She's A Rainbow

7. the telephone hour

I drag my legs into the room and collapse on the bed; letting my back sink into the covers. I pat my stomach like a drum, patiently waiting for the check-up call Heaven organized.

Then, my phone pings, and I get an instant jolt of energy. He always seems to text at this time.

Aaron sent me some niche theatre meme: a picture of two cards against humanity cards on top of each other saying: "Alto's gain their strength from / drinking the tears of a soprano who did not get a solo."

I sneer, texting him back: not you calling me out when your go to audition song is Santa Fe 😭 🤚🏿sit tf down

He replies with: it's actually come back from dogfight now so 🖕

Finally, my screen gets taken over by Heaven's scheduled Snapchat call. I press accept at the bottom.

"Hey girl, how are you?" She asks.

"I love how you scheduled a call. It's so fancy."

Just as I was about to slip into drowsy mode again, I notice that her tone is off. It's not the calm, monotonous voice that I've come to love. It's slightly wobbly. Unsteady. I fully lock my attention to her.

"Heaven? Are you okay?" I question.

I've never seen her face so droopy. Like a melted oil painting. She wears her usual happy, fairy-inspired fit. Thick white eyeliner crowns her lids. But her eyes are so swollen and red.

"Yeah— I'm okay. Why wouldn't I be okay?" Heaven states wearily.

Then Iris's head pops up on the left. I try my best to suppress an eyebrow raise when I see her. Her stringy, wet hair is wrapped in a pasty orange towel. Tiny, white, acne scar patches top her face like a pepperoni pizza. Slimy, purple, crescent-shaped eye masks stick over her eye bags. The Iris that I know usually doesn't care THAT much about skin care. Well, until the skin whitening incident.

"Heyyy— wait holy fuck." She greets. "What's going on, Heaven? Are you good?"

And finally Sierra's face pops up on the right. She normally wears no makeup at all, but today her skin is smooth and creamy. Her lashes are covered with clumpy, black mascara. Beige shadows blend into her cheekbones and nose, carving them inward. Pink blush colors her cheeks and the tip of her nose, finally followed by a bright, sparkly highlight.

Why the fuck does she look like a product from the E-Girl factory?

"Hiiii!" She warmly says before softening her gaze. "Aww, what happened?"

"Nothing happened," Heaven snaps. "I mean, look at YOU guys. Let's talk about that!"

"Girl, you can tell us what's up. You know that, right?" I say.

Heaven shrugs. "It's nothing. It's stupid. I just lost the writing contest. But I have this project now, so it's no big deal."

"Heaven, we're so sorry," Sierra says. "We're here for you—"

"Nope. I'm fine! I scheduled a call because I wanted to know how everybody was doing with the project. I would've called individually but I thought it would be easier if I got all of y'all at once. So, what's up? Let's talk."