Stars - ON HOLD -

Chapter 8. PDA Showcase.

Eliza has been here for eight days now, and slowly but surely my heart is healing. She has helped so, so much and I honestly think that without her, I would have been knee deep in rubbish, with a maggots nest in my hair and pimples the size of beehives.

Okay, maybe that was a slight exaggeration...

Today Eliza and I are going shopping. She's actually made me look decent for once, wearing skinny jeans, white converse, my black crop top and wine coloured sweater. My hair is in a fishtail, starting at the back and continuing over my shoulder, and the slightest amount of makeup. 

We're leaving in a few minutes and I'm sitting on my bed, waiting for Liza to finish her Beauty Routine. I'm on twitter, looking through tweets and re-tweets. Finally she walks in.

"What were you doing, producing the makeup? Sewing the clothes? What took you so long?" I question, raising an eyebrow. She rolls her eyes good-naturedly. 

"What do you think? My eyeliner has to be perfect. Otherwise the entire day is ruined," Eliza comments, in a 'duh' tone of voice.

She looks good today, wearing white super skinny jeans, a sky blue off the shoulder top, blue wedges, white cardigan and her Ray Bans on top of her honey coloured hair. 

"Did you literally bring your entire wardrobe with you?" I ask, standing up and shoving my phone in my bag. 

"Honey, if you think that what I brought with me is my entire wardrobe, you do not know me well at all." She pulls her sunglasses out of her hair and places them on her face, golden strands of hair fluttering down to frame her face. "What are you waiting for? Go, already?" She pushes me out of my room.

She leaves the house and I throw my keys to her. She unlocks the car door and slides into the passenger side. I type in the alarm code and shut the door, locking it behind me. I follow Liza to the car and climb in the drivers' side. I put the key in the ignition and reverse out of my drive. 

"Oh, seatbelt on," Eliza says, eyes wide and fearful. "Don't wanna be a victim of your horrendous driving, do I?" I playfully punch her. 

"Both hands on the wheel!" She mock screams, covering her eyes. I roll my eyes and place my other hand on the wheel.

"How far away is this mall again?" Eliza asks, undoing the window. 

"About an hour and a half? I was thinking we could stop at Starbucks on the way and get a coffee, then maybe get some breakfast in McDonalds?" I check my watch. "If we're quick, we can make it, it's only half nine and breakfast closes at half ten..."

"Sweetie, you had me at Starbucks," Liza says.

We both laugh. I really needed this. 

*********************************************

 An hour and a quarter later, wrappers and empty coffee containers litter the floor of my car. We got to McDonald's at precisely 10:29. And they refused to serve us. 

So naturally, the claws came out. 

Eliza basically shouted down the manager, the servers, the chef, and anyone else who dared to question her. Eventually we got our breakfasts for free, with a free coffee each. 

Five Seconds Of Summer are blasting out of the radio. If you haven't already guessed, I'm kind of ever so slightly totally obsessed with that band...

Ever so slightly.

"So save me, from who I'm supposed to be," I sing at the top of my voice.

"Don't wanna be a victim of authority," Eliza joins in.

"I'll always be a part of the minority,"

"So save me, from who I'm supposed to be,"

"So tell me tell me tell me what you want from me,"

"I don't wanna be another SOCIAL CASUALTY!!!" We both scream out.

Love that song so much...

"How far away are we?" Eliza asks impatiently, pouting. 

"About five minutes," I answer. "Just enough time for one more song! Any suggestions?"

"umm...." Liza ponders, "Good Girls?" 

"OMIGOD YES!!" I almost deafen Eluza with my answer. 

"Jesus! Calm down! Okay!!" She scrolls down the list on my iPod. "Here." 

We're soon singing along again.

"She said to me,

Forget what you thought, 

'Cause good girls are bad girls that haven't been caught,

So just turn around

and forget what you thought 

'Cause good girls are bad girls that haven't been caught!"

As the music dies down I pull into the mall parking lot. It's twelve O'clock and the parking lot is crammed. I finally spot a space and pull into it. We head towards the mall. Eliza glances at me. 

"Ready to have some fun?" 

I nod. We walk toward the doors. 

"Okay," says Liza, suddenly in businesswoman mode, "I've taken the liberty of making a strategic plan as to the order of shops we will be going to. They're in alphabetical order." She roots in her handbag for the list. "First is Abercrombie, next Aeropostale, then, there's American Apparel, Bath and Body Works and Bare Minerals, The Body Shop, The Disney store..."

By the time she's done, we've entered the building, queued in Starbucks for twenty minutes, bought an ice cream from the stand (that took another twenty minutes as the spoiled brat in front of us couldn't make up his mind - eventually he got a scoop of EVERY flavour) and returned to Starbucks.

"...and Victoria's Secret, and then, finally Zara." She looks up from the list. "Ok?"

"Okay, well, see, there's one slight problem..." 

"What?!" Liza shrieks. "What is it?!"

I take a step back to prevent myself from being spat on. "Liza, we're never going to get all that done in one day!"

Eliza stares at me blankly. She walks over to a chair and sits down. 

"Okay," she says, and I breathe out. "Screw the list. Let's just - just go wherever."

"Perfect," I smile. She smiles back. "First though, can we get food? It's like we never had that McDonald's..."

"Sure!" she laughs. We link arms and head to the food court. In front of us on the escalators, there's a couple showcasing their PDA everywhere. 

"Get a room! Seriously," she huffs. 

The girl turns around and smirks. "If you don't like it, don't look," she says in a snotty voice.

Great.

Melanie Holmes.

I wonder who the lucky, lucky (note the sarcasm) guy is.

She spots me, trying to hide behind my hair. "Oh! and here she is, the one and only Murderer in our school, Skai Clove!" 

I hang my head and ignore her. I hear the guy say "What?!"

I look up as he turns around, his icy blue eyes focusing on me, his brown hair messy, a shocked expression on his features. I stop breathing.

Jordan.