She's A Rainbow

1. hopelessly devoted to you 💋

• October, 2019 •

"He wasn't worth it," Heaven's voice said.

I glare at my phone suctioned to the windshield. Even though she was right, I couldn't help but simmer in resentment. How many times is she going to comfort me with that phrase?

"Then why did you say he was perfect for me?" I retort.

"I'm sorry. I genuinely did not know he would pull that shit," she replies.

I bang my forehead against the rubber steering wheel; trying to numb the pain. His words wrap around my neck like a rope, choking the breath from my body. The boy I spent months defending, soothing, and loving, let his thoughts spill unchecked and disguised it as honesty. My stomach churns at the idea of him so comfortable with disregarding me. Like I wasn't a girl he told his deepest secrets to. A girl he went out of his way to visit even when he had no reason.

Blasting on the radio is one of my infamous heartbreak anthems, the Taylor Loudman version of "Hopelessly Devoted To You" from Grease. Her desperate, pleading voice pacified me for a moment. I felt like she was singing my emotions, portraying my pain out loud. Then I remembered that it works out for Sandy in the end, but I'll never get a chance to have that glowed-up revenge because I was never in the running to begin with. He wouldn't care.

"I hate myself. I hate how I look. I hate how I sound. I hate how I am," I say wearily.

"Girl, what are you doing right now?" she replied sternly.

"I don't know."

"You know we don't say that."

"Fuck!" I screamed before breaking into a sob. "Why does this always happen to me? It has to be me. I have to be the problem!"

"You are not the problem, Kiara," She says gently. "All you're guilty of doing is loving someone who didn't love you back."

"So I am guilty of something."

"No, that's not what I meant. Hang on, I'll be right back," Heaven says as she scrambles to leave her seat.

I gulp heavily, attempting to loosen my tight throat. It's my way of fighting the urge to be hurt by her direct, rational tone. Heaven lived about sixty-percent of the day in her head. She either consumes imaginary scenes from novels, or has her eyes glued to the Celtix software on her MacBook. I often forget that she doesn't have much real world experience, too. None of us do. And yet, she's so good at appearing to have her shit together. She spent her first two years stage managing our plays along side an upperclassman, learning the art of calm and controlled emotions.

An art I'll never seem to master.

Heaven rolls into frame again, sitting in her swivel chair. She wears a flowy, salmon pink dress with flowers embroidered, and a white corset tied over her waist. Tiny, silver butterfly clips decorate her long, sandy blonde box braids that curl at the tips. She looks like a princess straight out of a fairytale.

"I feel like I set you up for failure," she admits.

"Why do you say that?" I ask.

She shrugs. "I dunno. I hyped you up because I thought what you guys had was similar to the book I was reading. I just wish real life wasn't so dehumanizing. Are you mad at me?"

"I...I'm not mad at you. I can't be mad at you," I assure her.

Then, a rectangular message fades into the middle of the screen. It said: sierra💕 & Iris ✨ joined the call. Their sweet, round faces fill the other squares in the video chat.