Page 8 of Moments in Ink

She let out a slow breath. “Have a good night, neighbor.”

“Goodnight,” I whispered. She looked at me again, her chest rising slowly as she inhaled, and then she turned on her very high heels and made her way back toward her house.

I made sure she made it inside safely, and then I walked into my own home and closed the door behind me. I put my palms on the wood, inhaling again, trying to get her scent out of my nostrils, but it wasn’t easy.

“Shit,” I whispered.

Shit, shit, shit.

I had moved here to get healthy, to get happy.

Not to find someone that was probably all wrong for me and bruise my heart even more than it already was.

But there was something about Zia.

And hell, I had a feeling that even though I could hide and never see my neighbor again if I really tried, it wasn’t going to be easy. And most of me didn’t want it to be.

Well, shit.

Chapter 3

Zia

“And that’s it for this look. What do you think? Be sure to hit subscribe on my channel and like this video if you’d like to keep up on all of our looks. It’s been wonderful seeing you again, my beauties. I wish you all the best, and remember, the beauty we play with starts from the inside. Be kind and remember that you are loved. This is Zia, and I love you.”

I smiled, lowered my eyes to show off my makeup again, and then hit end on the recording.

I let out a sigh, rolled my shoulders back, and looked at my makeup. My recording had gone longer than I had planned, but I felt like I had hit a stride.

It had been a while since I’d done a video this long, or even a tutorial. I wasn’t active like I used to be, my views going way down since I wasn’t one of the popular beauty bloggers any longer. And that was fine with me, it wasn’t the main focus of my business anymore, and I didn’t solely rely on YouTube advertising to pay my bills. Every once in a while, I liked sitting in front of a camera, though, taking the time to set up my lighting and have some fun with a new look.

I had been thinking about this one for a while, Poison Ivy meets a Disney princess. I liked being able to explore and experiment with my looks, even if the ones I did weren’t perfect for every day. Most of the looks I did these days weren’t for my old channel but for clients who wanted to learn how to be able to do their makeup to feel as if they were brightening their eyes or making their cheekbones stand out the way that they wanted them to. All without feeling down about themselves, and without adding too much to their morning routine so they could go into work.

While in England, I’d worked on opening my business and launching my makeup line with my new palette coming out in the fall. I also had my YouTube channel, my other social media, advertising, and being a makeup artist in general. I didn’t have the option of going into other avenues that many makeup artists did, mostly because I had moved to Boulder and not to New York or LA. I had thought about doing that after coming home from England and going into that form of makeup, but I’d wanted to be home for a little bit. To remember who I was. And while my path in my career wasn’t standard, Iwasfiguring out what worked for me. And it would evolve as times changed. Because I wasn’t going to sit back and waste what income I had already made by forgetting what I needed to do and be in the future—whoever that person may be.

Now, I was pretty much covered head to toe in a princess Poison Ivy look, and it was a little ridiculous. However, I wasn’t going to change until later. I needed to use the lighting in the other part of my house to take more pictures for social media to add to my video once I edited it, and even work on more photos for my friend’s cosplay site. They owned a blog where they went over different looks for cosplay to help people who were closet cosplayers or new in the arena to figure out where they wanted to start and what they wanted to have fun with.

I loved it because it didn’t matter where they came from socioeconomically, or if they looked nothing like the person they wanted to cosplay, everybody could have their own twist. They didn’t have to be “a perfect Barbie” as an old cosplayer blogger used to call them.

I wasn’t a fan of making anyone feel like they weren’t enough. I wanted to show the world that they could be anybody they wanted to be. They had to love themselves first.

Maybe it was an old saying, and people would laugh at me for how I made my living, but it was a living, and if I could bring joy to people while I did that, then that’s what I would do.

When I needed to move on to a new career, I would, but this would always be something I loved, even if it was only a thing for me to do in a room with great lighting and a palette of eyeshadow.

I looked down at my notes and made a few more for my staff. I loved that I could employ people now, especially in the other parts of my business that had nothing to do with the makeup on my face. My goal was to provide an income for others that worked hard but maybe couldn’t find a normal path to employment. Whatevernormalwas these days.

I wanted to provide for people who needed help but weren’t able to ask for it. Most of my staff was made up of single mothers or men and women who, thanks to circumstances out of their control, felt unable to really leave their house and go in for a nine-to-five job. But I was there for them, doing my best to help them.

I loved my job, even if I didn’t have an exact title with most things. Still, I considered myself an entrepreneur. One who wanted to help others, to show beauty in the way people wanted themselves to be.

With makeup or without. Simply healthy.

My degree in psychology didn’t help me with everything, but it did in some things. I had wanted to go to cosmetology school, but that hadn’t happened. In the end, I’d gotten to sort of mix both of my passions. At least, in a way.

I went outside, needing the air, and figured I could take some outdoor shots using my tripod and timer. I froze at the sound of Meredith’s voice.

“I understand, but that’s not what we talked about.”

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