Ten of Me ✓

Eleven

NICOLE

I stayed in the store for a while, taking deep breaths and watching the rain pound down on the pavement outside. I should have been able to enjoy it--there was a double rainbow on the horizon and the sun was somehow still beaming down, reflecting on the puddles on the sidewalk and sparkling so much it almost blinded me. But my tears kept falling, and my dripping wet hair kept turning more and more brown, and I knew that even though my eyes were still blue and my shorts were still not my style, I was no longer Audrey. She was gone, and that meant Jazmin, Chloe, Ariana, and Troy had to be gone, too.

It was a long time before I finally checked my phone and saw that it was after six o'clock. There was also a text from an unknown number: Audrey? This is Troy. Is everything ok?

My fingers hovered over the keys, yearning to type something back, anything to let him know that this wasn't all over, but I couldn't. I shoved my phone back in my pocket without deleting or replying to the text, then leaned back up against the wall.

Deep breaths. In, out, in, out. I had to compose myself before I went home.

Finally, when the girls running the store were beginning to close the shop and my tears had tried on my foundation-coated cheeks, I ran a hand through the hair that was half Audrey's and half Nicole's and started home. The puddles on the ground were ankle-deep, and my feet were getting wet through my open-toed wedges as I sloshed through the sidewalk and as the sun set in the distance.

In went my keys into the door, and around they twisted, and then I'd opened the front door and stepped onto the foyer's detailed, polished marble. The air conditioning was on. It was too bright, too clean, too cold. Too normal.

"Nicole?" Dad's face popped around the corner and his eyebrows lifted as he took in my appearance.

I kicked off my shoes, one after the other, into a haphazard pile in front of the door. The heel of one of them hit the white base moulding on the wall and left a long black scratch. "I'm going to shower." My voice came out unlike my own, and I numbly brushed past my father to climb the carpeted stairs.

Dad clearly noticed that something was wrong, and he didn't say anything about my hair color or excessive makeup as I treaded upstairs and shut my bedroom door behind me.

In the safety of my room, I sat down on my bed and pulled my phone back out, then returned to Troy's text. It wasn't that it was long or that he'd said anything overly sweet. It just somehow made me feel better to look at it.

I was just debating finally typing out a reply when my phone buzzed again, except this time, it was a text from Noah.

What's up? Feel like coming over for a while?

My fingers started twitching over the keys again, debating a reply. I glanced at the clock, then in my reflection in one of the many mirrors adorning my bedroom walls.

Okay.

I tossed my phone onto my bed and took out my color contacts before heading over to the shower, swearing to myself that I wouldn't think about Troy, ever again. And yet it felt like his eyes were burned into the back of my head, and the way he had kissed me and the smile of his face when we had laughed in the rain.

I washed out every bit of dye and redid my makeup the way Nicole would before staring at myself in the mirror. I was back to being me--entirely me, without a trace of anyone else. And it felt awful.

It was only just after seven, and I figured Noah and I could figure out dinner, so I slipped past my unquestioning mother on my way out the door and then began the walk to the other side of the neighborhood. Noah lived just a few streets away, and even though I had my license, I found little reason to drive when I could walk just as easily.