Colors (rewritten)

MCKAYLA

Not much gets past me so I can't help but think there's more to Tatiana's story than a violent altercation between her and her mother's so called boyfriend. Don't get me wrong, I know she's being truthful about him being violent towards her, he's done it before and I have seen firsthand the bruises that bastard has unapologetically left on my best friend.

And in the past everytime it happened I always begged her to move into our house, and I hate begging, but for Tatiana's sake I put my pride aside and tried to save her from her miserable life.

Of course she wouldn't let me, coming up with different excuses each time I brought up the subject of  her moving out. Whether it was the fact that she couldn't just leave her brother to fend for himself or that she didn't want to impose on me and my family, she was never short on excuses.

But now all that has changed because a few days ago Tatiana showed up on our doorstep looking more vulnerable and emotional than I have ever seen her before. Not only that, but I think she was sobbing throughout the night.

It was so unlike her and even though I was dying to ask her about what's really going on, I decided to give her her space for a little while. But I will get to the bottom of whatever it is she's hiding because I know something isn't right.

But I can dwell more on that later because today is the big day and nothing is going to distract me from making this day perfect. It's my eighteenth birthday!

For as long as I can remember my parents have always gone all out for mine and Max's birthdays and as soon as I was old enough to take over, I have always made sure my birthday party is the single most talked about event, at least for a while.

And since this is the big one eight, I have decided to go extra out with a lavish dress up theme party.

It might sound a little juvenile but I have always loved dressing up and this is the one day of the year I can force everyone else to do it. It's my day, it revolves around what I want and this year what I want is for people to dress up as their favourite characters.

Of course you would think a dressing up theme would be easy considering that our generation spends most of it's time being pretentious and fake but no, everything has to be complicated. Even my friends had a hard time deciding on who they wanted to dress up as. Almost made me wanna uninvite everyone but then I thought, who would witness my impressive transformation into the great Pamela Anderson if no one showed up? Plus being worshipped and envied is one of the perks of throwing an over the top party and that can't happen if no one shows up.

So far so good. The party has only just started and people are starting to show up and I'm impressed with their costumes. They look good enough to be at my party but not too good that they outshine me, no, I wouldn't have that.

"Happy birthday!" Some girl shouts as she throws her arms around me.

"Ummm..." I shift uncomfortably as I try to untangle myself from her. "Thank you." I say as I step back from her and only then do I realize that it's actually Kristen in a platinum blonde wig. "Kristen?" I ask even though I have no doubt it's her.

She grins at me. "Well, you said dress up so I decided to come as Daenerys Targaryen."

"Oh." I have no idea who that is.

"The mother of dragons!" She sounds so excited but I still don't have a clue what she's talking about but she looks so happy and confident in that  ancient looking outfit that it makes me happy.

"Well, you look great." And she does, in her own Kristen way. "Go ahead and mingle, the others are around here somewhere." I gesture around the house.

"Oh, they are here already?" She looks around, searching for a familiar face.