Hum Saath Saath Hai (Trans: We are all together now)

That night we all hung out as a family. Jack didn't get a chance to visit that often and to have him for a whole weekend was a rare thing. It was nice to just hang out with him and not have to worry about him having to rush off. Mom and dad went to bed around midnight but Jack and I stayed up talking till 3 in the morning.


The next morning I was awakened by my phone insistently vibrating. I tried to ignore it but gave up when it wouldn't stop.

"What" I mumbled still half asleep.

"What? DON'T TELL ME YOU ARE STILL ASLEEP" someone screamed in my ear.

I jumped and sat up in my bed "what!?" I said once again while my brain tried to figure out that I was now awake.

"RORY! I can't believe you forgot. You are supposed to meet us in less than an hour at Alisha's house" said the anonymous person who I finally figured out was Merry.

I looked at the clock and realized that it was 8 am already and that we had agreed to meet everyone at 9. Muttering a curse, I quickly jumped out of bed and out my door. Running to Jack's room, I knocked on the door to wake him up and laughed when I heard a loud thud, curses and then finally the door opened to reveal a very sleepy Jack.

"What, Rory" he barked.

"I know that you aren't very happy with me for waking you up this early but we need to hurry and get ready. Its 8 already and we are supposed to me everyone at Alisha's in less than an hour.

Turning back to go to my room, I remembered that Merry was still on the phone "Hey, thanks for waking us up. I'm going to go take a shower and we will see you in less than an hour, okay?"

"Ok, see you later" she said, hanging up.

Quickly grabbing my clothes, I took a shower and got dressed in record time. When I got out, Jack was just coming out of his room "I'm going to go make some coffee"

"Don't" I said "we can grab some on the way to Alisha's because we really don't have the time right now."

I finished getting ready and met Jack downstairs. He was just fishing writing a note for mom and dad, who were still sleeping, that we had left.

I started to grab my car keys, but Jack grabbed them from me "I'm driving" he said.

I thought about arguing and saying that it was my car but gave up knowing that I would probably have a few more arguments to fight today. When we got to Alisha’s house everyone was already there so after Jack greeted everyone, we headed out to pile into Alisha’s dad’s big SUV that could comfortably hold 7 people. Before we left, Alisha’s dad came out and told Alisha to let Jack drive because he was a safer driver then she was. We all laughed as Alisha turned red and gave Jack the car keys. I sat up front next to Jack and when everyone was finally settled we headed out.

For once, there was relatively little traffic in LA so we made it there in almost exactly two hours. Merry and I had come up with a list of stores that we wanted to go to and when we finally found the first one, a place called Ana’s Dress. It was a store that Merry and I had stumbled onto a couple of years ago when we were shopping and exploring the streets of LA. When you first come up to the store, it doesn’t really look like it’s going to be anything special. But when you get inside, it’s simply stunning. The owner, Ana designs most of the dresses in there and her style is amazing.

Since we had made an appointment, Ana was there along with two other girls to help us find dresses. Jack found a comfortable couch to sit on and we got down to finding the perfect dresses. Merry and Kallie immediately found dresses that they wanted to try on while Alicia and I sort of struggled. I hadn’t really seen anything that caught my eye and I was starting to think that I was going to have to go another store when Ana suddenly appeared at my side.

“Are you not finding anything you like” she asked

Not wanted to insult her I said “most of these dresses are amazing but I haven’t seen any that really caught my attention yet”

She smiles and said “follow me”

I followed her to the back of the store where she went into the storage room and came out with two dresses. One was a deep royal blue halter top dress that was fitted all the way down. But my attention caught on the other dress. It was a deep red almost crimson color with a one shoulder design. It was fitted all the way till the waist and then it blossomed out into a skirt. There were small flowers and leaved embroidered in small silver thread a lot the shoulder and the bottom of the dress.

Ana laughed and I realized that I had been staring at the dress.

“I think we found your dress” she said handing me the red dress and ushering me into a dressing room.

When I put on the dress, it just felt right. It fit in all the right places and it wasn’t so revealing that my very conservative parents wouldn’t let me wear it. I stepped out of the dressing room and everyone just stopped talking.

Jack finally broke the silence “That looks amazing on you Ror”

I smiled at him and then the others started talking all at once.

“You have to get that dress” Merry said “it is made for you. You look absolutely amazing”

I looked at Ana and asked “how much is this?”

She came over to me and looked at the tag and said “$349”

I left my stomach drop because I knew that there was no way I could afford that. My parents had given me a budget of $200 for the dress and this was almost a $150 over.

Jack realized that something was wrong and asked in Punjabi “Ke Hoya?” (Trans; what happened…)