Her Broken Rainbow

Because of You

"Because of you 

I never stray too far from the sidewalk 

Because of you 

I learned to play on the safe side so I don’t get hurt

Because of you 

I find it hard to trust not only me, but everyone around me 

Because of you 

I am afraid." 

~Because of You 

Kelly Clarkson 

“You just got that nasty s**t in my hair.” He’s grinning like a mad man and looks so gross. It literally did not miss a part of him from his face to his waist, he was completely gunked up with the food. It was rubbed all over my back and in my hair. All of my neck is covered where he rubbed his face and we’re both holding each other tight grinning like idiots. Let me tell you, this is the funniest thing because this man is a lot taller than me, my face barely goes to his chest I am short as f**k. 

“We’re back! You wouldn’t believe what I got for the room! Raenn!! Come down and check these curtains out and the comforter set is just … WHAT THE f**k IS ALL THIS s**t?” Alaria’s yelling voice turns into a screech as she travels from the front door, past the office we’re currently in, towards the kitchen. By the sound of it, we’re in trouble and there’s a massive mess in the kitchen. Sky puts his hand over my mouth telling me to stay quiet. He then grabs my hand and bolts for the front door. I didn’t look back but I could hear the click clack sound of Alaria’s heels as she no doubt-ably is running after us. We make it out the door and nearly to Sky’s car when a toilet brush hurls past us causing me to duck and pull Sky down with me. 

“You move one more step, I'm throwing the new toothbrush holder next!” She screams at us. “Now get back in there and clean that s**t up! What even happened there? What the hell did we miss?” She sounded less angry towards the end and I couldn’t help the grin that was permanently plastered on my face, so when Sky and I got up and turned towards her, she busted out laughing at the way we looked. 

“You didn’t miss much, except me almost dying and Sky and Zach getting smothered in eggs, milk and flour. It was amazing! You should ask Zach, it was freaking hilarious!” I said as we started walking back into the house. Sky is still holding my hand and it feels kind of nice I must admit. 

Sky stopped in the middle of the foyer and looked around. “Wait, where is Zach?” I hadn’t even realized he was missing. 

“Someone said my name?” Zach was standing at the top of the stairs looking down at us. His hair was wet and it looked like he had taken a shower. The best part about this was that he was standing at the top of the stairs in nothing but a short as f**k silk bathrobe with lace around the edges. When I say this robe is short, I mean it really, really should not be considered a robe. It's too short. I was blinded the minute I looked up. I got an eye full of his hacky sack. Normal people would look away. Not me, no instead I point up and say, “They’re so much smaller than I thought they’d be.” 

The look on his face has me on my hands and knees laughing harder than I’ve ever laughed in my life.The rest of the gang is in stitches laughing their asses off with me. Zach huffs at me and stalks off to Nick’s room, hopefully to borrow shorts or something. 

“Rae, get your ass in the kitchen and clean that up.” Still laughing I drag Sky with me to the kitchen. “Hey, why am I going too? You made the mess, I shouldn’t have to clean it up.” He protests but doesn’t pull away and continues to follow me. 

“Yeah that’s true but you’re still going to help me. I wouldn’t have to clean it up if it wasn’t for you guys plotting and betting behind my back that way.” I respond as I get supplies from under the sink to start cleaning. 

Everyone huddled around the island counter and watched as we cleaned the mess in the doorway. “So someone tell me how this happened and what was going on?” Alaria asked. 

“Well we were working on the tree and once done with the main tree itself we were going to start the flowers. The boys did a great job blending in and continuing the top of the tree so I didn’t think it was a problem. But when we looked at the reference for the flowers, Sky said he didn’t think he could match them. Well one thing led to another and these assholes talked me into climbing the ladder. At some point Sky took his hands off my hips and I went free falling to the floor. Luckily the boys both attempted to catch me, which they did obviously. But they got crushed in the process. Sky then spilled the beans about winning a bet..” A gasp sounds behind me from one of the girls. 

“So you guys bet on what?” Shay asked before I could continue. “They bet on whether I would climb the f*****g death trap or not. Sky won because he said I would and Zach lost because he didn’t think I’d do it. I decided pay back was in order and put a bowl of egg and milk together and another of flour. I made loud sounds with pans to get them to run down here and when they walked through the doorway I threw it at them. Then we all were traumatized by Zach’s tiny balls.”  Nick barked out a laugh. 

“f**k you Rae, my balls aren’t tiny. Wanna see up close?” Zach came stomping into the kitchen wearing a pair of Nick’s sweats and a black T. 

“Ew, no thank you! Once from a far was once too much.” I replied as Sky stifled a laugh next to me. 

******

An hour later the kitchen is clean and I’m washing the food out of my hair. I borrowed some shorts and a shirt from Alaria and used her shower to wash everything off. I can’t stop thinking about this thing going on between Skylar and I. It’s fun and he’s very flirtatious. It’s new for me, I’ve tried dating but after everything that happened, I just couldn’t fully bring myself to commit. There were so many reasons I came up with each time just to excuse my lack of commitment. What if Carson was released and came after me. What if he was still as psychotic as he used to be, he could hurt those I love. My family is already a risk that I can’t help but I can’t let someone I’d fall in love with get hurt because I have a maniac obsessed with me. Whatever this is between us is fun and though I’m not fighting it, I can’t let it go further. I can’t let him be the one who gets hurt. It’s my burden and I won't put that on anyone nor expect anyone to accept it. I get out of the shower and dry off. I wrap my hair in a towel and get dressed back in my own panties, bra with the clothes I borrowed. I walk out of the bathroom and down the hall to Alaria’s room. I can hear them all talking about the tree. I still have the bottom half of it left but it’s beautiful already. The leaves really pop and the flowers are so realistic. I am a bit conceited when it comes to my art. My skills are on point. “So what do you think?” 

I’m leaning against the doorway watching her gawk at the image in complete awe. “Rae, i knew this would look cute together but … Holy cherry blossom batman! This is amazing. It’s so life-like. It looks like a picture, not a painting.” She squeals and dances in place before coming over to me and squeezing the life out of me. “Thank you, thank you, thank you Raenn Bo!!!!!!” 

“You’re welcome my Ri-Ri. It was a pleasure to do. I’m not finished though, I still have the bottom as you can see, but it wont take me but another hour maybe.” I walked over to the paint supplies and put more paint on the tray. I rinse the brushes in the sink to get the dried paint off, then walk over to the tree and start on the lower parts. Mixing the pink and white I swipe my brush in a slight curved petal of each flower. Using one of the smaller brushes I use the darker pink for the inner details of each flower and more highlights within each petal. I work on just the flowers from the left wall to the right, once done I go back to the beginning and start the filler leaves and small details around each flower or clusters of flowers. Forty five minutes later I’m finished completely with the Cherry Blossom. I stand back, moving the ladder out of my way and pull out my phone to take pictures. I hadn’t realized everyone was still in the room. At some point when I first started someone turned on music, I had assumed they did that for me and that everyone had left after that. But they were all sitting on the floor, legs crossed watching me paint and listening to me sing to the music. I look at each one of my friends and smile at the looks of amazement they all have. It gives me this warm bubbly feeling at how blown away they look at my masterpiece. 

We cleaned up the room, packed up all the paint supplies and put them in her garage. We opened her windows and let it air out and dry the paint. We were now sitting in the kitchen deciding on dinner and what to do for the night. Tomorrow is Friday and we all have to pack as our plane leaves early Saturday morning. 

“We should go to the melting pot for dinner. It;s double date night Thursday! We can call Justin to come over and all 8 of us go to dinner.” Zoe suggests. Which sounds pretty good, I could get down on their classic alpine fondue and the chocolate fondue is to die for. 

“I’m down, that sounds so good!” I say. 

“All for Melting pot, say I.” Everyone says I. Nick continues, “It’s settled then. We should draw names to see who’s paying. We can draw two names since it’s going to be expensive with 8 people.” 

I get up and grab the notepad by the kitchen table. Tearing off a piece, I rip it into small squares and write everyone’s name on it except for Justin since he’s being invited and not here to agree. I grab a deep bowl and put the names in. “Alright, Nick since this was your idea, you draw the names.” I shake up the pieces of paper in the bowl and hold it out for him to reach in. 

“First, Skylar. Second, me. Damn. Alright Sky it’s on us.” Nick throws the papers back in the bowl, sulking. Everyone heads up to Nick and Ria’s rooms to get cleaned up to go while Nick calls Justin. Justin shows up a half hour later and we all roll out Four to a car.