Lovely Bones {Sequel to Skinny Love}

True Colors

Emma’s POV

The twister mat was lied down on the hard basement floor as Zak and Wes bring down the paint. I clap my hands together, a wide grin showing on my face. I’ve always seen this idea online, but never got around to trying it. I help pour the paint onto the corresponding spots on the mat, not putting too much so the colors wouldn’t run together. That would ruin the whole thing.

“Okay, who’s going first?” Carly asks. We decided to go in groups of three. Avery, Alex, and I stand around the mat waiting for our directions. Zak holds the spinner with Carly on his lap, while Wes sits in the corner like a loner.

“Okay, left foot on green.” I carefully slide my left foot in the paint. My nose crinkles up.

“It’s cold!” I exclaim. The paint squishes between my freshly painted toes, and I start busting out laughing along with everyone else in the room.

“Right hand blue!” And so it continues. Eventually, it doesn’t feel cold anymore, just slimy. The paint made it hard to stay up. I kept sliding all over the place and had to balance myself without purposely knocking Alex or Avery over. I thought about it, but knew how competitive they are, and didn’t want them to hate me for the rest of the day. Once Alex and I had both fallen, and we covered head to toe in colors, Avery was the winner. She found great pride in that, like I knew she would.

“Emma!” I turn around to see Lacie motioning me towards her. I wipe my feet off with a wet towel to prevent staining the floor with mixed colors.

“What’s up?” I ask, wiping my hands on my shorts.

“Okay, so you know how you guys have an interview next week?” I nod. It was with the same magazine we first interviewed with before Finals. Unfortunately, the name slipped my mind. “Well, they heard that you and Toby had a thing, not knowing you guys aren’t together anymore. They want you two to sing a song together.”

“What?”

“It’ll be great publicity for the tour!” She exclaims, obviously trying to brighten my mood on this subject. Though Lacie had to have known this wouldn’t go well.

“So we basically have to pretend we are a couple, but we aren’t?” I ask for clarification.

“Unfortunately, yes.”

“Did you already talk to Toby about this?”

“Marcus is talking to him right now. That’s what are meeting was about this morning with all of the tour managers and publicity people. We had to figure out final details, and work out the interviews and photo shoots. Look, we knew you wouldn’t like it but we thought we would give it a shot. ” She explains. I think for a second. Although I will not enjoy this, I think about my friends. We worked so hard to get this far. If this song will give us more publicity, isn’t it worth it?

“Fine.”

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