Vanilla Chaos

Chapter 19: Lose It

Painting after painting, change after change; I fell deeper in love with the mastermind everyday. The media was catching on at first, it was quite frightening. A camera had caught a tall youth in a black hoodie, for we had foolishly not checked the area before beginning the mural. But the 'Oceané Bleu' investigation had taken a U-Turn, which was ever so convenient for the French criminal. They suspected he was a foreigner, due to his surprisingly good understanding of the English language, and he had used a French alias to try and cover this up - oh, how they couldn't be more wrong. They also suspected he was aged from around eighteen to twenty, simply because Nelly was just that tall. The camera had never seen his innocent, faintly-freckled baby face.

With his haters, came his followers: the ones from all walks of life, from rich to poor, Americans, Brits, Canadians, Brazillians, Spaniards, Germans, and of course, the fellow French. It was all over the news, a beautiful Hollywood actress had even been so inspired by Nelly's "Boys wear masks for Halloween, but they make girls wear them all year." piece, she attended a red carpet event with no make-up on. I had to say, it made me extremely proud to see the boy that I shared my first kiss with sparking a cultural revolution. All of Nelly's paintings before these three weeks in Paris (so far) had had French text, so Monseiur and Madam Rouge didn't suspect a thing. We had been able to keep up this scandal for twenty-one days, now, I was beginning to wonder how long we would be able to keep it up. We could lose it all.

I washed the coal soap off of my face with lukewarm water. It was another gift from Nicki, she had taken me to her favourite organic cosmetic shop on the Champs-Élyeés. I had bought this soap, some 'space' bath bombs and some floral body spray. I dried off my face and proceeded downstairs, to grab my man and say one last goodnight to the disconnected family of the ginger doll who drinks ice-tea, the overly excited mother and the father who didn't say much.

"Nelly-Jerry, Heidi is here!" Nicki yelled out for me.

I awkwardly made my way down the steps, only to be tackled in a hug as soon as I reached the bottom, "Nelly! You're like a giddy puppy."

"I don't care, I love hugs!" I giggled at his remark.

François stayed emotionless, as you would expect, but Marseille threw a light-hearted smile at us and her eyes seemed to scream, "C'EST MIGNON!" or "IT'S CUTE!" - a phrase I had heard her say a heck of a lot these past few weeks. Nelly released me but still kept his arms around my waist from behind and his head head on my shoulder.

"I went to brush my teeth and wash my face, I was gone for a literal minute."

"A literal minute I had to spend watching this ginger bitch play anime games!"

"MANGA GAMES, FOUR EYES!" The red-head in question furiously corrected from her stool at the breakfast-bar.

"Here's a pencil, go draw on your eyebrows, I'm busy, Barbie." He had seen Mean Girls a few too many times.

"Shut up before I snap those twig legs in two."

"Careful you don't break your nose whilst you're at it, then you'll actually need a nose-job, huh?"

Nose job?

"I won this one, Nick, night, biatch." He smirked proudly, took one last sip of coffee and grabbed my hand, dragging me upstairs.

"Goodnight, Dominique!" I laughed, stumbling slightly, and having Nelly grab me, again.

"Bonne nuit, dearest Heidi. Good riddance, Avenelle-Jérôme!"