The Quiet Sister✔️

7. Finding the Real Nola

Why was she so angry?

She had a great life compared to most. Close relationship with her sisters. A nice family home she lived in rent-free. Smarts and brains to excel in college. Looks that seemed to catch her hot guys. And enough money in her account even though she never worked a day in her life.

Why was she so angry?

She pondered this as she took to the sparring bag in the basement at her house. If she was not studying for her classes, she was training her body. It helped her clear her thoughts.

Was she still angry over losing her sister?

She imagined the bag was cancer and she was going to defeat it. After a few rounds, she paused to adjust her gloves on her hands, and sweat poured down her sports bra and rippled abs.

Was she angry about what that monster had done to her family?

She imagined the bag was TA's face and pounded it so hard she feared it would fall from the ceiling it was drilled into.

She grabbed the bag and stopped punching it, leaned into it, and started to cry. She hated everything. The world was so fucked up. Why did bad things happen to good people? Ashley had a child, and her daughter A'tiyah was left motherless.

The look on her face when they explained that her mother passed on, she understood that feeling. Losing her mother years ago still felt fresh to her. It felt like deja vu when they had to tell A'tiyah. All she could do was comfort her and tell her it was okay.

It was not okay! It would never be okay.

She took off her gloves and tossed them in a bin. She grabbed a fresh white towel and dabbed it over her sweaty face. She grabbed her bottle of enhanced, flavored water with energy and protein mix to help her recover. She gulped down the last half of the bottle.

She headed upstairs to her bathroom, turning on the shower. She undressed and tossed her stinky workout clothes into a hamper.

The house was so quiet since she was the only one there. She missed her sisters and wished they all were home with her, but they had lives. She did not.

She showered, washed her hair then wrapped a towel around herself.

With nothing to do and no plans, she went into the kitchen, grabbed a prepped container of food and went to the living room, and turned on the television to enjoy her cold, grilled chicken breast and steamed asparagus. Food was fuel, to help her body stay strong, it didn't have to taste good.

There was nothing on TV that she wanted to watch, so she went to her phone to watch TikToks. Interesting, it was a great place to study people. She was not there for entertainment, she was there to learn about human behavior. It was better than TV shows where people were "acting" crazy. She wanted to be able to spot the psychos in real life, pretending to be normal.

She thought of Ronan she met after class the other day. Maybe he was psycho pretending he was normal by taking the class. For some reason, she sensed he was not.

Then why did she reject him?

She found herself on Tone's TikTok page. He still was the hottest guy she had ever seen. He had to know he was that flyboy type that girls would swoon over. Now he was locking his hair and for some reason, that made him hotter.

He was still hanging with that girl, Riyah.

He knew she wanted him that night at the Grammys. Compared to her, Nola felt like the ugly duckling she always felt like.

But she knew she was not ugly, why couldn't she shake that feeling?

She dropped her phone off the table and then stomped to her room.

"I'm so tired of this pity party!"

She opened her closet and went through her clothes. Everything was so blah, no clothes that even fit her correctly since her body was now a lean, mean, toned fighting machine. Everything fit her loose or too tight around her now broad shoulders. Nothing was flattering to her small, flat stomach. She was not giving "I'm a twenty-one-year-old hottie."

She pulled out everything that did not work for her in a pile on the floor. When she realized that was nearly all of her things,  she smacked her forehead.

She grabbed her favorite tracksuit pants, a t-shirt, and a hoodie jacket. Threw on socks and her tennis shoes, ran her fingers through her still-wet hair, grabbed her purse and keys then left the house.

She headed directly to her sisters' mall, Ice Palace. She refused to shop anywhere else since it opened. It was Springfield's second major mall ever. It was still the it place to be seen so most days it was jammed packed.

People wanted to catch a glimpse of Kitty or Icee or one of the Kelly sisters, so she had to stay incognito. Being the least famous Kelly sister helped.

She was able to walk freely in the mall and shop. The first stop was the KStyle Fashions store of course, for all the hip clothes that her sisters help to create. They had everything there, even socks and shoes. She ran up her card but had no worries about it. Both her brother-in-laws competed with each other dropping money into her account.

Then she headed to the make-up store. She was not much for make-up but it was time to try new things. One of the salespeople recognized her immediately.

"Nola Kelly!'

"Shh," she said to her. "I don't need people to know who I am."

"It's cool," the girl said. "We were told in training if any of you guys come to the store, we are not to make a big deal about it."

"Great." She knew she had to thank her sister for that.

"What are you looking for, how can I help?

She looked over at the girl. Young, maybe her age, Latina, but she was not sure. She was tallish, thicker, and dressed head to toe like she was about to walk a runway. Hair laid. Face beat. She was gorgeous.

"Hey, can you help me look like you?"

She laughed. "Honey, you don't need to look like me, you need to look like you. Now if you want help with enhancing the beauty that's already here, I got you."

Her name was Tori, short for Torricita and she was Puerto Rican. She was twenty-one and dropped out of college at Missouri State so instead enrolled in beauty school and was doing that while she worked at the mall. She seemed so chill.

Tori helped her with picking make-up and what it did and even did her make-up for free. The whole time they talked and laughed together like old friends.

"Wow! Girl, you did your thing!" She barely recognized herself.

"Nola, you're so pretty! I hope you see that even without all the makeup."

Her sisters, her brothers-in-law, and even Tone had been trying to tell her that. She never listened. It was time to start seeing it for herself.

"Thanks for all your help. You're so cool and I don't have any girl friends I can hang with...I mean, my sisters, but their family you know, they can tell me anything."

"Girllll! I will keep it real with you. I ain't got to lie Craig!"

She quoted Friday and they both went into a fit of laughter. She needed this. She needed her. Hopefully, she found a new friend.

A/N: Nola will do lots of soul-searching. She will find that she is more than her sisters shadow.