Break In My Heart

25. Concealer and Conversations

"Addi, sit still!"

"I'm trying but you're literally stabbing my eyeball!"

"You're literally stabbing my eyeball,'" Azalea mocked as she rolled her eyes. Her grip on my chin tightened as she forced my head up so she could get the awkward angle on me she wanted. "I'm almost done." She continued bouncing the sponge– some kind of beauty wedge? Beauty angular?– under my eye to blend out the concealer.

Last night while I was sketching, a secret talent I'd picked up from Papa but didn't do often, I'd made the decision to go back to school. Between the shading and strokes of the image, I found a drawing of Tyler looking back at me, frozen mid-laugh. A laugh I missed so much that my body ached. It wasn't fair that I was wallowing in self-pity at home while Tyler, as Azalea had told me, was still at school, caught in the monumental shadow of the closet that he had to remain in while Kyra lurked around every corner threatening to yank him out.

He couldn't face it alone. Not when I was the one who brought it upon him.

However, as Azalea nicely put it, I looked so sleep deprived that I made lawyers and doctors look like well-rested people. So, yesterday after she dumped all the homework I'd missed on my desk, she dragged me to the CVS a block away and picked out new concealer, and something called setting powder for me. Although I already knew the art of concealing unwanted blemishes, spots, and hickies, Azalea claimed that the art of under-eye concealer was one that took many tries to perfect. Something about cracking and blending it right or something.

She neglected to mention, however, that she'd be assaulting my eye sockets for nearly five minutes straight.

"Good, now close your eyes. I don't want the powder to get in your eyes and make you look even more sleep deprived, which I don't think is possible, but I never thought you'd willingly put makeup on you, so who knows?"

I flipped her off before I closed my eyes. I felt something soft swipe under my eyes for a few moments before she proudly announced, "Done!"

I slowly opened my eyes before she let out a squeal and turned me around to face the mirror of her vanity.

I looked...good. Like, better than good. I looked better than I could've dreamed, even with a full night's sleep. And to make things better, you couldn't even tell I had any product on. Bags? Who is she? I don't know her.

"Look, it's not a lot but see? You can't even tell the bags were there."

"Yeah, you did a good job–"

"Don't do that!" She chastised as she swatted my hand away from my newly concealed under eyes. "It's makeup, not magic, don't touch it. Now, next time we'll work out those brows and you'll be a show stopper."

I rolled my eyes. "Whatever, I'm perfect. Thanks, Azalea."

"Yeah, yeah, now leave. I need a bit of time to myself before school," she said as she all but picked me up and threw me out of her bedroom.

I chuckled as I granted her wish. I walked back into my room and grabbed my backpack from the foot of my bed, ignoring the sketchbook and various pencils that were still scattered all over my bed from my restless night.

I made my way to the kitchen where I heard my fathers' voices along with another one that was far too deep to be either Emerson's or Adryan's but not deep enough to be another adult's. It was familiar, but in the exhausted haze that my mind was clouded in, I couldn't pinpoint it.

Curious, I walked into the kitchen, just to see Ian sitting at my kitchen table conversing with my dads who were making their morning coffee. Once Padre saw me he smiled. "Hi, Addison."