School Girls' Stories: New Generation - Finale

Chapter 20 – 3 Hours Remaining (11:00 AM)



“I look awful,” Tiera complained. “I’m all pale and icky looking.”



“Well if you had gone to sleep instead of sneaking into young Taryn’s bedroom late at night, you would not look so pale and icky,” Mercedes snapped. Though she had a wonderful night with Shu the lack of sleep was making her cranky. She felt like Tiera looked, pale and ‘icky’. She had not felt so awful in years and now that she was clean and sober she had not expected to feel that way again.



Mercedes, Bliss, Rhapsody, and Tiera were joined in Rhapsody’s hotel room, dressing for the wedding in three hours. Rhapsody was in her corset and her skirt, the top of the dress the only part left to attach and everyone was afraid she would drop make-up on it as her hands shook every time she raised her hand to put something on her face. Tiera had offered and had been no less shaky and when it came to make up Mercedes and Bliss were not the ones to turn to. They had all thought they could do it themselves, Rhapsody had training from childhood on making herself beautiful, she was the face of the Chenbaro-Inperiaru/Maple-Gold Incorporation, but today none of them were ready to wake up much less make themselves beautiful.



“Maybe you are shaking because your gut is telling you this is the wrong thing to do,” Bliss suggested as Rhapsody grabbed a tissue and wiped away her eye creation for the third time and looked again at herself in the mirror. She was determined and that alone would make her beautiful before her time was up.



“I called Harmony,” Rhapsody admitted, not stopping in her administrations to her face, reaching out and trying again with a mixture of colors that should have been gauche and instead was beautiful on Rhapsody’s eyes. If she just stopped shaking and mixing it down her cheek or into her eye she would be fine.



“What did my little sister have to say?” Bliss sneered. “I know you feel guilty, Rhapsody, but this is your wedding day, you should not let her upset you further. Tomorrow is another day.”



“She says she forgives me, and then she apologized,” Rhapsody said, and for some reason her eyes filled with tears.



“Lies,” Bliss snapped. “Harmony has never been so harmonious in her life.” Looking to Rhapsody, who cried for the sorrows she had created, Bliss knew that Rhapsody had not lied. Bliss sat up straighter and forgot about cursing the dress she wore that now felt too constricting around her body. She looked to Rhapsody and saw something she had never seen before in the complacent and compliant girl; sorrow. Rhapsody was filled with sorrow since she was young and had first discovered that her family would never be normal, and now Rhapsody cried for the sorrow that she had caused, not for herself.



“Maybe it is Harmony’s turn to grow up a little…” Tiera said quietly, stopping the brush in the middle of Mercedes hair, having tried to help her untangle a knot that seemed to not want to let go.



“All this time, all these years, I was the one hurting Harmony,” Rhapsody said quietly.



“That’s not true,” Mercedes argued, knowing enough of the stories now to know the truth. “Ashe is the one who hurt Harmony, not you.”



“No, it was me,” Rhapsody said calmly. “She will never blame Ashe, she loved Ashe, I think she still loves Ashe… I don’t know why, I don’t know why I do either. I don’t know why I can’t love Sora the way he loves me. I don’t know why I hurt her, I don’t know what right I had to attack her except that she wanted it…”



“What?” Mercedes sat up straighter, the brush now stuck in her hair, Tiera having released it to listen to Rhapsody, who was freely crying into her make-up.



“When Harmony spoke to me, when she hissed at me those hateful words, she told me how great Ashe was in bed and that I would never experience it the way I should with him because of my own stubbornness. She told me how she loved him but he wanted me, and even when he had her it was me he thought of and that I was awful, and hateful, but she would give him something I never could, a child. And her words to me were, ‘Doesn’t it make you want to hit me? Don’t you want to drag me down?’ And so I did… and what you guys missed was that she laughed and continued spewing things at me, telling me I was weak and that was not enough.”



“Ashe refused to give her money for the baby,” Bliss snapped. “She figured getting rid of it would be easier than living on welfare.” Bliss was having a hard time seeing any good in her sister. “She tried to kill her poor baby.”



“Ironic it was Yuna who lost her baby instead,” Mercedes spoke in a guilty tone. “If we had known we would not have…”



“Yes we would have,” Bliss pointed out bluntly.



Mercedes could only shrug to that.



“You’ve spoiled your make-up again,” Tiera pointed out calmly and sweetly. “Here, let me try,” she was suddenly feeling much more filled with life. Things would never be perfect in their world, they would always be at each other’s throats and betraying one another, but most of them had found their niche and their troubles to be minor. Bliss had found a companion in Mercedes, though the two still seemed to deny that, Harmony and Yuna had bonded when it was needed, but even now that was shattering apart. Would they move on one day? Would Harmony become a respectful mother to her baby with Ashe?



“Maybe Ashe and Harmony will finally realize they love one another and settle down?” Bliss suggested bluntly.



Rhapsody’s heckles went up, just as all three women expected they would, but she said nothing. She allowed Tiera to work on her make-up while Mercedes fought with the brush in her mussed hair. When Mercedes’ cell phone rang she rolled off of the bed to the floor and went in search of it, brush still trapped in the rat nest of her knot. “Hello!” she nearly griped into the cell phone.



“Rhapsody,” Tiera said to her best friend, “you don’t have to go through with this. Think of this as the fairy tale, you know how they always have those last minute decisions, at the wedding the man rushes in and saves her… but Ashe won’t do that. He will watch you marry Sora if that is what makes you happy, he will go to Harmony because in the end it is the right thing to do and he will believe it is what you want of him, he will abide by your wishes. He is not going to be your white knight, Rhapsody. You can not walk into that wedding and expect him to ride up on the shining horse. You are the only one who can make this decision.”



“Of course he’s not here, you know that’s bad luck,” Mercedes snapped into her phone. Bliss looked sharply over at Mercedes who glanced up and saw Rhapsody’s expression reflected in the mirror and Mercedes became very well aware that now everyone was listening into her conversation. “Look, Shu, if you don’t want her to know you should not be calling me while she is getting ready…”



Everyone turned to face Mercedes head on and Mercedes shifted uncomfortably. “I’ll call you when I hear something,” and she quickly slammed the flip phone closed and gave the room a cheerful smile. “Tiera did a marvelous job with your eyes,” she said, a little too happily.



“What’s going on?” Rhapsody asked bluntly.



Mercedes sighed and forgot any inclination to lie. “They can’t find Sora. He’s not in his room and he hasn’t checked in with anyone yet.”



Bliss was the one to make the wise crack that should have stayed behind her lips. “Maybe you’re wrong Tiera, perhaps Sora is making the decision for Rhapsody.”



Rhapsody stood. “I have to find him.”



“No, you don’t,” Tiera snapped, sitting her friend back down in the chair in front of the vanity. “You need to finish your make-up. It is possible that he is just getting some air, or he needed time by himself. These are his last hours as a bachelor and I am sure he had a rotten time with the guys last night if what Taryn told me is any inclination.”



“This is why my mother isn’t here yet,” Rhapsody said, not turning as Tiera tried to push her to face the mirror. “She knows he has gone missing. They are all searching for him while I vainly ready myself for this wedding.”



“And you will finish,” Mercedes snapped, standing up and finally yanking the brush out of her hair, and yelping in pain as it tore through the knotted mess she had made of her hair. “Fuck, I’m going to go find him with the others, I’ll call when I know something.”



Bliss, Tiera, and Rhapsody were left in a room alone with a jangle of nerves and Bliss did the only thing she could think to do, she called Link. Tiera and Rhapsody’s eyes both went wide when Bliss said, “Link, check the police station.”