invisible string • Gracie Abrams

036 the speech

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
the speech
•

IT'S completely normal for charlotte to remain absolutely silent whilst she and her team prepare for a premiere. she'll sit in silence as her makeup artist works on her face, as her hair stylist does her hair, as maya takes a million photos of her in her dress posing around the hotel. being quiet gets her into just the right headspace for a premiere. she'll imagine every possible question that could be thrown at her when walking past interviewers at the carpet and pre-plan a answer. she'll run through every person who she knows is coming in her head and try to think of how their conversation will go. but today, she's mostly imagining the look on her parents faces when they see her appear with gracie. she was a little excited honestly to see her dad's jaw clench and eyes go so wide they'll look like they'll pop and his face go white as a ghost. she noticed that with everyday holding gracie's hand and flaunting their relationship online, feeling guilty for how she's making her parents feel gets a little weakened each time.

she glanced at gracie, eyes shut as she sat in a chair and her makeup artist did her eyeshadow. meeting gracie's team was a little more awkward than charlotte expected, especially with gracie's stylist having to discuss what to put gracie in so that she could sort of match charlotte with the actresses stylist, especially since they both worked for their girls long enough to know all the beef in between their families. gracie's publicist, ethan, walked into the hotel room with a tight lipped smile and shook charlottes hand, not uttering a word other than 'hello.' but charlotte would notice every single time he looked at her, his look so stern and lost in thought it was a little intimidating. maya was running late, but thankfully charlotte notified her that she invited gracie so it saved maya the heart attack she would've had if she just walked in to see her.

when she finally did walk in, she said hello to everyone on charlottes team before finally reaching her and engulfing her in a hug.

"oh god, you've been driving me insane lately, you know that right?" maya said, pulling away from the hug and then holding charlottes shoulders, "where is she?" she whispered.

charlotte clicked her tongue and gestured her head towards the singer across the room. she watched maya's jaw clench and look of unsettlement cross her face as she whipped her head towards gracie.

maya huffed, running a hand through her long black hair, "you really wanna do this?"

charlotte shrugged, "no reason not too, we're already public."

"i know, and that's why i don't really see any point in lecturing you on this all right now, but your parents will be coming tonight correct?" maya asked, taking a seat on the table in front of charlotte as her makeup continued to be applied.

"yup."

"how are they feeling about everything?"

"god, they hate me," charlotte chuckled, a burning feeling suddenly rising in her chest as she said that. "but y'know, they're gonna have to put up with it and might as well show them that now. she's going to be coming with me to many more events anyway."

"alright we'll, you're mature and i'm gonna trust you on that," maya replied. "she's pretty, seems nice. y'know when everything calms down a bit i could see putting you guys into a photo shoot together."

charlotte smiled, "that'd be great. want me to walk you over and introduce you?"

"maybe at the after party, i wanna focus on getting good pics for your instagram first, maybe some tweets of excitement for the premiere too on your account," she said, snapping back into business mode and clasping her hands together. "she is matching with you correct?"