Trouble Times Two

Chapter Seventeen

Saturday

Today Maisie and Dacre were going to be revealing their pregnancy and Donovan and I were currently sat in this party hall, while Arthur, Jess and Nia ran errands in the city.

We were decorating the hall and setting stuff up. 

I could tell that although we had wildly different passions, we both shared a mutual interest in music and art.

I loved music and I understood art.

In his room, I saw the most beautiful and what looked to be original paintings because his signature was at the bottom of the frame.

For the occasion, he had also done a drawing of Maisie and Dacre and it was so beautiful. I stare at it as I blow up some more balloons.

I tie four balloons on a string at a time and then space out each bouquet on the wall. I'm so lucky I was doing the finishing touches and not the whole hall because I'd be here the whole day.

"You like my painting?" Donovan says and even though I want to ignore him, I know I have to make attempts to be civil with him or it'll cause issues for Maisie and Dacre.

"Yeah, it's beautiful." I continue blowing up balloons but he puts a hand on my shoulder and I shrug it off. "Hands to yourself."

"Any criticisms?" I turn back around to face him and the painting and I look at it.

"I'm not someone who has authority to judge. Ask an art expert or a realtor or something." Even though I had an angry personality, it was hiding a very, very sad girl with low self-esteem and a fragile girl who was too scared to trust.

If you'd have asked me as a ten-year-old, who went to school with Donovan Shepherd, I'd have criticised his work. I was one of those people who lived in the background and just blended in well but even then, I wasn't scared to have an opinion. Even when I was starved at wilderness for being a horrible, horrible teenager, which I really wasn't, I wasn't scared to have an opinion.

Now I didn't even want to open my mouth about Donovan or to him anymore but I just had to be put on this stupid exchange with him.

"I've seen your artwork for class. You are an artist." Donovan is really starting to annoy me now.

The door opens and I see Arthur, Nia and Jess.

"Hey Gi, look what I got you." Jess says as she hands me a bunch of baby breaths.

"Thanks Jess." I hug her silently and then find some water to put into it before going back to the balloons.

"They're her favourite. I'm allowed to give my best friend stuff." Jess says as she tuts to Donovan but I can tell that she's joking. She gives him a smile before she and I do the rest of the balloons together.

We put the tables out and start putting the tablecloths on them and then the flower arrangements.

"This feels a little fancy for someone turning twenty-four." Jess says as she eyes me up and down. She knows something is up.

"The Shepherd's like to go big or go home. I've seen pictures of Dacre's twenty-first and I heard about and heard his eighteenth." I point to Donovan who's behind me and she starts to understand. She is correct to a degree, I guess this is also a pregnancy announcement but when they first started planning the party, Maisie didn't know she was pregnant and now she was quite pregnant for someone who'd only found out in the last three weeks herself. She was currently four months.

We finish up by one and Jess and I go back
to the house.

She makes me drive as she wants to me to learn to be more confident when driving.

It's anxiety-inducing but she's proud of me and she states so when we get to the house.

We start getting ready and it takes way longer than we expect because we're laughing and talking, gossiping, about celebrities and events that have happened recently.

I put on my dress finally and she looks at my chest.

"I know you don't like people seeing those." She says as she points to half a tattoo that hasn't been covered by the neckline of the dress.

I get some foundation and cover it up and after a lot of layering, it's gone. I need to buy some more colour corrector after that and buy some tattoo covering foundation instead of using my normal one.

I start to section Jess' hair and we wait for the waver to heat up as we talk about our plans for the Christmas vacation period.

I can tell she's still a little unsure and so am I. I'm not sure I wanted to do anything especially considering how difficult that time was for me. It weighed down on me.

If I just focused on getting ready, maybe I'd start to forget but as I start waving Jess' hair, it's all that I think about. It's consumed my mind.

I wave all the sections and then tie the bottom and middle part of her hair while I braid the top part of her hair. I tie the two braids together and then untie the rest of her hair.

I then sit down and she first of all combs out my thick, curly hair before she braids them into dutch braids and makes sure my flyaways are down and then adds a tiny layer of hairspray and when I say tiny, I mean tiny because I hate hairspray.

I put hairspray in her hair and then she gets her phone out and starts taking some pictures. She takes some of herself, of me and then I take some of her and then we take some pictures together.

She posts it to her instagram and one to her story and we get into the car and I look at them.

I repost her story to mine and add a heart and like the post.

When we get there, we're still early and we just put our coats on and get some of the stuff we needed to bring with us to finish the last little bits.