Chapter 11 – A Mini Problem
It hadn't been long since the funeral - not even a full forty eight hours - so Grace was panicking slightly over the fact that she was about to try and talk to Mini about what was up with her and why did Mini and Liv seem to be so far away from her these days. After the funeral Mini had stuck nearer to Liv than she had before and only rarely would Liv talk to her. Things had really gone from bad to worse.
She approached the door and then backed away a little bit again, she didn't want Mini to get angry or for the distance between them to widen even more. She paced a little more before finally knocking on her door. Mini soon appeared in the doorway before Grace could back out of it.
"Hey Gracie," Mini said, smiling in surprise. "Come to walk with us to service?"
She walked back into the house, leaving the door open for Grace to follow her. She froze for a moment and felt her anger build up and remembered why she was really here. She stomped inside and put her hands on her hips.
"Just waiting for Liv to get her lazy ass -" Mini picked up her bag off the sofa and turned back around to see Grace standing there, trying to look as hard as she could in her little white collared dress. She snorted loudly and Liv walked down the stairs staring at the scene before her.
"Gracie? What's up?" She asked, as she started putting her jacket on. She exhaled slowly, trying to compose herself.
"You two are just… just acting completely like bitches!" She snapped out, forgetting completely about composing herself. Mini's mouth gaped completely open and Liv leaned backwards in surprise. They exchanged a look.
"Oh, really? And how the fuck are we doing that?" Mini said calmly, almost sounding amused. Grace placed a hand to her head and began to massage her forehead gently.
"I hardly see you two anymore," She began, speaking in a calmer voice this time around. "Ever since the powers, you two are together all the time… We're supposed to all be friends."
Mini at least looked slightly guilty now and chewed on one of her nails as she thought how best to reply.
"I feel so alone with this shitty curse and Liv is the only one who can touch me…"
"And I was kidnapped!" Grace squeaked out, before taking a step forward to Mini and Liv. "It was terrible and when you came to get me… with Rich, I finally thought things were getting back to normal… But they haven't!"
"Shit, Grace… Sorry, if you felt like we didn't care." Liv said, approaching Grace and placing an arm over her shoulders.
"Can we just be like before? Please?" Grace asked, nearly begging them as Liv wiped Grace's eyes to remove some of the tears.
"Of course, babe." Liv smiled, bringing her in closer. Grace still stared at Mini though and she nodded.
"Sorry," Mini quietly said, as she walked past them to the kitchen. "Just getting some water then we can go live the high life." She spoke sarcastically.
She stood by the sink and washed her hands. She could feel the prickling sensation in her cuticles. She glanced at her fingers and saw the small dirt-like pieces forming around her nails; she hurriedly tried to scrub them away as she heard Liv and Grace discussing what they might be doing that day. She winced in pain as she scrubbed her nails clean.
"Are you okay, Mini moo?" Grace surprised her, by peeking over her shoulder. She instantly hid her hands in her brown shorts pockets after she turned off the tap.
"Fine!" She said, faking a grin. Grace did not look anywhere near convinced, but Mini cut her off before she could say anything. "Ladies, I don't want having a go at us for being late, let's go."
Grace knew there was something else bothering Mini, but knowing her she wasn't going to spill the beans. There was only one person she knew would be able to find out what was going on; she just did not like having to use this power to find out, but there were exceptions.
"Ugh… Alo, you have no idea what you're talking about. That's not how it happened at all." Alo turned his head in Rich's direction as he finished parking the van. He gave him an outraged expression.
"Excuse me, Richaroo? I was there too; I know exactly what shit went down!" Rich let out a derisive laugh and opened his door, as Alo jumped out his side to run around to meet Rich.
"Your memory is honestly worse than your disgusting, offensive and just balls taste in music. Your memory of the first day of college is you getting a wink from a girl." Alo lifted up one side of his mouth in confusion.
"But that is what happened…"
"Yeah, yeah, you're right… She winked, but just with both eyes at the same time." He sighed, as Alo lightly pushed his arm in annoyance. "What happened was you wanted to do coke and I said that was terrible. You insisted and bought it from some bigger twat than you. You dragged me to the toilets and then some undercover cop saw the transaction so followed us in there and we got done for possession of drugs without even taking them and now here we are… You were not, I repeat, were not persuaded by 'a dude' as you put it to take it for free. Worst memory EVER."
Alo had selective memory when it came to remembering stories where he came off badly, so Rich often had to explain things to him over and over again. After this rather long explanation, the realization of the events seemed to be dawning on Alo. He nodded and let out a small laugh.
"Oh yeah and you head butted me, right? Wasn't Nick there too?" He abruptly stopped laughing and there was an awkward silence as Rich scuffed his shoe on the floor. After an uncomfortable moment, he nodded.
"Yeah, he was." He gave a half smile whilst opening the door to the community centre. Nick had gotten coke from the same guy an hour before them, so he wasn't caught along with them. "Prick got away with it though."
They found roller brushes and big tins of paint waiting outside the changing room, so they knew what they had to look forward to that day. They groaned simultaneously and dragged themselves to their lockers.
"Hurry up, girls! The other two gits are already outside." Their probation worker shouted, pointing at three roller brushes and a big tin of paint for them to carry outside. Mini grabbed the dish for the paint, whilst Liv was stuck with the tin and Grace had the three roller brushes. She blushed heavily as she felt the intense glare of their probation worker on them.
They turned the corner, following the shouts of "GEROFF" and "FUCKING HELL" that were obviously coming from Rich. Grace smirked a little as she found Alo cowering over Rich with a roller brush and painting his orange overalls. Liv and Mini cackled with laughter, as Rich kicked Alo in his shins so he fell over unelegantly landing in his tin of paint.
"I think you might have got a little paint on your ass there, ginger minger." Mini stated trying to suppress her laughter as Alo stood up to reveal a huge white patch of paint covering his entire backside. He let out a deflated sigh as he stood on the spot pathetically not knowing what he should really do.
"Maybe there are spare overalls for you, Alo." Grace suggested, handing out the rollers to Mini and Liv, who were still sniggering at Alo's disheveled appearance.
"Good thinking." Alo agreed; as he walked back in the direction they just came. Rich began to stand up and wiped at the two smallish white paint stains he had on his own overalls. He quietly got back to his own painting, but shook his head when he saw Alo walking strangely back to the centre. Liv and Mini began to mess about with their rollers, so Grace took that moment to walk nearer to where Rich was standing.
He was too aware of her presence and couldn't really ignore her for much longer.
"Uhm… we were jousting." He confessed, making it sound like he hadn't wanted to do it at all when in reality Alo didn't have to convince him at all. Grace furrowed her brow in confusion at first, but then nodded when she understood what he was referring to. She continued to stand there which made Rich feel extremely uneasy. He turned away from his painting once more to raise an eyebrow questioningly at her.
"I need to ask you something," She began, understanding that he didn't particularly want to speak to her right now. He gestured with one hand for her to continue on and after lightly clearing her throat, she barely breathed the rest. "Would you listen to somebody's thoughts for me?"
"What?" He asked, not trying to hide his annoyance. She ducked her head a little, so she wasn't looking into his eyes and she glanced behind her to make sure Liv and Mini hadn't started paying attention to their conversation. "You're the one who told me not to listen to your thoughts."
He simply shook his head and got back to concentrating on painting over the word 'cunt' written in giant letters across the crumbling wall. She stepped closer to him quickly and tugged on the sleeve of his shirt.
"I know," She began imploringly, pulling him around to face her. Her voice dropped to a near whisper as she continued on, but she never lost the urgency in her tone. "But I'm so worried and I don't know what to do… Something is wrong with Mini."
"That's something we already know…" He said with a roll of his eyes, trying to ignore how close Grace was to him now and the fact that he could smell the sweet vanilla fragrance of her hair and that her eyes were trained on his.
"Rich…" She began, in that begging way she had done at the funeral. He was really a victim of emotional abuse every time she did that, because she could get anything out of him when she said his name like that. "Please?"
"I don't think this is right and you would be better off talking to her, but fine…" He said with a defeated sigh. She breathed out in relief and brought him towards her for a quick hug. It lasted a few fleeting moments, but Rich was so overwhelmed that he didn't know what to do. He simply stood there and waited for it to end, but when it did he wanted it to go on and on. She released him and smiled happily up at him.
"Thank you," She turned around and joined her friends. He sighed yet again; why am I agreeing to this?
Rich had worked for so long on controlling his power so he could block out most peoples' thoughts, but usually a thought now and then would escape; it wasn't so bad though as he could hardly recognize whose thought it was as it sounded like a blur of noise. However now he was agreeing to help Grace and he would need to listen to Mini's thoughts. Of course he couldn't just tune in to her thoughts; he would be allowing himself to hearing whatever anyone else was thinking.
'In the wank bank,' Alo thought as he saw Mini pulling one of her bra straps back into its right position. Grace walked out of the bathroom, changed back into her dress.
"My Dad's picking me up, do you need a lift?" Grace asked her friends. Liv shrugged.
"Sure, why not?" She followed Grace towards the exit, whilst Grace parted Rich with a small smile.
"Wait for me, bitches." Mini called, walking back into the bathroom. 'Fucksake… again?'
Rich scrunched his face up in concentration as Mini stood in the doorway of the disabled toilets. She was simply washing her hands, so he didn't know what was going on.
'What is it going to be next? My whole body turning into stone?'
He didn't really need to hear the rest; he could kind of guess what she meant. He leaned back against his locker in shock at what he heard. She began walking towards the doorway, stuffing her hands in her pockets and giving him a calculating look.
She was turning into stone and the problem was who was going to help her?
WAHHHH THE PENULTIMATE CHAPTER! So what are your bets for the final chapter? What's going to go down? What's going to happen to Mini? What about the sweethearts (aka Rich and Grace)? ALL WILL BE REVEALED muhahahah