Page 80 of When the Lights Come On
“Powerful?”
“Yes! You look so beautiful, of course, but you also look like you’re ready to take somebody down, and you don’t even have shoes on yet!”
I start grinning as heat creeps up my neck. “Really?”
“Yes, girl! Now come here so I can finish that hair.”
She guides me back into the bathroom and sits me down on the lid of the toilet so she can come at me with a hair curler and brush. I suffer through the experience as she adds a few waves and some sort of smoothing cream before spritzing on hairspray and declaring me finished.
“Now for makeup! I brought—”
“I have makeup,” I blurt.
Mierda.
I did not mean to say that out loud.
Now it’s DeeDee doing a double-take. “You do?”
I don’t want to make an even bigger deal out of it, so I just nod and try to will my face to stop burning. “Yeah, it’s, um, in my room. I’ll go get it.”
I spare a glance at myself in the mirror over the sink as I squeeze past DeeDee. Somehow, she’s made my hair look even better than it did after the dye. It’s shiny enough that people can probably check their reflection in it, and the waves are mermaid-level perfect.
I didn’t know hair could look like this in real life—never mindmyhair.
I come back with the old shoebox I keep all my makeup in and set it on the counter. DeeDee sifts through it for a moment, her eyes getting wider and wider.
“Paige, this is really nice stuff.”
I’m not even offended at her being so shocked. I wouldn’t expect myself to know what nice makeup is either.
I shrug and do my best to play it cool. “I just like messing around with it sometimes. You know, for fun.”
She holds up a tube of liquid eyeliner. “Kat Von Dee is not for fun! Kat Von Dee means business.”
We both chuckle as she keeps going through the shoebox.
“I think that Charlotte Tillbury one there will go well with the dress,” I mumble, “and if you don’t mind, there’s a brown smokey eye tutorial that I really like. I’d do it myself; it’s just with my hand...”
I trail off when she looks up at me with a more serious expression than I’ve ever seen her wear before. Usually she’s like a blinding ray of human sunshine; now, for the first time, I see the start of a storm.
“Paige,” she says softly, “what happened to you?”
My pulse kicks up. I can hear the blood rushing in my ears. “What do you mean? Nothing happened.”
Her expression doesn’t change. “Chérie, I know what it’s like to lose yourself because of what some guy did to you. I know what that looks like on a girl.”
“Huh?” It’s harder to fake casual now that my voice has gone up an octave.
The tiny bathroom is suddenly suffocating, like the walls are inching their way toward me and there’s nowhere to run. Anxious knots are twisting in my stomach, and I cross my arms on top of it.
“You don’t have to tell me anything,” DeeDee says. “I just want you to know that you can.”
I stare at a patch of the shower curtain just over her shoulder. I can’t look her in the eye. I try to force one of the things I want to say out of my mouth.
I don’t know what you’re talking about.
Thanks but no thanks.
