Given Time

♡13♡

Zara looks like she's having a lot of fun, making me up like a little kid does when they play with a dolls styling head.

There are all sorts of concoctions spilled out on my bed. There must be at least fifteen brushes lying around, and there's lots of containers containing God knows what. I usually keep my makeup simple, probably owning only four or five products myself, while Zara has two bags full of makeup.

She gets to work on eyes first, sweeping a brush onto a smokey black eye shadow color. I pinch my eyes shut and feel the brush sweep gently back and forth across my lids.

"Open your eyes," she commands.

Zara's hand comes towards me with a black eyeliner pen, and I widen my eyes as far as they can go. I'm worried that if I blink, I'll end up getting stabbed in the eye.

She finishes off my eyes with some mascara and then focuses her attention on the rest of my face. Twenty minutes later, I have counted at least ten products on my face. "Are you done yet?" All the strokes back and forth across my face are making me ticklish, and I really want to scratch my nose.

"Don't move," she orders while holding my head still. "I'm not finished." She clutches a tube of lipstick and pops the lid off.

"That's a really dark red," I tell her nervously. I know she told me she wanted to go for a new look, but I'm worried I could end up looking like a clown right now.

"Exactly!"

"I don't know if it'll suit me." I edge backward on the bed, afraid of having it on me.

"Sure, it will! Red suits everyone. Now keep those lips still unless you want any of it on your teeth."

Giving in, I clamp my mouth shut and stay motionless while she shapes the lipstick around my lips.

"Finished!" she proclaims, dropping the lipstick back into her makeup bag. "So now that your face is perfection, what are you going to wear?"

I go over to my closet, avoiding my sight in the mirror and pull out my trusty yellow skater dress. "What about this?"

"Um..." Zara gapes at my dress with a horrified look.

"You can say no."

"It's just... It's a little boring for tonight."

"Wow, thanks." I run my hands over the soft material. It's one of the nicest dresses I own, and it's one of the few I brought with me.

"The color also doesn't suit your makeup. But if you want to stick out for all the wrong reasons, then go ahead."

I groan and drop the dress. "Okay, I get it. All my other dresses are similar in style to this, though. I could wear my blue jeans and a pink blouse."

I bite the end of my thumb uneasily. I need to pencil in a shopping date to buy some more clothes in case this becomes a regular thing.

"Why don't you just borrow one of mine," she offers.

"Really?" I don't know what kind of dresses Zara owns, but I'm guessing it's not my usual taste.

"Yeah. Unlike you, I brought loads with me." She goes over to her closet and slides the hangers along. "You can wear this," she tells me while pulling out a skin-tight black dress.

I hold the piece of fabric in my hands and examine it. "It looks tiny."

"It stretches. Now put it on." She pushes me towards my closet to change behind the door.

I peel off my pants and polka dot top and slip my legs into the silky black material. I have to shimmy my body a bit to get it on, but after a few minutes, I finally have it in place. The dress is extremely short, stopping halfway down my thighs, and the only thing holding it in place are two petite spaghetti straps. I tentatively close the door and look at Zara sitting on her bed.