Redesign Me

Everything was happening so fast. The wedding seemed to be creeping up faster than I expected it would, I was stressed to the max, and, on top of everything else, since our return from our camping vacation it felt like I hadn’t seen Derek for more than a few minutes at a time.

Between my mother and Deborah chasing me around the house, running errands and trying to plan everything down to a T, I barely had time to find a second for myself much less to find time to seek out Derek.

And he was busy trying to plan with Kendall, working on some new franchise deal from a distance and focusing on a new advertising campaign that “could make the company” to be bothered. To make matters worse, Derek’s parents would be flying in from New York within a matter of hours.

The only thing keeping me sane, in all honesty, was Garrett who stood in Kendall’s place as she played translator between Derek and I on important wedding details.

My mother was going crazy with the chaos that seemed to have consumed her household. With gardeners tromping in and out all day, wedding planners, assistants, and my friends, she was nearly having a heart attack.

“Grayson?” her voice echoed throughout the house, her tone holding an edge that showed just how stressed she was. “Grayson!”

I scurried to the staircase and looked down to where she was standing.

“Kendall is waiting for you out in the car. You have your dress fitting today.” She sounded like she could kill simply because I lost track of time whilst I worked on table seating arrangements. With one dark scowl shot my way, she walked away to manage the gardeners and landscapers that were trailing dirt through her once impeccable household.

Sliding into the passenger seat of my jeep, I flashed a tired smile to my future sister-in-law.

She smiled back brightly. “I feel like I haven’t seen you in days…”

“I know what you mean…” I stated, sounding exhausted even to my own ears. “Where are we doing this?”

“Garrett’s house.”

“Garrett’s house?” I asked just to confirm that I’d heard correctly.

“Yes. Your dress is there, is it not?” she asked as she pulled my vehicle out of the driveway.

“It is… I just, I thought we’d pick it up and bring it back here or something.”

She scoffed flipping her blonde hair over her shoulder. “So my brother can accidentally walk in on us. I think not. Garrett said he didn’t mind if we invade his home for the day.”

For some reason, I was glad that he was. I needed a second to escape from the bustling household, even if that escape caused me to be poked and prodded with needles all day.

As soon as we arrived at Garrett’s house, we fell into working with the boy meandering around. Occasionally, Garrett would drop into the guest room we’d taken over to mess around with his bass out of pure boredom. He even went as far as singing his own rendition of Ryan Adams’ “Note to Self: Don’t Die”, which was terrible coming from his mouth as I stood as still as possible while Kendall jabbed pins into place.

“Don’t make me laugh, Gary!” I warned, watching the boy as he sprawled out over the spare bed his mother had probably made when he’d first moved in. “I don’t want to be stabbed accidentally and bleed out.”

He only looked over and smiled lazily at me before breaking out in his obnoxious Ryan Adams voice, “Note to self: don't die for anyone. Note to self don't die. Note to self don't change for anyone – don't change, just lie!”

I couldn’t help it. I burst out laughing at just how ridiculous he was and wished that I had something close enough to toss at him. “Stop!”

“Who do you call-who do you call-who do you call–”

“STOP! Please! My ears are practically bleeding, Garrett. Please just-just stop singing. I’ll do anything-”

“Anything?” he asked, sitting up to wiggle his eyebrows suggestively at me. Kendall and I laughed lightly as he rolled to his side and tried looking seductive.

“Not that. Sleeping with you might cause a few complications considering that right now I’m being fitted for a wedding gown… for my wedding… to a guy that’s not you…”

Garrett scoffed, and flicked his hand. “Details, details. I won’t tell if you won’t sweetheart,” he said with a mischievous glint in his blue eyes. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched as Kendall shook her head and smiled at the little banter Garrett and I had created.

I rolled my eyes as my soon to be sister-and-law rose from her kneeling position. “I think we’re good.”

“I can get out of this torture instrument?” I asked, glancing to the blonde with hopeful eyes.

She nodded before we turned to Garrett and stared him down.

He blinked between the two of us before holding his hands up as if in defense-mode. “I can sense when I’m not wanted, I can take a hint,” he stated as he stood up and walked out of the room, closing the door behind him.

Kendall shook her head as she walked behind me to help guide the dress off of my body. “He’s a funny guy.”

I furrowed my brow as I held the bodice to myself. “Who, Garrett?”

“No, the other guy that was just singing in here – yes, Garrett,” she stated.

“I thought you didn’t like Gary in that way…”

“I don’t. I meant it in a friend-kind of way,” she clarified. “You two have such an easy relationship.”

“Well, yeah. I mean – it wasn’t always like that, but we’ve known each other forever… It’s just sort of natural now.”

There was a moment of silence as she slid the gown down carefully. “You are free until I need you again, so stay kind of close,” Kendall stated as she carried it over to the area she’d set up for herself.

After redressing, I found Garrett at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee. “Mind if I steal a cup?” I asked, already searching through the cabinets for a mug.

“Go for it,” he said, his tone declaring that he was clearly amused by my words and actions. Opening the right cupboard, I couldn’t help but to gasp at the mismatched coffee cups. “What?”

I pulled out a heinous yellow cup that I recognized from my childhood. “You kept it?” I awed, holding up the ceramic to show him just what I had stumbled upon.

In my hand was a cup that I’d decorated after breaking my arm in fifth grade. The pediatric ward had a day room for kids to play in and on the days I’d happened to be admitted, they were doing arts and crafts. I’d decorated my coffee cup in yellow paint and attempted to draw and write random things that had represented our friendship at the time.

None of it turned out though. The writing had smeared, the depictions turned out completely wrong and barely recognizable. It was downright hideous, but Garrett had loved it when his eyes fixated on it. It wasn’t meant to be anything other than a piece of memorabilia to stuff on the shelves in my room, but he couldn’t stop talking about how cool it was.

It was yellow, after all.

“Yeah, why wouldn’t I?” he asked after taking a sip from his coffee.

I laughed shortly, almost skeptically. “Um, aside the fact that it’s downright gaudy?”

He shrugged, ruffling his brown hair before crossing the floor to take it from my hands. He studied it for a second before looking up to me. “It’s special. I mean, it’s not every day that you find a cup dedicated to you and your best friend’s relationship,” he stated as if it should have been the most obvious thing in the world. “I only use it on special occasions, mostly because I don’t want to ruin it the old thing,” Garrett admitted, tapping the side of it like he would to a trusty old friend before handing it back to me.

“Can I use it now?”

“I don’t see why not. You are the creator of it, after all.”

I smiled and poured myself a cup before we settled into seats around the kitchen table. “You said you only use it on special occasions?” I pried, lifting an eyebrow curiously over the rim of my mug.

He smiled and leaned back in his chair, kicking his foot up on the table – as disgusting as it was. “Is that what I said?”

I rolled my eyes, realizing that this was the happiest I’d been since our “vacation”. I wasn’t worried about the wedding, wasn’t listening to my mother’s hysterics and I wasn’t in the same house as Derek knowing that we were so close, yet suddenly so far apart.

“I only used it when I was thinking about you, wondering how you were doing up north, you know?” Garrett admitted. “I missed having my best friend around, and I missed not being included in your life. I guess I just realized after I set aside my pride and my idiocy that I missed out on a lot. Like the saying: you don’t realize what you’ve had until it’s gone…”

I studied his face, our carefree conversation gone, veering to a more serious topic. I nodded, knowing exactly how he felt. “It doesn’t have to feel that way now,” I stated, reaching across to rest my hand over his. “I expect a lot of phone calls between the two of us, oh and Skype! We should definitely Skype when I get around to returning to New York…”

We smiled at each other for a moment before Garrett said, “I’d like that. I’d like that a lot, Grayson.”