to do that, okay?" I laughed, unpacking my flute and setting it up. "Now, shoo, I need to practice."

"What's there to practice, you're here to practice!" Reed said. I rolled my eyes at her. I loved that girl, but sometimes her logic was slightly flawed.

"Bye Reed! Say hi to your dads for me!" I said, pushing her out the door. Reed and her dads were busy on Saturday, so they were coming to see me tonight instead. Which was fine with me, better than them not being able to show up at all. 

Reed smiled at me and said, "I have flowers for you, but my dad has no clue how to handle a wet bouquet so now his nice new dress shoes are all wet and my other dad is laughing his head off so if you see someone who looks like he's about to burst out laughing, that's Alexander Adler."

I laughed and shoved Reed out the door and slammed it in her face.

________

The rehearsal went great. Not a lot of people showed up, maybe like 20 or 30 people, and they were mostly parents. And the Adler family sitting in the third row. 

My flute was all packed up and I was ready to go home. I just had to stand in the parking lot and wait for George.

"You did amazing! I'm so mad I can't come on Saturday!" Reed yelled, coming up to me. I laughed and said, "Yeah, it's not gonna be the same without you."

"Aww, Val, you're gonna do great!"

"I hope so."

But deep down inside me, I couldn't make any promises.

AN: The next two chapters may or may not get slightly evil, I'm just warning you. Hope you enjoy! Catch ya later!