The pink elephant - (Weekend freewrite)

I was dressed in a completely inappropriate shade of pink.
Like one of those jumbo marshmallows her mother used to buy her or, even better, a toy elephant found in one of the glass machines at the arcade. Those that you try and try to grab with the metal claws and they somehow manage to slip back into the pile of garish stuffed animals. Not that anyone would try to get even close to her as she sat in the corner of the room, as inconspicuous as a pink elephant can be. She cast furtive glances at the other girls, in their barely there skirts. She wished she had legs like that, slim and firm, legs she could parade around in shiny black tights balancing gracefully on impossibly high heels.
Mother would not allow those, neither the skirts, nor the heels. 'Not under my roof' was the answer she'd get any time she'd ask to buy something that was actually cool, something that the other girls would wear.
'What would you want such a short dress anyway? Don't you ever look in the mirror?'
'Do you?' Susan replied, but only in her head. She wouldn't dream of talking back to Mom. Not after the incident. That was four years ago, but not one week went by without mother reminding her of that shameful incident.

We were drinking champagne and losing our shirts.
Both of them capital sins, as far as Mother was concerned.
It was Brenda's Sweet 16 and it was wild. The first time she'd had champagne or any kind of drink. There were boys at Brenda's party and they plied the girls with drinks and had them lose items of clothing, as they played Charades.
She wasn't that fat back than and the boys had her take her pearly top off to get a look at her boobs. Susan was ashamed her bra was a plain white cotton thing, but the boys didn't care, most of them had never seen girls in their bras before.
Susan didn't even see her mother walk into the room and she almost died when she felt the cold hand on her bare shoulder, yanking her out of the chair. Mother didn't say anything as they walked home, she didn't want the neighbors know of the shame Susan had brought on their family.
'Did they touch you? Where did they touch you?' she kept asking. The interrogation took hours and no matter how many times, Susan said nothing happened, Mom would call her a liar and a slut. Then she would start all over again.
She'd never been to another party after that. At some point, nobody even asked her to come anymore. Until now.

Things changed the day Lillian learned to drive. Lillian was her room-mate and had made it her mission to help Susan lose her inhibitions. She had no idea she had inhibitions until she'd met Lillian. Students could manage just fine without a cars as everything was within walking distance around the campus, but Lillian insisted it was a question of freedom, freedom to come and go as she pleased. And that meant going to parties primarily. It took Lillian two months to convince her to come along. As she sat in the corner, a glass of beer in her hand, Susan felt angry at her friend. She should've pointed out her outfit was ridiculous. But Lillian was too nice to say anything like 'Do you ever look in the mirror?'
'Mind if I sit here?'
The voice startled Susan out of her musings. She'd seen the guy before, he was in Lillian's Psychology class. Mike or Mick or something. A bit short, but not bad. And he had beautiful hands.
He offered to get her a refill and they talked for a while and than he asked her to dance. Maybe it was the beer, maybe it was the attention – but she felt like floating as they danced. She wasn't much of a dancer, but neither was he. He made her laugh. After three or four songs, she caught sight of Lillian smoking by the window. Lillian winked at her.
She wasn't under Mom's roof anymore.

Written for the Freewrite challenge initiated by the amazing @mariannewest. Check out her blog and join us.