Melody Of Secrets

02

Good friends, good books, and a sleepy conscience; this is the ideal life.
-Mark Twain

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TWO

"I mean, I mean... how could someone do that to me... to anyone?!" Chloe wails, burying her face in the plush pillows on her bed.

I shoot a panicked look at Lee, silently begging him to take the wheel -I'm not the best at handling these sorts of things -but he just shakes his head and gets up.

My eyes widen. Where are you going? I mouth frantically.

To get the ice cream. He shrugs and walks out of the room, leaving me with a distraughtly sobbing Chloe.

I scoot over to her, and awkwardly pat her head. "It'll be okay, Klo," I say in the most sympathetic voice I can muster.

She lifts her head up, her hair a tangled mess around her face, and her mascara a dribbing mess on her brown cheeks. In short, she was a mess. "How can you say that, Ska? Do you even know what happened?"

"Well, no......"

I mean, all she'd been doing from the moment Lee and I came in to her room was cry, so nobody could really blame us for not knowing what the situation was.

"Exactly! You don't! So don't go saying that it will be okay!" She snaps.

I purse my lips in annoyance. This happened every time Chloe had an EDIB; she'd suddenly switch from Cutesy&Cuddly Mode to Ultra-Bitchy Mode.

So I do the most sensible thing I can think of.

I grab one of the magazines lying on her bedside table, and whack her on the head with it.

She immediately stops crying and stares at me in shock. I raise an eyebrow at her and she slowly asks, "What was that for?"

"To shut you up," I answer simply. I peruse through my purse and take out a water bottle and a packet of makeup wipes. "Here."

Chloe slowly takes them from me, sniffling the entire time. "Now," I say, lying beside her on the bed. "Take a deep breath, drink some water, and clean yourself up. I mean, have you seen yourself?"

I indicate to her reflection in the dresser mirror. Chloe's eyes widen in horror as she practically rips open the makeup wipes packet. I grin. If there's one thing Chloe can't stand, it's not looking good.

By the time Chloe's done 'fixing' herself up -cleaning up her ruined makeup, and taming her wild brown curls -Lee's back with two tubs of Ben & Jerry, and some packets of Skittles.

He eyes me, wordlessly asking me how I managed to handle her. I grin and mouth, Magic. He rolls his eyes, and addresses Chloe, while simultaneously opening a tub of white chocolate mint ice cream.

"So now that we've managed to calm your -way over-the-top , I have to say -EDIB, how about you tell us what happened?"

"Sans the tears," I warn, holding up the magazine threateningly.

She glares at me with her small dark eyes, before sniffling slightly and saying, "Derek dumped me." She pauses as she registers our unsurprised expressions. To be fair, Derek's whole demeanour screamed jerk; we kind of expected it to happen at some time or another. Chloe digs her spoon into the ice cream. "Over a Snapchat video."

Lee and I gasp. Chloe nods, angrily spooning ice cream into her mouth. "Yeah, I know right? And get this, it wasn't even a five-second Snapchat video!"