blue ✓

twenty three

lola

Dabbling with romance was something I always found enchanting; it was intimate with soft kisses and raw moments, touching the soul and holding it dear with no intentions of letting go. Infidelity never played on my mind, that was until I full grasped the concept of relationships and romance and realised that each one didn't guarantee complete satisfaction.

Louis was more of an obsession, his tongue twisted words that left my mind muddled and his eyes seemed to take me into another world. But when you left that in the dark the only thing left in our relationship was possession, he held a tight grip on me and was reluctant to let go for reasons I wasn't too sure of.

"Try aisle A-C, if you can't find it – come back to me and I'll order it in for you." I direct the customer in front of me, forced smile and direct eyes.

They disappear and I'm left to ponder back on my thoughts, the pen in my hand scribbles nonsense down on the pad below and I wonder back to Harry. How did he articulate such perfect sketches with the freedom of his hands? I focus on the rubbish attempt at a eye below, noticing how rough my fingers were when trying to create something so delicate. Harry's touch was so graceful, so driven with each movement and each stroke.

Voices mumble in the background of the shop and the familiarity of her soft tone makes my head rise. Amber – I think, was her name. Her baby pink lips and gold eyes were something else, she belonged in a model agency rather than a media store. I watch her walk away from a customer with a slight smile, her sun kissed skin and sculpted cheek bones make me ache in envy.

"Lola," Amber chirps, tilting her head to look at me as she moves behind the counter. "How was your weekend?" Her tone was sharp and oblivious, even with the mauve bruise under my eye.

"Eventful, how about yours?" I chuckle dryly.

"Oh you know," she flutters her thick lashes. "Went to visit the boyfriend, he took me to the beach." Her presented smile and stature as she cleaned the counter caused me to feel annoyed, I purse my lips but giggle something incoherent as a response.

"How's the boyfriend?"

"Uh, don't really know," I admit to Amber. "Don't really care." My smile is laced with venom as I stand tall.

"Oh."

Amber was a year older than me but her personality was so innocent, she seemed to be obvious to the cruelties of the world but chose to ignore them unless that knocked on her door.

I envied her innocence.

"Lola?"

I tune into the new voice behind me, twisting around to see the bulging brown eyes of my best friend standing there. Going to school together made Mona and I closer than I'd like to be. She was never placid with me and left everything said rather than unsaid, there wasn't a lying bone inside her body and perhaps that's why I stuck by her. In a sense, the two of us were made of the same materials, romance and vanilla perfume – structured by honesty and a love of strawberry sorbet.

"Why didn't you answer my texts?" She enters the room flushed, her tanned skin and blood stained cheeks come into my vision and her scent overwhelms the area – vanilla and coffee. "I've been so worried." Mona places her bag down and let's her brown eyes focus on Amber, greeting her briefly before letting them settle back on me.

"I've been busy," I shrug. "I'm sorry."

"I go away to see my grandmother and I come back to hear you and Louis broke up?" I cringe at his name. This town wasn't shy of letting everyone know your secrets, especially if they were being played out for everyone to see. "And you and Harry are a thing? I knew that you had something going on with him bu-"