The Misfortunes of Lolita

Bonus Chapter: One Day

beautiful artwork above are from -misadventures, i can't explain how incredibly happy i felt when she sent them to me!! please check her out and thank her for me.

[Bonus Chapter: The day before Lolita left for college]

"One day," Lolita Abri could feel her voice thicken, like the memories were pulling her throat close, tying her vocal chords into ribbons, filling her lungs, her heart, her entire chest with them.

"One day," Frank Novak laughed. "That seems about right."

Frank. Her entire world seemed to come to a halt at Frank, her entire life would be a train running in circles with one singular stop. Frank.

She tried to look at him, but her eyes stopped at his hands, resting beside hers. From his rooftop, the entire town was golden, and he looked like he was the sun setting above it and she was the heavy in his chest, the anchor tied around his heart. Frank and Lolita were at the center of the universe, polar ends of the same magnet. It was only them. It would only ever be them.

You know we aren't right for each other. At least not now. But maybe one day, she'd said. I love you, I love you, I love you, but this isn't our time, there's too much between us, I can feel us going under all the dark. This wouldn't work. There's too much.

He was silent now, Frank Novak, he was quiet. "This isn't our time." He took the words out of her mouth, put it in his, spat them out. This isn't our time. For a few moments, he wanted to ask her—how could this not be our time?

"There is no one else for me," Lolita said. "There's no one else. You're it. You know that, right?"

Frank wanted to fight it, fight her, how could this not be their time? How could this not their time?

But then he looked at her, and she was it for him too.

This wasn't their time—they were versions of each other that fit too tight, there was too much of both of them. He knew she was right. "You're it for me too, Lolita." In this light her eyes were black coffee, amber, molten gold, the feeling in his veins he couldn't seem to leave behind.

"There's no one like you," she said, glancing at his hands again. Then his shoulders, into his eyes, the outline of his lips, his silhouette against the sky fitting like a puzzle piece. "You know what I think?"

"What?" he extended his hand towards her, and she bit a corner of her lip. "What? Friends can hold each other."

"God," I love you. She took his hand, moved closer to him, her arm against his, shoulder to shoulder. It seemed like the most natural thing—her head was used to leaning on that part of his shoulder, she had spent eternities here, in this way. "We're always going to find our ways to each other. You know it too."

"I know," he said, after a while. She was warm, his hand wrapped around her waist without him even noticing. This still felt right. "I...goddammit. I love you."

She cracked a smile at goddammit, this is Frank Novak saying goodbye, this is my Frank saying goodbye. "Is it unfair of me to ask you to not stop? Loving me?"

"Yeah," he laughed. "But it'll be easy. I can't stop loving you. And you can't stop loving me either. We're both selfish people."

"You're right," Lolita said, closing her eyes. "This isn't goodbye. This is... this is us, saying not now, but one day."

"One day," he said, looking down at her head, the parting of her hair, her closed eyelids. "I can't."

"Can't?"