Fractured Fairytales

Chapter 17: My God, It's So Beautiful When The Boy Smiles

Chapter 17: Nicolette

“Wait a second!” I called out, turning on the hair dryer again.

“You don’t even know how to work a hair dryer, Nikki. What the hell are you doing in there?” Liz called out, her impatience getting more evident in her voice as the minutes ticked by.

I let the hair dryer hang from the outlet and placed my hands on the toilet again.

“I only have twenty minutes to get ready, Nikki!” Liz said.

“You can go one day without painting your face,” I said, my face hovering over the toilet, praying that they couldn’t hear me.

I could faintly hear Adam’s laugh. I grabbed the toilet and wiped my lips before brushing my teeth not bothering to cover up the bags under my eyes or the pimples that were beginning to form on my forehead.

“Thank God-“ Eliza started but stopped half way when she saw me.

She didn’t say anything, but then again she didn’t have to. Adam was the voice of all reason. “Your hair is still wet.”

“Aren’t we Captain Obvious?” I retorted, my temper unusually short.

He reached out his hand to touch my face and I slapped it away, on instinct. He looked bothered. “Has your skin color always been this strange shade of green?”

“Have you always been an asshole?”

Eliza was still looking at me, her big blue eyes not leaving my face for a second and I was avoiding her gaze. “What were you doing?”

I sighed; I could feel my blood pressure dropping. “I don’t know…I, just don’t feel very good.”

“Oh,” she said and she looked concerned. I felt bad.

“Yeah, but you should get ready. You don’t have much time, I’m sorry.”

“That’s okay, maybe you should lie down,” she said and hurried into the restroom, the first bell ringing.

I walked to my bed, well Adam’s bed, and did as I was told. I felt my temperature rising and I slipped out of my shirt, not caring in the least that I was in nothing more than a lacy white bra. Adam had seen me before and there wasn’t much to see anyway.

I heard Adam say something.

“Hm?”

“What’s wrong?” and I daresay he sounded concerned.

“Nothing,” I managed to get out but I couldn’t be sure if my pillow was suffocating my words. “Tired, hot, sleep.”

               

The winter air was cool against my skin and I became suddenly aware that the heater in our room was off and someone was drawing patterns on to my bare back.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, knowing exactly who the soft hands belonged to.

“Making sure you feel better and well, it was good excuse to finish the fifth season,” Adam said, his voice hiding something but I was too tired to fight anything out of him.

I moved my head in order to look at the screen, which was paused in the middle of a Dawson-Pacey fight that I’ve seen at least a dozen times.

“Why is the heater off?” I asked, noticing the blanket he had over him. He was cold.

He looked at me, his eyes dazed and I wondered how long he’d been here and why he wasn’t sitting on the other bed. “You talk in your sleep and this time it was about the heat, so I turned it off.”