Part 1
"No way, Mom, I will never wear a dress! I don't care if it is a wedding. I can wear my new jeans." Barbara stomped her foot. She did not like to dress up, and she would never wear a dress, not even to save her life.
Her mother tried to reason with her. "But you have to! You're a bridesmaid! Look, you can change right after the ceremony if—"
"NO!" Barbara slammed the back door and went upstairs to her room. She did not own a dress, had not worn one since second grade, and didn't even like to see her mother wear one. "Dressing up"—Barbara hated the sound of the phrase—meant putting on a new pair of jeans. What was so special about her cousin's stupid wedding, anyway? Everyone all dressed up like sissies like it meant something. In six months, Joyce would be suing her new husband for divorce—if she hadn't killed him already.
"Barbara!" Now it was her dad shouting. "Come down here and talk—"
"NO! N-O! What part of that don't you understand?" Barbara locked the door to her room and began stuffing her sweatshirts and jeans into a backpack she had bought a few weeks ago. She found took a bedroll and a tiny pup tent and pushed them into the pack, which was now full to capacity. Her father knocked on the door. After hiding her backpack under the bed, she unlocked the door, but did not open it. As her father pushed the door open, Barbara looked him in the eye and said, "What?"
"Hello to you, too!" Dad tried to be cheerful. Barbara nearly gagged. "We need to talk. It would mean a lot to the family if you would be Joyce's bridesmaid."
"I have no problem with being Joyce's bridesmaid!" Barbara had just had this conversation with her mother. "But I will never wear a dress! That's final!"
"You can change after the ceremony."
"No! I've said it before, and I'll say it again, n-o, no. What part of 'no' don't you understand?"
"You're afraid you might like wearing a dress."
"Bullsh—" said Barbara, just as her dad swung his arm back to strike her face. She ducked, but Dad withdrew his arm before he could come close to landing a blow. He stormed out of the room and down the stairs.
That evening, Barbara refused to come down for supper. Instead, pack on her back, she climbed out her bedroom window with $50 from her piggy bank, got $100 more from the ATM at the bank down the street, and caught the evening bus to the nearest big city.
Part 2
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