A life in the Dark

C h a p t e r T w e n t y

F r i d a y 2 5 t h O c t o b e r
________

Beaming from ear to ear, I plonked myself down in my seat behind Harley. It was the holidays! O. M. F***ing G these are the times of year I live for. A whole week of designing both Halloween and Christmas products to sell in the shop-and better than anything, I have no homework.

"You look happy," Harley commented, his dark hair falling in his eyes.

"I know!" I replied, fishing my phone out of my pocket and preparing my music.

"But it's just the holidays! I don't think I've ever seen you quite this happy about it," he interrogated.

"Yeah, but this time I actually have people I can spend time with!" I noticed his face droop a little, the tiniest bit-but I saw it. Then he kinda stopped chatting, pushing back in his seat slightly with a mumbled "cool"; why? 'Golden Boy' came on, 🎶someone broke my heart again, now im gonna ease my pain, dancing on the floor. Take me out, I'm not in the mood for broken hearts, gonna dance tonight. To get her🎶 I wanted to ask when my phone vibrated, the screen lighting up with one of my only contact's names.

Keira: Heya, final details for Sunday (her party) ya'll come round mine at like ten and then we'll go roller skating and you all go whenever. Can't wait!

Yeah! It really did: my first party of any description for years. I smiled at my screen wondering what to write back. It should seem obvious, I guess. Yeah of course, see you there or whatever but I still wanted to know just one thing, but how did I ask? Eventually, thinking something along the lines of screw it I swiftly tapped my fingers across the glass.

Yeah, sounds cool! I know it sounds a bit rude, but who else is coming?

Keira: just a few of my friends: Paige, Frankie and Ethan, is something wrong?

Not really, I just.. Don't really feel comfortable around them, if you know what I mean.

Well of course she doesn't know what you mean, idiot. They're her friends, I scolded myself for enquiring in the first place, quickly adding an explanation.

I mean, I hardly know them. They're probably great and all but I'm not their friend-acquaintance even!

Keira: Oh, yeah ofc, sorry. I didn't think about that.

No worries, I'm just worried it'll be really awkward for you.

Keira: I understand if you'd rather do something different...

A smile crept across my lips.

Yeah, sounds awesome. When?

Keira: I'm free on Thursday?

Perfect! See you there, if that's ok?

Keira: ofc, see ya

I put my phone down, genuinely happy for the first time in what seemed like forever.

*****

I entered through the door, a bit giddy from happiness, and skipped up to mum before embracing her in a big hug. "My gosh, you're in good spirits today!" she chuckled, and I joined in.

"I've been invited over to Keira's during the holidays!" I began, explaining everything in a rush.

"Oh that's great, Sweetie!"

I beamed up at her before murmuring something about getting changed to help out and rocketing up the stairs, dropping my bag on my bed and doing that.

*****

Later, after dinner-paella and salad-I pulled out my idea sketchbook and looked through past ideas for guidelines and inspiration yet also a reminder of what I cannot do. I make a point to make completely new designs every year; not only to keep things new, original and interesting but also because of tactical logic to the business. People will know they're getting something that you can't find anywhere else and won't be able to find ever again, adding pressure to buy it-especially since there's only ever a limited number of them, but also if anyone else sees them and begins copying them for their own profit, it doesn't affect us as much as it would if we made the same ones over and over again.

Okay... I thought to myself, Halloween. Last year I did a spider theme... And the year before that was bats, and three years ago was frankensteins. I paused over the sketches of the bath bombs I'd made that year, it'd been such fun to make with the green mixture first into the little moulds I'd found for sweets and chocolates and then add a really dark grey-as it's really hard to get the bicarbonate of soda and citric acid to turn completely black-on top, the messier the better; then with different moulds make the silvery bolts for his neck and finally top it off with a few dribbles of red colouring as a scar.

Good times.

Okay focus, I need ideas.

What else is associated with Halloween? I pondered, tapping my pencil against my lips. Plenty of monsters, I guess but which are easy enough to make?

After a few minutes, I settled on witches, or more specifically witches hats. I carefully began sketching out a bath bomb in the shape of a stereotypical witch's hat, and when I was satisfied with the result, I annotated it with first colours (purple for the main bit, black as the ribbon bit and white with gold glitter foe decoration, like stars) and added a small note of how to make it.

Then I moved on to soaps and other small things (lip balm containers could be wands), ending on how to decorate the front display window. Like every year, there has to be cobwebs with those plastic spiders entangled in it. Upon checking the time (only eight-thirty-seven) I decided to attempt a design for Christmas too, despite how far it may be.

Got to be organised, am I right?

Snowflakes, Santa, candy canes, Christmas trees, presents... Hold up!

I flicked back through all my designs. How the fuck have I never done this before? I kicked myself for never considering this!

Quickly I scribbled down my idea, already calculating how successful they'd turn out to be, since everyone loves them and they're so adorable if made correctly...

~~~~~~

Note: I know the real lyric is "forget her" not "to get her" but this works with the story better.

What do you reckon her idea was?

Hoping to get the next part up over the weekend so stay tuned.

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