Here’s to the Girls
Here’s to the Girls
Grace
Grace: Hey! How are you feeling?
Gwen: I’m okay
Gwen: Just sad I missed the victory celebration because my stupid arm wouldn’t cooperate
Macy: We missed you
Macy: I’m sorry your arm still hurts
Gwen: It’ll be better tomorrow
Gwen: Or at least that’s my story and I’m sticking to it
Eden: Want some company?
Gwen: You don’t have to do that
Gwen: I know you’re celebrating
Macy: We skipped out of the celebration early
Gwen: Why?
Grace: Answer your door and find out
I knock on Gwen’s door right after I hit Send, and the three of us wait patiently for her to hobble to the door. And hobble it is, I realize, as the door swings open and Gwen does some kind of off-balance tumble to cover the last couple of feet to the threshold.
“Oh my gosh!” Macy exclaims as she bustles in. “You look awful!”
“Thanks,” Gwen says wryly. “Exactly what I want to hear.”
“You know what I mean,” Macy tells her with a wave of her hand. “You look like you’re in pain!”
“Let me help,” I say quietly, moving next to Gwen so she can drape her healthy arm over my shoulder. “I’ll get you back to your bed, and we can kick this celebration off.”
Gwen looks confused. “I thought you and the guys already had your celebration?”
“We did,” Eden answers with a roll of her eyes. “But guys are so boring, don’t you think?”
“Ummm—” Gwen looks totally confused at this point, especially when Eden pops open the pizza box she’s carrying and lays it on her bed. “I never thought so.”
Should I be offended? Hudson asks as he leans against a wall near me even though really he’s still stuck inside my head. I’ve never been called boring before.
“Pretty sure you weren’t who Eden was calling boring,” I shoot back in my head.
Oh, well, carry on, then. He fakes a yawn. Because if she’s talking about Jaxon and his ridiculous little crew, then Eden is right on. They were born boring, and apparently life has done nothing to change that fact.
“The guys are fine,” Macy says. “But we figured we could all use a night of face masks, mani-pedis, and all the rom-coms we can watch before morning.”
“Are you sure?” Gwen asks, looking among us like she can’t comprehend why we would ditch the guys to hang out with her. “I don’t want you to feel like—”
“We don’t feel anything,” I interject. “Except excited about Macy’s special face masks. She’s been talking them up for weeks.”
“They are amazing,” my cousin says. “I brought four different varieties, so find the one you think works for you, and let’s get this party started.”
Apparently we have different definitions of the word “party,” Hudson interjects dryly.
“That’s because you’ve never experienced a good old-fashioned girls’ night in,” I tell him. “But luckily, all that’s about to change.”
Do I get my nails painted, too? he asks in a faux-excited manner. I’m very intrigued by that hot-pink polish Macy just slipped out of her pocket. As I’m sure you are, he adds wickedly.
“Bite me.”
I deposit Gwen gently on her bed, making sure to position her far enough away from Eden’s pizza box and Macy’s comprehensive array of masks to ensure that she can still put her arm up. “Do you need me to arrange your pillows or anything?”
She’s not eighty, Grace, Hudson snarks. She just hurt her arm.
“What is it about basic human kindness that gets under your skin so badly?” I demand as I stalk back over to where he’s leaning. “Is it just that you’re totally incapable of giving it, or is there something else lurking around in your head that I should be aware of?”
This time when he yawns, it’s a total fuck you. I’m a vampire, Grace. Basic human anything eludes me. Or have you forgotten?
“I haven’t forgotten anything. In fact—” I start, but before I can finish, Eden turns the TV on.
“What do you feel like watching?” she asks.
“No action movies,” I tell her, so tired from the Ludares tournament that if I don’t see another person get punched in the face—ever—it will be too soon.
“And no artsy movies,” Macy adds, and I’m pretty sure it’s directed at me.
But Eden just snorts. “As if.” She starts flipping channels and doesn’t stop until she gets to one of my favorite classics: The Cutting Edge. “How about this?”
“Anytime I get the chance to say ‘toe pick,’ I’m taking it,” I tell her with a laugh.
Toe pick? Hudson repeats, but I ignore him in favor of watching Moira Kelly complain about her new ice-skating partner. Is that some kind of fungus?
“However did you know?” I ask sarcastically, then take the brightening mask Macy is currently holding out to me.
I unfold the sheet mask and drape it over my face, then settle on the floor beside Macy just as Doug learns exactly what a toe pick is for.
The rest of the night goes by in a sea of laughter, pizza, popcorn, and beauty treatments. After we do masks and paint our nails, Gwen breaks out a bunch of hair stuff, and we end up giving each other makeovers.
Macy does mine in a giant beehive updo from the fifties and slaps some red lipstick and false lashes on me that make me feel like I’m in the middle of Mad Men or something.
I do Eden’s hair in cascading mermaid waves with ribbons, then do up her eyes and lips with special glitter shadow and gloss from Gwen. Eden looks a little horrified when I’m done, but the rest of us think she looks gorgeous.
Eden does Gwen’s hair in a ponytail and hands her a ChapStick to put on, which makes the rest of us laugh uproariously. Not because Gwen looks bad in a ponytail and lip balm, but because it isn’t exactly the kind of makeover we were going for.
“What’s so funny?” Eden demands, looking confused. But that just makes us laugh harder until she rolls her eyes and ends up laughing along with the rest of us.
Gwen does Macy’s makeover, slicking her short hair back like some model from the sixties and doing her makeup in psychedelic colors that somehow end up fitting my cousin perfectly.
She even uses neon eyeliner to draw some flowers on Macy’s cheek, and by the end, she looks like she could walk right out of a VW van into Woodstock.
It’s the most fun I’ve had in a really long time, and even Hudson leaves me alone once the lipstick and glitter come out. For the first time since coming to Katmere, I feel a little like I’m back home in my bedroom with Heather.
There’s no talk of paranormals, no worries about my mate—or his evil brother trapped inside me—no trying to figure out what it means to be a gargoyle. It’s just three of my friends and me hanging out, and it feels amazing. Well, and Hudson but he passed out sometime around the third “toe pick.”
The good feeling lasts through The Cutting Edge and 13 Going on 30, through makeovers and bowls of popcorn, and even through the walk back to Macy’s and my dorm room.
But as we settle into bed somewhere around three in the morning, all the worries and fears I pushed to the side come rushing back. As I lay there staring at the ceiling, I can’t help wondering if this one brief moment of my old normal is all I’m going to have.
And if so, how long will it be before this new life—this new normal—feels right to me?