#Ruby Hart | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

rainbows-and-shadows · 1 month ago

Text

Rainbows Tinted Pink

Chapter 14: Lightning Strikes

First - Previous - Next

Bella slammed her body against the door repeatedly, each time growing more desperate to get it open. She and Jade had only been stuck in the storage closet for about twenty minutes, but she couldn’t take it any more. They’d quickly discovered both their phones were dead, as they attempted to let the rest of the girls know what was happening, yet another bit of bad luck on top of everything else that happened.

And Bella’s desperate attempts to get free were futile.

“Come on, come on! Open already!” She yelled as she slammed her body, over and over, against the heavy metal door, to no avail.

“Bella, stop it!” Jade desperately pleaded, worried her girlfriend was going to hurt herself. “You’re gonna break something!”

“I don’t care about the stupid stuff in here, we have to get out!” she protested throwing herself against the door again

“I was talking about you! You’re not gonna be able to do anything with a broken arm or leg!” Jade grabbed her girlfriend by the arms and roughly pulled her into her hold. She struggled against her grasp, but Jade held firm, loosening her grip slightly so she could look the pink-haired girl in the eye.

“B, listen to me, that’s not gonna work, and it’s not worth you getting hurt. The door’s locked, but it’ll be okay. We just have to think of something else.”

“But we have to get out! We need to fix the set, otherwise the show’s gonna be ruined!”

“I know, but-”

“Hello? Is anyone in there?” A voice called out through the keyhole.

Fortunately, all the noise had alerted some nearby students, particularly one Krystal Bailey, lead editor of the school magazine, The Scene. She’d interviewed the girls a few weeks ago for a feature, to ask them about their artistic experiences and passion. Ruby was the only one who made the cut though, but they were all very proud of her, and afterwards, they all agreed it was a fun experience.

“It's Krystal Bailey, is everything okay in there?” She asked again

Bella jumped over to the door, relieved to have someone help them.

“Hey! We got stuck in here!” She cried. “It’s Bella Parker and Jade Hunter. Can you help us, please?”

“Of course! Are you two okay? Are you hurt?” She asked concernedly.

“No, we’re okay, we were moving some stuff in here, and the door must’ve got locked when we closed it, we can’t get it open now,” Jade explained.

“Don’t worry, I’m gonna go get someone, just give me a moment,” Krystal reassured them, her heels quickly clicking away as she ran to get help.

Jade relaxed a little, the knowledge the help was on the way soothing her mind. Bella, on the other hand, couldn’t let her mind rest, not for a moment.

“This is a complete disaster!” she despaired, her breath quickening as she began to hyperventilate, her heart pounding heavily in her chest. “And it’s all my fault.”

“Bella, Krystal’s gonna get help. Everything’s gonna be fine-”

“No! None of this is fine, Jade! Even when Krystal gets us out, I’m not gonna have enough time to fix everything wrong with the set! I have to realign the wires, fix all the broken sections, and repaint over all of the chips and cracks. This is a total catastrophe!”

“Bella-”

“No! We’ve worked too hard for this to be perfect! I’m not gonna ruin everything all over again, just because I’m too useless to do anything right!” She sobbed, as her emotional dam broke at last. She slumped against Jade, tears finally pouring down her face.

The green-haired girl was taken aback. Did Bella really think that about herself? And how long had she been feeling this way?

“What are you talking about, B?” She asked her softly. “You haven’t ruined anything at all!”

“But I have!” She wailed, sobbing into Jade’s puffy coat. “I ruined everything when I took Amaya’s place and everyone was upset with me just being here. I ruined everything this morning with the stupid words that cannot be said. And, I just ruined our whole rehearsal, our fashions, our tech and our set! I’m totally useless! I never should have been here in the first place, and you and everyone else probably thinks the same-

“Stop it, B!” Jade pleaded. Her heart shattered at her beautiful Bella’s self-hating words. “That’s not true, none of us think that about you!”

“Yeah right-”

“Bella,” Jade cut her off sharply, in a tone that made her stop talking. “Listen to me. You are not any of those things you said. Sure, your coming here was unexpected-”

“To say the least,” Bella scoffed derisively, only to be met with an annoyed glare from her girlfriend.

“But, even though it shook things up a little,” she continued. “We were never upset with you, just that Amaya was gone and because we literally only found out seconds before you showed up. If anything, that was Miss Wright’s fault, for breaking the news so suddenly, not yours. And, there is so much that would have never happened if you never came here. We’d never have such an amazing set for our show, we’d never have had a solution to our problem with Violet’s video, and we’d never have made such an amazing, beautiful, kind, talented friend.”

Jade giggled and smiled lovingly at Bella, a warm blush spreading across her face. “And I’d never have the most amazing, beautiful, kind, talented girl in the whole world as my girlfriend.”

Bella stared up at Jade, teary lilac eyes meeting determined aquamarine. Her heart melted as she absorbed what her beloved girlfriend truly saw her. “You really mean that?”

“Every word! Come on, Bella,” Jade gently cupped her face, gently kissing her forehead lovingly. “Can’t you see how valuable you are to us, to me?”

She nodded, as a fresh wave of tears spilled down her face. Not of sadness or anger, but of love and relief. Jade pulled some spare makeup wipes out of her pocket, lovingly and carefully wiping away her girlfriend’s tear-stained makeup.

Something clicked into place in the keyhole, and at last, the door flung open, as Krystal and Kia Hart, her girlfriend stood into from of them, a set of shiny

“Finally!” The Journalism focus grinned, triumphantly and relieved. “Are you two okay?”

Bella wiped her eyes, squeezing Jade’s hand tightly. “Yeah, we are now.”

“Thanks for helping us,” Jade added

“Don’t sweat it. We wouldn’t want you to miss your own runway show,” Kia replied

The two Third Years gently led them out of the small room. Bella took a few deep breaths to steel her nerves, before jumping back into action. They only had a free hours before the show, and they needed to make every second count.

“Krystal, can you keep an eye on the set for a few minutes?”

The couple nodded, as Bella grabbed Jade’s hand and rushed over to the closest lift and pressed the button for the First Year dorms.

“B, what are we doing?”

“The set still needs fixing. So, first things first, we need supplies.”

The second the doors slid open, they bolted down the hall and into their dorm and into Bella’s room. Bella snatched two toolboxes and handed Jade a couple of fast-drying paint cans she’d stashed upstairs, just in case.

Two minutes later, the lift doors slid open again, as the couple ran back down to Krystal and Kia. The pair hadn’t moved an inch, with Kia’s foot wedged into the doorframe and the set of keys firmly grasped in Krystal’s hands, to prevent the same disaster from reoccurring.

“Thank you both so much!” Jade sighed, holding open the door for Bella to rush in and grab the carts, and the indigo and pink haired girls stepped away.

“It's no problem ladies, and don’t worry, no one’s even gone near them,” Kia assured them.

“Thanks Do you have the time?” Jade asked, handing Bella her paint cans as she carefully placed them onto the carts.

“Sure, it's two thirty,” Krystal replied, checking her silver watch.

Quickly, Bella did the mental maths for her fixes. It would be a bit of a time crunch, but as long as everything went smoothly, once the technical parts and physical repairs were done, there would be just enough time for the paint to dry.

“Okay, thanks,” Bella panted, as she and Jade took hold of their trolleys.

“See you later! And turn your colour up!” Krystal called supportively, as the couple began to run back to the theatre department.

��⛈️❤️⛈️🧡⛈️💛⛈️💚⛈️💙⛈️💜

Back in their dressing room,, the rest of the group were starting to panic, wondering where Jade, Bella and their set had gone.

“I texted them a zillion times!” Skyler anxiously glanced at her phone again. “I even called them both! Neither of them is answering!”

“This is it people!” Violet announced on her live stream. “For real! Our first Rainbow High test, our big runway show! And we have no runway!”

“I need to find a happy place,” Sunny panted, trying to calm herself down.

“We need to find Bella,” Ruby replied. “She and Jade are full-on missing!”

“Neither are active on their socials either! Not anywhere!” Poppy groaned, running her fingers across her headphones.

“I can’t believe this!” Skyler cried. “Our first big test, our first runway show! If we don’t have a runway set, we fail! We’re getting cut! Booted! Axed! Dead! Ahhhhhhh!”

“They're gonna kick us out of Rainbow High! Our lives are all over!” Sunny cried. “Oh, this never would have happened if Amaya was still here! Never, ever, ever!”

As if that wasn’t enough, the intercom crackled to life with an announcement from Ms Wright.

“Thirty minutes to showtime. You must be in your places in thirty minutes!”

All five girls screamed in terror. They needed to find their set, and missing teammates, fast!

“We’re here!” Bella shouted out from behind the cart, Jade behind her. The five girls let out a collective sigh of relief as the remaining two panted, the adrenaline from their ordeal finally lifting.

“Happy face emoji! We're so happy to see you two!” Sunny sighed in relief

“We fixed all the designs, and figured out the technical stuff too!” Skyler quickly filled them in.

“Now it's all about the set,” Ruby added. “How'd the repairs go?”

“Well, about that,” Jade said uneasily, while Bella stared at the floor, scared and a little ashamed, despite the fact that what happened was not her fault.

The five girls stared at her confused, before their eyes locked onto the set pieces, the paint still chipped and the broken parts still visible.

“Seriously?” Poppy exclaimed.

“I don't know what to say, a lot happened! We got locked in a storage closet, and I had a breakdown, but by the time we got out I never got to work on the set!” She cried, eliciting shocked reactions from her friends. “I know, I messed up, but I got some supplies, and I think I can fix this. Don't stress.”

“Don't stress?” Violet exclaimed incredulously. “We are supposed to head on stage in a matter of minutes! And our set is still ruined!”

“And if we don't pull this off we’re all gonna get cut!” Skyler added.

The girls quickly descended into hysteria, on the verge of tears themselves, and shrieking and crying out in fear. Bella just whimpered, tears welling in her eyes again, too overstimulated to do anything but press her hands against her ears. In an attempt to regain control and composure, Jade put her fingers to her mouth, and whistled as loud as she could, immediately grabbing everyone’s attention.

“Listen up!” She yelled authoritatively. “We are not gonna stress out over this! You remember what Miss Morton told us earlier? ‘A piece of clothing is only as strong as its loosest stitch’?”

“Yeah, I never really got what she meant by that,” Poppy said awkwardly.

“Me neither, until now. A loose stitch can unravel and destroy an entire garment, if it’s left alone without anything to strengthen it. But when it's combined with a load of other threads to support it, the problem is fixed! She meant that we’re made stronger together! We know that none of us are loose stitches, so we need to come together and strengthen each other! Look, we all just need to come together and find some good-”

“Don't say it!” Everyone yelled in unison. The last thing they needed was even more bad luck.

“I mean,” Jade quickly corrected herself. “Come together and turn our colour up, so that we nail this runway show! What do you say?”

“I'm in,” Sunny agreed. “Like Amaya used to say, ‘be bold like the rainbow’, right?”

“Turn your color up!” Ruby declared.

“Alright!” Jade cried triumphantly, before turning back to the pink-haired girl. “Bella, you’re the set expert here. Tell us what needs to be done.”

Bella took a deep breath, before snapping into action. “Okay, I’ll handle most of the fixing and drilling, Jade, Ruby, can you give me a hand with that? Poppy, Sunny, you make sure that all the lights and wires are okay. Skyler and Violet, once that’s all done, you take the paint touch ups!”

After quickly moving away the dressing tables and other equipment, Bella distributed her tools, instructed them on how to use them. Forming a semi-structured assembly line, Jade and Ruby would hold the set pieces up for her, Sunny and Poppy would fix the lights and make sure the wires were placed correctly, while Skyler and Violet would finish it off by carefully painting over the cracks and breaks.

A few minutes into their progress, Sunny and Poppy encountered a problem. As they worked away at the lights and tangled wires, out of nowhere, the light bulb sparked and flashed explosively, shattering the glass and starling the girls.

“Oh no, it’s a mess! I don't know how to fix this!” The yellow-haired girl cried as Poppy jumped back and yelped.

“I got this, just take care of the glass!”

Poppy nodded, and grabbed a nearby dustpan, as Sunny watched Bella step away from her station and grab her pink drill. Within seconds, she drilled three holes in the back of the wood, before expertly threading the wires through them, quick as a flash. The moment that was done, she snatched up a new lightbulb and screwed it into the light, as it flashed a brilliant golden yellow

“Star eyes emoji! That was amazing,” Sunny grinned, as her heart swelled with warmth. “We’re really lucky to have you Bella. I really mean that.”

Bella smiled just as warmly. From rocky beginnings, to an amazing friendship. “Thanks, Sunny. Alright, I think that’s everything!”

Bella quickly did one last check, before breathing a sigh of relief. The set was complete.

“Final Runway group, ten minutes till curtain,” Miss Wright announced on the intercom.

“Full speed ahead!” Jade declared, snatching up her makeup and palettes.

The girls bolted to put on their outfits and accessories and finish up their hair and makeup, and rushed to their places in the wings.

🩷⛈️❤️⛈️🧡⛈️💛⛈️💚⛈️💙⛈️💜

Ten minutes later, after the last few hours of chaos, problems and panicking, everything was finally in order. The set had been wheeled into its precise position, makeup was finished, and their outfits and accessories were on.

Now, all that needed to be done was the show itself. As the clock neared closer to seven o’clock, it was time.

As they anxiously and impatiently waited in the wings, Miss Wright walked onto the stage to introduce the group.

“Our evening is drawing to a close, and now it is time for our final show. This last runway group has had some big ups and downs,” she announced at the end of the runway. “But now it is their moment to shine. Please welcome to the stage, Group 1-4, Ruby Anderson, Poppy Rowan, Sunny Madison, Jade Hunter, Skyler Bradshaw, Violet Willow, and Bella Parker!”

Back in the wings, the girls quickly formed a tight huddle.

“We ready for this?” Ruby whispered to them, as the audience politely applauded.

“No rain,” Bella began, putting her hand out, everyone else doing the same.

“No rainbows!” Everyone cried quietly, throwing their hands up.

It was time for them to truly shine!

#rainbow high #rainbow high fanfic #rainbow high fanfiction #ruby anderson #poppy rowan #sunny madison #jade hunter #skyler bradshaw #violet willow #bella parker #kia hart #krystal bailey #jella #rainbows tinted pink

2 notes · View notes