"She isn't always, but she's my mom," Tatum replied, watching Frankie smoking for a moment. "Well, she's not my mom, but she's.. you know what I mean. She's still my parent. She's family. I don't want to piss her off, it's just one night," she offered. Standing up for herself just never seemed like an option, and when she really thought about it, that probably started at home. She always did what her parents wanted, when they were watching.

She had always kept up appearances. They didn't even know she smoked, for christ's sake. She had no idea how she had gotten so good at hiding from them, everything from them, it was like second nature. Even if she was coming out of her shell more this year, old habits died hard.

When Frankie gave her that challenging look, Tatum paled quickly, coughing a little bit on some smoke. "Don't! Seriously, I don't care that much," she pleaded, even if it wasn't true. If anyone knew how miserable these dresses made her, it was Frankie. Lying to her was sort of pointless.