Lavender is Calming

Chapter 2

"On time as always Jackson." Autumn states, eyeing him up and down, appearing from behind the counter.
"Yeah, I'll get ready in a second." Lavender responds in a chirpy tone. Autumn lets out a strange giggle to which Lavender responds with a wink.

The second Autumn's gone, I shove him in side.
"Ugh, what was that for?" He says, pretending I've badly hurt him.
"You're such a whore." I say jokingly.
"Uh. Yeah," he starts sarcastically, "how else do you think I'd be allowed to look like this?"

Lavender is certainly a sight to behold. He's really tall and what most would call attractive. But he stands out mainly for his pastel purple hair. He often gets called out on it by his older brothers and mother, but the little ones love it.

He also shouldn't be allowed to have a job like this with hair that colour. It's in the rule book: 'hair must be naturally coloured'. So instead of following the rules, he flirts his way to victory. As always.

"You two know each other?" A waitress comments.
"Yeah, we grew up together. We've known each other for about fourteen-fifteen years." He answers for us both. That's something I appretiate; he answers so I don't have to panic about my answer being right. If I upset someone by saying the wrong thing then that will cause more drama then it's worth.

Jesus. Has is really been fourteen years? I still remember our first interaction when we were five.

We were in the grocery store and my mum started talking to someone I didn't know, but I thought nothing of it. That was until I was looking at all the toys, only to find her gone once I turned around. After running around for a bit I found her talking to the woman I would later call my second mother; Janet, Lavender's mother.

I ran up to my mother and squealed about losing her and angrily stomped my foot at her for 'running away'. She just laughed and patted my head. I got bored of standing there listening to them go on about the news and politics. That's when a little blond haired boy ran around the corner.

"Mummy! Mummy! Look at this!" He held a blue, plastic gun in his hands. "Can I have it? Please?"
"Okay, dear, you can have it." Janet was so calm and kind back then. Then again, that was before Lavender's three older brothers left and she gave birth to two more little horrors that drove her insane.  She pulled a pretend 'I've got an idea face' and said "How about we talk to these nice people first though?"

The blond boy stiffly nodded as we both stood awkwardly by our mothers. I looked up at him and something struck me about him.

"Why are your eyes purple?" This question caught him and his mother off guard. He instantly covered his face.
"Don't look at me," he squeeked, "I know I'm a freak."

A freak? My five year old mind couldn't process why having purple eyes was a bad thing. How people would call him weird, especially when we got to high school.
"You're not a freak!" He seemed shocked and peeked at me through his fingers.
"What?" He said in what can barely be called a whisper.
"They're so pretty! I wish I had pretty eyes, but mine are just brown and boring." I grumpily crossed my arms. "They're such a nice... oh... uhm. Mummy, what's that flower called? The purple one that smells good?"
"Lavender?" My mother puzzled.

"Yeah!" I squeeked. "Lavender! What's your name anyway?" I spoke in spuratic and energetic sentences, which couldn't be different for how I act now.  He merely shook his head as he burried his face in his hands, clearly embarrassed by the whole situation. "Well, if you don't tell me your name, then I call you Lavender." What a cocky child I was.

Our mum's exchanged phone numbers and ended up setting up a play date for us. Despite finding out his name was Jackson, I still called him Lavender. It took a couple of years, but I found out that his eyes were purple because of some kind of accident.

They used to be blue, but an incident occured where the blood vessels in his eyes became inflamed, and since red and blue makes purple, it gave him the illusion of purple eyes.

He never told me what happened and I never pushed it since he was clearly uncomfortable. Once we left high school he embraced it and dyed his hair, and eyebrows, purple to match.

I found it hilarious when walked into psychology at sixth form with bright purple hair and an undercut. It was almost illuminous at first but he's died it down to a pastel shade. Well, more like three pastel shades since he keeps adding new ones.

Whilst we didn't go to primary school together, we ended up at the same high school. Since I was the only person from my primary to go there, I just leached of off Lavender for five years. We then went to the same sixth form, so I never gave him the chance to escape me.

Now I think about it, it's like our personalities swapped. After I lost my mother, I became shy and antisocial, whilst Lavender only became more popular as his looks improved. I went from a cute child to average with makeup on and he went from cute child to supermodel. I hate him for it, yet love him for it at the same time. His obnoxiously bright appearence means attention is drawn to him, and not me.

"What time does your shift end?" He asks me, bringing me back to my senses.
"Oh, uh, in about five minutes." I say, glancing at the clock on the wall.
"Okay, cool." He pauses, like he's trying to remember something. He suddenly clicks his fingers. "Oh yeah, right. So my mum wants to invite you round to diner tonight. The whole family will be there, and they haven't seen you in so long." He gives me a warm smile.

"I'll pass."
"What?" He doesn't seem shocked or annoyed, just concerned. "Marcy, this is the first time I've seen you out the house since your birthday, which was at least three months ago, and even then you didn't want to go out. I had to drag you to the carnival. It's not healthy you being stuck indoors all the time. Please? For me?" He gives me the saddest look I've seen him do in years.

I nervously naw on my lip and stroke my thumb nails with my index fingers. I don't want to dissapoint him, but I also really, really, don't want to go.
"Okay." I practically whisper it and I watch his face light up.
"Great! I need to go get ready. Meet at my house at six." His smile really does light up the room. He turns to walk away from me and I grab his wrist.
"Only for an hour." He gives me a sad smile.
"Only for an hour it is."

Another chapter done! I'm not sure what my plan is with updating this story, but so far I plan to do it daily. I know that the whole purple eye thing with Lavender isn't exactly solid in reality, but this story isn't going to be completely realistic, despite my efforts to make it so. If that makes sense? Oh, I should also mention that this story in set in England, if you couldn't tell from 'mum' and the school system set up mentioned previously. Sorry for the boring chapter, since it's mainly just Lavender's basic background.

Anyway, I hoped you enjoyed this chapter and I'd love to hear your thoughts!