I'll Take Care of You

Chapter Twenty Two

The thin lady that stood behind me ran the brush down my hair again and I fought back the urge to yank my head away, turn around, and punch her in the neck. She probably meant well. And it wasn’t like her job wasn’t already hard enough. Get this: She had to make me look pretty.

“Kaylie,” Tessie said again. She was a thin woman, but was also curvy in all the right places. I kind of wished that I was like her. “Stay still, please, dear. It’ll be over soon if you do.”

I cringed, unable to stop myself but let her do what she needed. She was fixing my frizzy, unruly, rebellious curls and making it into something decent. Back before mom and dad started to fight, dad used to say, “Those curls are ya dear. Just like ya. Rebel and untrustworthy ya never know what eh gonna do, babah.”

Of course, that thought brought me right back to my dream from earlier. I don’t know why I was remembering that now. It wasn’t exactly a moment that I wanted to re-live and the thought of made it feel like someone had a hard fist squeezing around my heart and lungs, making it slim and nearly impossible to let air through and breathe.

“Done, dear. Now we just gotta do your makeup.” Tessie sighed, obviously not looking forward to it. That would make two of us.

We were being interviewed. Derven and them got arrested, as did the reality show that made Simon sign the contract. Sony was okay, such a big company like that wasn’t about to be taken down that easily, but still. Sony had, however, begged One Direction, me, and Jason to hold an interview that would be live and shown nationally. At first, we declined, having enough of cameras for a lifetime, but then Liam pointed out that telling our story would well, tell our story. Let the world know how horrible it was what we were put through. And that, we couldn’t pass up.

The only down side? Simon insisted that I be hired a professional makeup and hair artist, bringing me back to the makeup issue that was named Tessie.

“Don’t worry,” she said, walking over to her makeup bag that was set on a wooden desk in the corned of the room. “I’ll keep it simple. How about just some cover-up, blush, eyeshadow, mascara, and eyeliner? Oh, and some lip stick. Gotta have lip stick.”

That was her idea of little?

I nodded and let her play with my face. When it was time for her to put my eyeliner on I blinked furiously but Tessie managed to put it all on without poking my eyes out, and afterwards I found that I could see, so I guess that it was okay.

She dressed me in a baby blue strapless dress that fell about two inches above my knees and black boots, because she didn’t think that I would be able to walk in heels. Smart girl.

“You’re all ready,” she said, sighing, and stood back, admiring her work. I looked in the mirror and saw that the normally frizzy curls were silky and long, and fell just below my breasts. Had my hair always been that long?

“I gave you extensions,” Tessie said and I sighed. I didn’t even notice.

My dark blue eyes turned a light blue/grey color thanks to the blue eyeshadow that lingered on my eyelids, and my eyes looked ten times bigger with all the junk she’d put on them. My pale cheeks were a rosy dark red and I had to admit...Tessie did good. It wasn’t like she’d had much to work with.

The door swung open and the boys walked into the room. They all looked good, dressed in expensive suits and hair gelled or styled messily, and now that Harry’s hair didn’t have blood and dirt in it I could see that it was actually really pretty. Jason looked the best of all, but that was probably just because I’d never seen him dressed up before, and his green eyes were shining and aware. He got mom’s eyes, where I got dad’s.

I felt Zayn’s eyes on me, roaming around my body but ignored his glare. No one knew about us. Not the boys or my brother, and I was pretty sure that it would be best if they didn’t find out...at least not right now.

But Zayn had an idea-and I was terrified to see how it would end up.

“Okay kids,” Simon said, coming up and putting a large hand on both Harry and Niall’s shoulder. “Show time.”