To grow up...Love...Let Go

Act 3

"Ughhh!" Aurora jolted awake. Laura was standing next to her bed, already fully dressed. "What are you doing?"

"You promised to do my hair." Laura looked at her with her piercing green eyes while holding up a scrunchie. No wonder that had woken Aurora up.

"After I woke up." Aurora brushed hair out of her face—Woke Up? Why hadn't her alarm rung?! What was going on...

She dove for her phone as quickly as she possibly could—

"It's supposed to ring in 15 minutes." Aurora looked at Laura. "Why are you up?"

"What does that matter?" Laura rolled her eyes and sat at the foot of the bed. "You're up now too, there's no point in going back to sleep. Do my hair, please, I want them on that braid you always do... You can get dressed after, then I can do your make-up."

"Okay," Aurora pushed herself up, sighing. "But I'll do my own eyeliner."

"I don't get why you need to have it in that certain angle," Laura rolled her eyes again, "Good thing you don't use a ruler. But seriously, you should ask Jazmin to give you actual classes with hair. Imagine how good you actually could be."

"I am not gonna be a hairstylist." Aurora sighed while she ran a hairbrush through her little sister's hair. "It's way too artistic."

"And braids are not?"

"They have a formula." Aurora shook her head. "Just like, I'm never gonna be professional with make-up. That's your wheelhouse."

"But if you learned, then I wouldn't need a hairstylist or make-up artist for my wedding. Did I show you that one style I found on pinterest...or did I just show that to Ivory...? Anyways, I saved it on my wedding board—"

"Why are you worried about a hairstylist for your wedding?" Aurora laughed. "Mom and Dad are gonna pay, in like ten years when you're actually getting married. Don't let Alex see that board, he might just run away..."

Uncharacterically Laura didn't snark something back, but stayed silent while Aurora was tying her hair back.

"Are we now finally getting to why you were up so early?" She questioned.

"Okay, I couldn't sleep." Laura nodded.

"Because of Alex?"

"He has been acting weirdly—" Laura admitted, "—ever since school started."

"Look, you have a lot of things going on." Aurora said while tying a satin ribbon on the end of Laura's braid, "The team, Blake... It's just a different dynamic from the summer. What would Mom say...? The dynamics have just changed, but if your hearts speak the same languages you can always understand each other, even if you need to learn the language again."

"You sounded exactly like her." Laura started laughing, "But it's not that we don't understand each other... He just feels distant, because...I think there is something going on with his Dad."

"He's a truck captain with the BA Fire," Aurora pointed out, "Of course he has something going on. He sees multiple people die on his watch almost every day, it is not easy to deal with."

"That's what I said, but I don't think Alex believed me." Laura shook her head, "I want to help him."

"How about you text him?" Aurora suggested as she got up from the bed. "Start with that. Now let me get dressed."

"Oh, I googled different ways you can do a tie," Laura said when the girls were walking toward the staircase 15 to 20 minutes later. Laura was struggling with her tie again. "I wish we'd be allowed to do those. The normal straight ties look so boring."