Sorry about the delay, i was revising, working on other things and writing a new short story - check it out! 'Endless Summer.'
Thanks for your support and enjoy the chapter! Don't forget to comment, vote & fan!
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Chapter 11
I’d vowed to keep an eye on Bree from now on, we all had.
She had gotten better over the course of the few days after she’d told us the truth behind her pain. She seemed happier in herself, her old smile was back, and it lit up her brown eyes.
Everything was in a balance now, my home life was great, school was even better now, and Bree was content in herself.
The only problem that was really putting pressure on my tiny mind was the Jake shaped one.
I sighed again. Louder than I’d thought. Most of the bus turned around to see what was troubling me.
“You ok Tabby?” Jake asked. He looked confused.
“Um, yeah.” I said, turning away before my head started to burn.
Paloma laughed like a crazy. I glared at her.
“Yeah, well that’s normal.” Jake mumbled, even more confused than he was before.
Bree gave me a look. “She’ll tell you later.” Paloma managed to say through her crazy giggling.
Bree grinned, she had obviously caught on.
“Don’t I get to know then?” Jake said with mock annoyance.
“Sorry Jakey-boy, this is strictly girls talk, and I don’t think you’d want to know.”
Paloma nudged me in the ribs. I kicked her back, hard.
That set her off again. I turned to Jake, who looked very shocked, confused and scared by her demented puppy behaviour.
He caught my eye and smiled awkwardly. I looked toward Paloma and rolled my eyes. He laughed.
“So my house at five guys, right?” asked Paloma.
We’d made plans yesterday to all meet up after school Friday, and Paloma offered considering she’s always round everyone else’s house.
“Am I still allowed to come?” Jake asked.
“Yeah, at five, girls are coming at four thirty.” Paloma winked.
“You won’t miss much, party plans.” Bree said.
“Party? What the..?” I started, but sadly never got to finish considering Paloma trod on my foot.
“Yeah, your birthday you freak.”
“I don’t want a party, I’ve told you a billion times.”
“Yes you do, it’s the most important birthday ever Tabby! Finally sixteen! You think we’d let you off that easily? Ha! I think not.”
“I don’t care if I’m finally sixteen or not, I don’t even have enough friends to invite to this party.” I stated.
“Yes you do, primary friends?”
“Yeah, that I haven’t seen since I was seven.” I said crossing my arms defiantly.
“You have! We live in the same place, you must have seen them around town and stuff, I always do.”
“Yeah, but they probably don’t even recognise me considering I’m now nine inches taller and don’t wear pink dresses anymore.”
“So? I’m sure they’ll be well happy to come along and see us all again. We haven’t really changed that much, give or take some braces and added height.”
“True.” Bree said. She was being so quiet; I forgot she was sitting right next to us.
“See, Bree agrees with me. It’ll go fine. And anyway what’s the date today, huh Tabby?”
I frowned at her, confused. “It’s the twenty. Ninth. Oh Crap.” I said.
“Exactly, your birthday is a week away, and you haven’t thought about it at all have you?”
“I’ve had a lot on my mind okay?” I said.
“Yeah I know, that’s why Jake and I took the liberty in calling your mum the other week and starting to plan it.” Paloma grinned.
I had to be honest, I was shocked. “So was it supposed to be a surprise?!” I asked “’Cos you sorta just ruined it!”
“Well, no. I wanted to plan with you, but as you said, you had a lot on your mind, so me and Jake went ahead without you and planned on adding you in to do the final touches.”
“You are crazily amazing, do you know that?” I smiled at her widely.
“Ha, I know.” she grinned back.
***
“Hey Tabby, Paloma’s upstairs waiting for you.” her sister Kayleigh smiled as she opened the door.
“Thanks.” I smiled back.
You never saw Kayleigh much. She was eighteen, but still lived at home. She preferred to sit in her room and listen to music, or draw. She was an amazing artist, she wanted to go to Art College but couldn’t get in, she told me once.
“Do you want a drink?” She called from the kitchen.
“No, I’m good thanks.” I replied.
“Ok then. Just help yourself if you want anything.” She said.
She headed for the stairs. I followed her up to Paloma’s room.
Paloma’s family may have only been her, her sister and parents but her house was big enough for about eight people. There were three spare rooms each used for different functions; one for games, one for the study, and one for what Paloma liked to call ‘random junk’, where there was a giant pile of boxes that hadn’t been opened since she moved here thirteen years ago.
The hallway leading to the end room was painted a sky blue, Mrs Hall’s choice. It always reminded me of summer. Lots of pictures hung there, quite a few of me actually, now I came to think of it. I smiled at them in turn as I passed.
I reached the end of the hall and knocked on the door. The sign tacked to the middle said ‘Enter at own Risk’. I knew exactly why.
“Come in!” Paloma called brightly.
“Hey!” I said I squeezed through the door.
She’d blocked the doorway with a pile of folders; presumably coursework she’d not got round to doing yet.
“Woops, sorry Tab, I’ll move those.” She said, seeing my struggle and shoving the folders on her already cluttered desk.
“S’okay. I see you haven’t tidied since I’ve last been here then?” I joked, scanning the room.
Paloma grinned sheepishly. “Heheh, not really.”
I laughed. Paloma’s room closely resembled a bomb site. It was in this state permanently. I looked down; I didn’t think I’d seen her carpet properly for about three years. Clothes were pretty much covering every possible corner; Paloma didn’t know how to use a wardrobe. Homework was lying next to her bedside table, obviously waiting to be done late at night just before bed. The table itself was covered in CDs, half of them mine I think, and empty glasses collecting dust. Her desk was close to collapse, piles of coursework stacked precariously on top of each other.
Her bedroom wall, unlike mine, was chock full of posters of her loves; All Time Low, You Me At Six, Linkin Park and Fall Out Boy. This was the only place where there was the slightest amount of order in the whole room.
Paloma coughed. “Yeah ok, no need to rub it in.”
I laughed again.
“Anyway Tabby, I have your party plan here under my bed.” Paloma coaxed me over on to the floor.
I walked over and sat down. Paloma pulled out a large sheet of rolled up paper swiftly. I was surprised she’d even been able to find it under all the unmentionable junk under there.
“There, found it.”
“I’m surprised you know where anything is in here!”
“I’ll have you know Tabby, I know exactly where everything is in this room.” Paloma said defiantly.
“Yeah?” I asked, curious to see what answer she came up with.
“Yes, it’s all on the floor.” She winked.
I laughed again. To be honest, I hadn’t laughed so much in ages.
“So glad I amuse you.” Paloma said. “Anyway, your party plans. It’s all here on this very sheet of paper. Take a look. It took me and Jake ages you know!” she said, unrolling the paper carefully.
I looked on in awe as she uncovered the secret sheet of massive paper. Covered in magazine cut outs, glitter and photo shots of different locations, I stared at the paper wide eyed. I ran my hands over the page, glitter sticking to my skin. I held it up in front of my eyes and watched it sparkle in the sun that was pouring through the window.
“This is amazing.” I breathed.
“Really? You think? Jake went out on Saturday to take the pictures.” Paloma grinned.
“I can’t believe you’ve done all this, for me.”
“Duh, you’re special, it’s your sixteenth Tabby, it’s worth every hour I’ve spent sitting up here.”
I was speechless.
“Here, I’ll take you through all the stuff.” Paloma said pointing at the top corner. “Dresses.”
My gaze followed her finger.
“I took most of them out of the Fashion magazines I had, like Vogue, but I think I’ve seen this one in Topshop.” She said pointing to the glittery green dress circled in bold metallic marker.
“You have such good taste!” I said.
“Actually, Jake picked it out.” Paloma giggled like a six year old.
I could feel myself going red. “Anyway.” I said, swiftly changing the subject. “Dress is done; we can go shopping at the weekend. What about the location? These photos look awesome!” I exclaimed
“Yeah, Ri’s friend has a massive garden. She’s away next week on holiday, so I was thinking we could go there and hang some fairy lights, play some music, buy some beer, dance, etcetera, etcetera! You feel it Tabby?” she asked.
“Sounds great!” answered a voice that wasn’t mine.
We both turned around to see Bree standing by the door. “Sorry I’m late. My brother dropped me here and had only just woken up, lazy rat.”
“It’s fine.” I said.
“Yeah, you haven’t missed much, we had just started discussing the location of the party, how do you like this giant garden?” Paloma was being extremely polite.
“It looks amazing!” Bree said. She seemed strangely peppy today, almost…high.
“That’s what we thought.” Paloma said. I could see she had noticed what I had too.
“Well, that’s like, uh, sorted I guess?” I questioned Paloma, hoping she’d say yes.
“Not exactly. We need food, music, guest list…”
I gulped.
Paloma laughed. “Your face Tabby! Joking, I’ve got your Pendulum CDs at the ready and all that other stuff, food was done at least a month ago and guest list is done.”
“But who did you invite?! I barely know anyone!”
“As I said, our primary friends. They were thrilled to hear from me about your bash. Trust me, it’s gonna be amazing.”
“But, how did you call them all? Do they even remember me?!” I was panicking ever so slightly at he thought of having to introduce myself to all these people who should have known me but had probably forgotten.
“Of course Tabby! Most of them have seen you around town anyway. We’ve all just gotten so caught up in our own lives that we forget about all the friends we made before secondary school.” Paloma said matter of factly.
I nodded. “I guess. I just can’t believe it.” I said in awe.
“Ahh, you can thank me on the night.”
Bree hadn’t spoken much through our whole conversation. “You okay?” I asked.
“Umm, kinda, no. I need to be somewhere.” she answered.
“Well before you go, Tabby needs to tell you something. Actually scrap that, I want to tell you something. Tabby wants Jake.” Paloma blurted.
I almost swallowed my tongue. I could feel my face getting hotter by the second.
Bree looked up and laughed. “Seriously? And everyone thought we were dating. That’s so cute!” she cooed.
“Keep your voice down!” I said through gritted teeth.
She laughed again “Look, I’m really sorry, I need to be somewhere else.” she said, getting up and hugging me. “Sorry Tabby. I’ll see you guys tomorrow, yeah?”
“Sure, see you tomorrow.” I said, watching her leave.
When she was sure she’d gone Paloma turned to me with a face that could’ve killed a puppy. “You let her walk all over you.”
“No, I just let her go.” I said.
“You should have told her to stay! She can’t just keep deserting us like this, we need her here.”
“Well, she has other friends, doesn’t she? She needs to see them too.” I said, though I knew her other friends were the ones she was most probably smoking with.
“Hmph.” Paloma said, putting the plan onto her bed now we’d done with it.
“Hey guys! Did I miss much? I thought Bree was here?” Jake said, walking through the door and dumping his coat on the floor as he went.
“Nah, she went off to smoke pot with Calvin.” Paloma said acidly.
“Umm, she had to be somewhere, she stayed for a bit though.” I said trying to make Bree not sound like too much of a deserter.
Jake nodded sympathetically. “Right. Ah well, doesn’t matter, I’m here now. I hope you’ve had your girly chat or whatever.” he said, checking his hair out in the mirror behind the door.
“God, you’re so vain. And your hair needs cutting.” Paloma said, getting up and ruffling it so his fringe was off his face. “There, now you can see.” she said.
She was right; you could see his green eyes again instead of his mass of black emo hair.
“No way, I look gay like this.” he said, flattening it down again.
“It needs re-doing as well. That streak is the most disgusting and unflattering thing I’ve ever seen. I swear you got rid of it. I guess it made an unexpected comeback though.” Paloma said, wrapping the single blonde streak round her index finger.
“Nah, it’s fine!” he said, pulling away and waving her off.
“No, I think it looks kinda weird and girly.” I added.
Jake turned with mock sadness on his face “But Tabby! I thought girls like that sort of thing!”
Paloma laughed. “Not really.” I said honestly. “It makes you look kinda feminine.” I grinned cheekily.
“I guess you’re right.” he sighed, “I’ll get my sister to do it, she’s good with stuff like that.” he said.
“We were just talking about her. And you for that matter.”
I gulped. “What did you say about me huh? That I’m totally and utterly handsome, blonde streak or not and that you’d all love to date me but that would be awkward because we’re friends?” he looked straight at me as he said that.
I could feel my ears going red, at least it wasn’t my face right?
“Totally.” Paloma winked, glancing sideways at me.
Jake looked dumb-struck. “Who?!” he said, genuinely shocked.
“Joking! We were just talking about Ri’s mate’s garden and your amazing photography skills! As if any of us would fancy our best mate!” she laughed, though out of the corner of my eye, I saw both of them glance at me again.
“Yeah, exactly!” I said, though me and Paloma both knew that wasn’t marginally true.
And somehow, I think Jake had caught on too…