Ursa Minor (On hiatus)

Missing gingerbread stars pt. II

a/n: Dedicated to @chillwave for following and voting and sticking with the story even when I take forever to update. Thank you!

_______________________________________

I stopped outside Julie's door a few days later. Since Christmas we'd been nicer to each other. Or maybe even since the beginning of December. Maybe it had mostly been me being nicer and it had made her nicer too. I hesitated. My reason for the visit was to find out what she thought of the whole Tim business. I hadn't really asked her. It hadn't actually even crossed my mind to ask her. Before now. I knocked lightly on her door and was met by a high-pitched 'hmm', which I interpreted as 'please enter'.

Julie was sitting by her desk, her face focused as she looked up. "What do you want?" she said, turning back to her whatever she was doing. Not in a completely unfriendly way though.

"Just checking in," I shrugged, wading through some piles of brightly colored clothes and sitting down on her bed uninvited. That also was piled high, but with pillows. Girls + pillows = love apparently. A string of multicolored lights above it along with pictures and posters of teen celebs attractive in that obvious way. Pouty and chiseled and perfectly coiffed. But there was still her cuddly toys sitting like royalty on top of the pillow mountain. I pulled a pink heart shaped pillow onto my lap and picked at the fake fur trying to avoid too obvious fidgeting.

"Did mom talk to you about Tim moving in or whatever?"

"Maybe she did," Julie shrugged.

"And how do you feel about that?" I asked, feeling way too much like a therapist. Like my own therapist.

Julie shrugged carefully again. "That's ok I guess." She glanced at me over her shoulder. "He was the one who convinced mom to give you the computer you know."

I raised my eyebrows. "No, I didn't know."

"Yeah, I heard them talking about it, and you know mom was like 'no but I'm not sure, the infinite dangers of internet', you know, and he was like 'no, but you must let go of that, you can't watch over him forever, show that you trust him'. So I mean, he seems nice to me. And she seems happier now," she shot me a pointed look and yeah, maybe that haven't crossed my mind either.

Julie turned back and I skimmed my fingers over the pillow fur, contemplating what she'd told me. He had actually never interfered much, beyond acting like a silent support next to my mom sometimes. But if you were with someone, and they had kids, you were probably going to get involved, whether you liked it or not. Ugh.My mom must have talked about all my issues with him until his ears were about to fall off. So he did have every reason to detest me. Maybe I should actually give him a chance. The thought made me cringe. Maybe I'd say 'Hi' to him in the mornings from now on. Start with that.

"Maybe you're right," I muttered, and saw the corner of Julie's mouth curve into a smug smile. The little brat.

"What are you doing?" I asked. She had continued her little DYI, a sharp smell of nail polish around her, so the answer should have been obvious, except she was holding a chubby little handle, not a brush, that she seemed to press against her fingers.

"I'm stamping my nails," was the not very self-explanatory answer.

"What?" I got up and rounded the bed to stand next to her. It did look like a little stamp, the thing she held in her hand, some metal stencils of itty-bitty stars and hearts on her desk. And a mess of open polish bottles and stained q-tips.

"I borrowed it from Stacie, isn't it cool? See, this hand is already done," She proudly displayed her left hand, pink nails with silver stars, so tiny they were practically invisible to the naked eye.