Unconditional Validation

Chapter 8

"Oh my god. I thought we were about to get grounded for life!" Skyler exclaimed nervously.

"Yeah that was making me hold my breath," I agreed with my sister.

"I really hope this party doesn't turn out to be a bad one. I don't want to take a chance of anything jeopardizing our current agreement," Skyler deeply sighed in exhaustion.

"Me too! I'm so tired of overworking myself and showing off these 'talents'," I exclaimed with exhaustion as well.

"Now that's something we both can agree on!" Skyler and I both let out a little chuckle.

It's a known fact that triplets and twins hardly ever disagree on things. However, since the launch of our careers, our situation is a rare case because of how Ryder is left out of everything. It sucks and I wish it was different, but that's how life goes, right?

"What time is the party tonight?" Skyler asked me, pulling me out of my thoughts.

"To be honest, Justin didn't even tell me when to come", I facepalmed with a small whine.

"Why don't you text him to ask when we should come?" Skyler questioned as I pulled out my phone

"Yeah I should," I said with a small smirk.

I opened up my conversation with Justin to shoot him a message. We started with our usual greetings to each other. I mentioned that Skyler and I didn't know exactly what time to head over to his place. The response he gave me made me shake my head with a chuckle. It turns out for the past week he was beating himself up trying to remember what he forgot to tell us regarding the party. After a few good back and forth laughs he went ahead and sent a time.

"What's so funny, lover boy?" Skyler smirked.

"Oh nothing, he said he had a voice in his head telling him that he forgot to do something, which was telling me the time", I chuckled a bit.

"Oh", Skyler smiled at the funny moment, "What time did he tell you by the way?"

"Oh yeah, he said around 8 pm", I responded to her question with a smile.

"Okay, good", Skyler sighed while standing up from sitting upon my bed.

"Why's that?" I curiously asked Skyler.

"Because a girl's gotta get ready, duh" Skyler smirked with a funny, odd voice. She flipped her hair and walked out to her room. I laughed at her giggly craziness and looked at the time on my phone.

"It's only 12:30!" I called out to her, but she, of course, didn't hear me. I felt my stomach rumble a bit.

I looked at the perfectly wrapped gift for Justin, and I secretly hoped everything would go well at his birthday party. For the time being, however, I needed to get something to eat since I hadn't eaten anything before the long family argument. Considering I was mentally preparing myself and retaining my energy for the party later, I just ordered some Dunkin' to the house. While I was waiting for my order, I decided to make Justin a homemade birthday card with my exceptional art skills. I went to his Instagram for inspiration for what to draw. After a short bit of scrolling, I found the perfect image. It was from over the summer when his picture was taken in the city's Brooklyn Botanical Gardens. He was standing in front of a very tall cherry blossom tree that looked really full with its blossoms and leaves.

The perfect photo to draw for Justin! I smiled to myself.

I first sketched an outline of the blossom tree and Justin. I only wanted it to be focused on him since it's for his birthday. Once I was done with finding the perfect outline, I lightly erased the extra lines and darkened the lines to get things ready for coloring them in with colored pencils. No, I don't have the Crayola or crappy generic colored pencils. I have the top of the line colored pencils from Caran d'Ache that have really great pigment. The doorbell rang, pulling me out of my train of thoughts about art and the drawing, insinuating that my food was here. I quickly ran downstairs to grab it. I took it from the driver and thanked her for her time. Swiftly, I ran back upstairs before anyone else could ask me if I got them food as well. After unpacking the items out of the bag and taking a sip of my iced coffee, I finished darkening the outline. When I was finally finished with that part of his personalized drawing, I decided to take a short break to eat. I ended up getting myself a vanilla long john and a sausage breakfast sandwich.