Small Town Love

Chapter 20

Each year's regrets are envelopes in which messages of hope are found for the new year.

John R. Dallas Jr.

Braiding her hair had always been something that had fascinated Daphne. It was art...just with a medium that was far less easy to use than a brush and paint.

She liked doing it, liked that it could be something that she could do to make herself look prettier that cost nothing.

Most of the times, Daphne threw her hair up on her head in a messy bun or braided it in a quick French braid down her back. If she wanted to do something a bit prettier, then she made a waterfall braid around the side of her head, the bread weaving in and out of the hair, keeping it out of her face, but not taking any more hair with it.

And then, like today...it was very rarely that she got the opportunity to do it on another person.

She was braiding Kiana's hair, the dark brown hair thicker and much more beautiful than Daphne's would ever be. She braided it tightly along the scalp on the side of her head, teasing the top section and pulling it in a low ponytail.

"Where did you even learn that?" Kiana asked her amused as Daphne continued to weave the low ponytail in a braid that looked like chainlinks.

"It's the cheapest way to look like you put some thought into your appearance," she admitted softly. "I always wore my hair long and we didn't exactly have the money for a hairdresser, so I just always...I always pulled it back and then that got bored...so I started braiding," Daphne explained, finishing the braid and fishing for a clear hair elastic on Grace's dresser.

"I'm sorry about...I wasn't thinking when we went dress shopping. I mean...I knew that it was bad, I just...I didn't think about how bad it must have been. I am sorry about how I reacted," Kiana apologised, a far cry from her usual brash personality. Daphne hadn't expected that at all. She tightened the hair tie, for a moment being quiet before she answered.

"It's fine, Kiana. Really. It's not your fault. I know that they look...pretty horrific to an outsider," Daphne answered finally. "I should get used to them. I'll always have them," she added with a sad grin.

They would always be there.

In all their terrible glory.

Luke didn't care. Maybe with time, Daphne would learn not to care as well. But she couldn't help but smile softly when she remembered the feeling of his lips on her skin, couldn't help but smile when she remembered his words.

He didn't care.

And she wouldn't either.

"Daphne?" Grace called her name and ripped her out of her thoughts which she cleared away with a shake of her head.

"Sorry," she told Luke's sister, "I am being a bit..." she trailed off, unable to find the right words to explain this.

"You aren't nervous about this evening, are you?" Grace asked her gently. "Because you don't need to be," the other girl told her, as she sat down on her bed, brushing freshly washed hair.

They had decided to all get ready for the ball together and so they were ensconced into Grace's room, which was a girl's dream.

The walls were light blue, but you couldn't go three steps in the room, without being hit with an avalanche of decisively girly items, from dresses and skirts thrown haphazardly over a chair, to a whole shelf full of nail polish in the bathroom that Luke had built for her, over more makeup than Daphne had ever seen outside of a store.