One swipe to the left, the next swipe is to the right, and then she pulls away. Enthusiasm dances in her green orbs; with lips rubbing, she motions for me to follow suit and smear the gloss on my lips properly and evenly.
I do just that, chuckling a bit with eyes rolling at her glee. "I'm not the biggest fan of make-up."
"I swear you've become more fond of it as of lately. And by lately, I mean these couple of months."
"Yeah, well, I like looking pretty now and again."
Andrea turns to me. She moves from me to put back some of her make-up items in the big brown make-up bag of hers. Her hair, hardly passing her shoulders since she made the biggest decision to chop off the lot, is pinned back from her face, and the fringe she decided she'd get seems to embrace and hold her face so elegantly, so beautifully.
I mean, to be fair, Andrea was always a beautiful girl. She's always been eye catching, and I believe she knows that.
"You look pretty every time I see you, don't doubt that." Andrea grins, steps closer to me then leans in to place a peck on my cheek. Yes, she has been a lot more affectionate towards me for the past few months, and I can't exactly pinpoint why.
"Thanks." I grin. "Now, let's go! We're going to be so late!"
The two of us giggle our way out her room and straight to her car. She changes her heels for flat shoes (at my request since I still find it hard to comprehend the possibilities of driving with high heels, and hers are pencils for heels) and hits the road.
Destination: birthday party. Well, not like a party party, but something just to say happy birthday to me. Because yeah, it's my twenty-forth birthday. A whole twenty-four year old girl, and as scary as it seems, it almost feels... peaceful knowing that I'm growing. Another year where I make bad decisions and possibly cry about it, and another year to hear my father complain.
This time, from over the phone. That's because I moved out as quickly and swiftly as I could. I don't stay too far from him, no, so he is quite literally able to pull through whenever the sun makes its first appearance over the horizon, but we sleep under two different roofs at the end of the night.
All this was possible because of my mother's will. She had some money left over for her children, and since I'm the last remaining, it made sense to finally have access to it and live my own life. I'd say I'm being wise with it, considering I've only used the money to move out, but everything else, I cater for with my own money.
Yeah... I'm an employed human being. I work under administration for an IT company, and not to say I make a lot, but I make enough to carelessly spend here and there — here and there simply means once a month.
No, I don't make that much.
These couple of months have been... different. The air is different, the atmosphere is different. I've went days processing everything, so much so that I failed to realise that it had a toll on me, affecting me mentally as well as emotionally. I carried the biggest burden, dang near close to the burden I carried when I lost my sister and mother.
The worst part, I feel, was not being able to express the pain that resided in my chest for the longest of time because, no one knew. No one would have understood, because I'm the only one who knew. Who still knows. Who was left to know. So, with that, I went to uni and back pretending that everything was right. That everything was exactly the way it was before I met him, yet deep down, even the slightest sight of him, or the faintest scent that reminded me of him had my heart beating faster than usual.
Many times did I hope that for whatever reason, he'd turn around and look for me. He's look me in the eyes and smile, say that he remembers. He knows me. That it was all just pretence. I don't know, like it was all just a bad dream and that finally, I've woken up from it. But the days tallied up, graduation passed and quickly, I found employment, moved out and decided is start again. Forget. Or maybe, heal.
