Am I Pretty Yet?

Chapter Nine

This chapter has been edited 08/12/16

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"How much water are you drinking every day?" Richel questioned, her face inches away from mine.

I moved away from her, taking a step back and stumbling into a shelf of skin products. Red packets of oatmeal scrub tumbled off of their racks and clattered onto the white tile floor of the drug store we were in. The fluorescent lighting flickering in the ceiling was not helping to ease my nerves. Then, there was also the fact that Parker was flirting with the cashier by talking about Skittles.

Everything about this very moment was distracting me from what was trying to be done: finding the right products for my face. We had originally been sitting at her kitchen table doing homework, or rather I was the one doing homework and Richel was flicking her thumb along her phone screen. But as soon as I'd told her I'd made it into the Melway round, she had gone into hyperactive mode and began incessantly asking me questions about everything. And by everything, I mean everything.

She'd yelled at Parker to get dressed and be our chauffeur for the day, which led us to our current destination: the nearby drug store that held not only pharmaceutical supplies but also rows and rows of cosmetics, as well as office supplies in Aisle Five. I'd begged Richel for us to take a tiny detour to look at the set of notebooks, but she stayed put.

"I don't know. Two water bottles?" I guesstimated.

"Two bottles?" she repeated in disbelief. "That's it? You need to be drinking two liters a day, Nina!"

"Why?" I scoffed, adding a bag of cotton balls to our shopping cart. In it were already two tubs of water that I apparently needed to finish within a certain time limit, nail polish remover, and now - an oatmeal face scrub, from the same red packets that had toppled to the floor.

"Because we need to keep you hydrated twenty four seven. Your skin needs to glow. Right now, it's not exactly glowing."

"What is she, a lamp?" a voice snorted. Richel gritted her teeth in annoyance, but I turned around, knowing full well that Parker would be standing there with his arms folded and a smirk on his lips. It was his go to stance.

"What happened to Mrs. Parker Deangelis, the cashier?" Richel shot back, sending him a sickly sweet smile.

He sent the same one back to her, and I coughed to hide the laugh climbing up my throat. Parker glanced at me, in which I fumbled and pretended to be quite interested in a nail polish color called Plump. Richel gasped, running over to me and grinning.

"Yes! Finally, your inner beauty pageant is blossoming."

Parker rolled his eyes. "That is the dumbest sh-"

"Thanks," I quickly said. Parker raised an eyebrow at my sudden interruption.

When I was younger, I had always wished and prayed to have a sibling. Someone to look after, to teach, to lead. That was during an age when I used to wish my parents would get back together. Seeing Parker and Richel bicker and butt heads at every second possible made me question all of that wishing. I wondered when was the last time they had actually sat down and had a real conversation. I also wondered if their lack of mutual connection was the reason why Parker had such difficulty opening up to Richel about what was going on between their parents - what was really going on.

Parker grumbled something beneath his breath, but he ducked his head down and stalked off to the other end of the aisle. I sighed in relief. I felt like I had this duty to be the balance between them, to make sure that they weren't always annoying one another. People can only argue for so long until it turns into real hatred.