cherry.

one

Rose-tinted glasses. A lollipop in the shape of a heart. Windows down, wind blowing in your hair. The sun is setting and for once, your worries are being lifted easily off your tired shoulders. On your way home, everything seems perfect. You've beaten all 14 levels thus far, just having started your 15th one recently.

As you pull into the driveway of your garage, you flinch away sharply upon discovering the excessive amounts of heat the sun has left on your red 1955 Chevy. Closing the car door with your foot, you walk into your house and take off your sunglasses. Your freshly painted red nails run against your hair whilst you open the door to the building.

You lived in a decent town. It wasn't too small to the point where nobody knew where you lived to you told them, but it wasn't overpopulated like a few states were. It was cozy and gave off comfortably simple vibes, something you'd always needed. Your reason for moving here wasn't exactly ideal. Things were getting worse in your hometown and you needed to get away from it all, before you got hurt.

Shaking the bad memories from your head, you set the keys down on a table by the front door. After you washed your hands in the small downstairs bathroom, you looked up at the mirror and to yourself on the other end of the reflection.

It felt odd not seeing your skin being tinted red as a result of your sunglasses at times, but you learned to get used to it. Those glasses helped you to see the world in a better perspective, they helped you to see the beauty in small everyday things. You knew the world wasn't perfect, or beautiful all the time. However, pretending that it was all a game and allowing yourself to believe that you truly were living life as a foggy dream all the time helped a little.

Pushing your hair away from your face, you rubbed your eyes to take the fatigue away from them. You turned off the bathroom lights and walked upstairs to the living room, yearning for a relaxing nap after your lengthy yet much needed free day.

Laying down on your couch and pulling your phone out from your pocket, you began to scroll through it. Tuning everything out and just focusing on one thing, no matter how pointless it seemed to others, helped distract you from how alone you were. Not alone in the sense of, "Oh, I have no one in my life so I'm eternally alone." But rather in the sense of, "I'm alone in this empty house and anyone could come in to end my life right at this exact moment."

You knew that there were other ways to distract yourself from the solitude you lived in everyday, but this seemed much more relaxing than the other ideas you very well could've tried to think of.

As you were just about to fall asleep, your eyes feeling much heavier than they did when you entered, you heard a knock on the front door. You sighed and glanced up at the time on your phone screen, it read '5:28 P.M.' You hadn't been aware that it'd already been an hour since you got home, but time flies far quicker for you than anyone else.

The knocks on the door got more insistent and louder, as if the person were attempting to break it down or cause your hearing to go out rather than get permission to come in. You groaned and sat up, swinging your legs over the couch as you stood up.

"For fucks sake— I'm coming, I'm coming!" You shouted irritably, knowing the unwanted visitor likely couldn't even hear your annoyed response.

You carelessly dropped your phone back onto the couch where you had been sat just a few moments before, walking down the stairs to the first floor. While you couldn't see exactly who was at the door, and still knocking, much to your dismay; you could just make out the figure of somebody tall.

The reason for you not being able to make out who the person was could've been anything. Perhaps it was because you were unaware of everything happening at the moment, as you seemed to be all the time lately. Or maybe it was due to the fact that you had just been about to go to sleep after being exhausted the whole day, before they just had to stop by for whatever reason and get your attention.

Running a hand lazily through your hair, you finally reached the front door. The person stopped knocking upon noticing you on the other end of the door, but it seemed like your soured mood somehow reached to the outside for they continued to bang their fist against the door after a few moments.

Before opening the door with your hand on the handle, just about to unlock and open it, you kicked the bottom half of the door with your shoe. Unfortunately, the person had been leaning their leg on the door but moved it away just before the impact was able to get to them. You opened the door and gave them an unimpressed look, your eyes scanning their body scrutinisingly with the same expression.

"Well, don't you look like shit?" The stranger remarked with a raise of his brows and a cocky smirk. You quirked a brow of your own and met his eyes, they were a calm mix of blue-grey. Despite the first impression of them, you had a strange feeling that he was a lot more destructive than they led on.

"And aren't you just a kind ol' fellow? Who are you and why are you at my front doorstep?" You questioned tiredly, not feeling up to playing in to his childish and, honestly quiet rude, insults.

He scanned his eyes down your body, taking his time and giving you every reason to believe he had no true intention of answering you seriously or honestly.

After a few moments of examining you, he parted his thin but noticeable, pale pink lips to speak. "I'm your new neighbour. You have the pleasure of showing me around the town tomorrow morning."

You narrowed your eyes at him suspiciously. Who was he to just show up after clearly moving into this town recently, and tell you to act as tour guide for him without even giving you a choice in the matter?

Noticing the inner questioning and resentment you were having towards him, he rolled his eyes with an impatient breath of air out through his nose. He pulled out a piece of paper from his pocket along with a pen. He began to write on the paper and handed it to you shortly after.

"I'm not going to wait around here all day for you to process what I just said, I've better things to do. Here's my number, text me before noon tomorrow so I can know whether you're going to help or not."
He said bluntly before turning around and leaving towards his house, not giving you a chance to reply.

You stood there in shock at what just occurred, looking down at the paper where he'd written his number. Blinking a couple times to get out of your initial shock, you closed the door shut and walked back upstairs. Putting the paper down on a table next to your sofa, you laid back down in your original position and closed your eyes.

It was still rather early in the evening, the sun had just about set completely, but you were feeling more drained than you felt the day before. All of what just happened also caught up with you and it left you feeling extremely overwhelmed about it all. You wanted nothing more than to just sink into the comforting abyss that was sleep, until the next day.

And that's exactly what you got, a well deserved sleep after a long and tedious day once again.