The Timeline

34.

February 27th, 2016:

"Look, Theodore. Your mom's dolling herself up to go out with a friend and yet she won't admit that she wants to impress him."

Staring at herself in the mirror, Claire rolled her eyes, only managing to not mess up her lipstick by an inch because her hand stopped itself in time. She sent an exasperated glance to David, who was standing right behind her, holding Theodore with his right arm propped behind his back holding him against his chest and his left hand pointing to Claire as Theodore stared at her with his little hand in his mouth and his wide solemn eyes taking her in and studying each of her movements.

"For the hundredth time, David. I'm not dolling myself up. I'm simply... wearing make-up." - Claire answered, holding up her lipstick. - "Which is also cheap as hell because the brand Jack gifted me is... too expensive. For now, we hope." - she muttered the end of the phrase, but David caught it anyway.

"Amen." - he answered her, nodding his head as solemnly as if he had been preaching mass on Sunday. - "But... making-up is the literal definition of dolling oneself up. I would know, I love wearing make-up when I go out."

Claire made a pause as she looked at herself in the mirror, carefully looking for the right words to say. - "Yeah." - she had to agree, although begrudgingly. - "But there's nothing wrong with it."

"Never said there was something wrong with it." - David immediately answered.

"The way you said it, implied there might be something wrong with wearing make-up to go out with a friend."

"No, no it didn't. If you interpreted it that way, though...." - David's eyebrows starting moving suggestively on his forehead, going up and down, Theodore staring at them transfixed by the movement.

"Shut up! I didn't. You're just a fucking tosser." - Claire huffed out.

David gasped, faking outrage at her potty mouth and his free hand went up to cover one of Thedore's ears who let out a confused 'hammam' at the gesture, looking at his mother for help. - "The baby!" - David reprimanded her.

Claire rolled her eyes and went back to applying her lipstick.

It had been like that - or varying degrees of that - for the entirety of the previous week, leading up to that night: her going out with Harry.

Perhaps, telling her friends had been a bit of a mistake because obviously they had blown the entire thing way out of proportion, starting to tease her and do her head in, joking about her ending up splashed on the front page of TheDailyMirror or TheSun or some other rubbish tabloid, labeled as 'Harry's new mystery girl!' and becoming the new enemy of the entire Twitter population - some other social media as well, but the majority of the crazy people seemed to be on Twitter most of the time.

And not only that! Her friends - David mostly, Fabian less, Jacopo somewhere in the middle - also were treating that night as a date. And no matter how many times Claire reminded them that it was not a date, that she and Harry were going out as friends to celebrate his birthday, they just wouldn't stop - David, mostly.

"Right, then why didn't he invite us too?" - he would say. Or, also, "A month later?"

Claire absolutely hated the whole thing because it turned something so fun and done out of a good heart on Harry's part - cheering her up after what had happened the previous week and spending time with her as he had promised they'd do once One Direction would be over - into something weird and awkward.

What if her friends would start teasing her in front of Harry? That would've been terrible, immature and it would've made Harry uncomfortable. The last thing he wanted out of that night was for it to be considered a date.