Aurora | H.S.

21. playing games

Hi, this chapter is long, but please read it all, as the ending is crucial to the storyline. Thank you for your patience. I know I've been absent, but I'm back and hoping to get up two or three chapters within the next few days. Xx

🌸

Living on the coast can sometimes make you feel so small. There is an ocean with a seemingly never ending horizon that doesn't make it hard to imagine it swallowing this town whole. And if it were to disappear, who would notice? Faycoast runs its cycle through the four seasons; people come and go, none of them ever really making a big impact.

The last big thing that happened in this town was when the Sheriff's daughter got married last year. Local businesses closed down and people came from out-of-town to witness the beautiful wedding. Mom supplied the flower arrangements that were also the talk of the town for a few weeks after, as they made the spring wedding even brighter.

Now that it's nearing the end of summer, wedding floral arrangements have declined and the shop is back to it's lazy lull. As a high schooler, this was the perfect time to sit back and read a good book. I do the same thing now, but my reading material consists mostly of parenting magazines.

At one point in my life, I would love to lose myself in a good book—a reality which was far better than my own. But right now, with Harry in my life and by my side, I don't need to escape. For the first time in my twenty two years on this planet, I'm longing for a somebody. The huge hole that Austin left in my heart when he left is filling back up with the new memories I'm making.

I no longer dread a new day, because now it means that it's more time to spend with someone who makes me happy on a whole new level. While I'll never forget what the loneliness felt like, it's replaced with something much more powerful: love.

Today, I haven't been able to lose myself in the glossy magazine pages like I normally do. I've been staring off into the shelves of flowers beyond the countertop, the vines meshing together into a green, in-door garden. The silence is loud, my thoughts in a whirlwind inside my head as I daydream about him.

Despite what everyone thinks and sees in the movies, love is far more complex. Sure, it's easy to say you love someone and have those superficial feelings, but on a deeper level it's so much more than that. Just the mere thought of that person can cause your nerves to go into overdrive. My fingertips tingle when I think about holding his hand.

For the first time in two hours, the bell above the door jingles loudly, echoing through the quiet shop. I look up from my magazine, a little dazed, admittedly. Walking into the shop, Harry wears a sky blue t-shirt and a pair of black jeans—his feet out of sight as he gets closer to the counter. I stand up, leaning against the mahogany countertop, a fan by the window blowing my hair into my face until I tuck it behind my ears.

"Hey," Harry smiles, glancing around the shop before looking at me. "Slow day?"

"Extremely," I sigh. "We had an order go out this morning, but Lucille dealt with that."

"Ah," he rests against the counter, his face close to mine. His skin glows from sun exposure, a little red, but he tans so effortlessly; those freckles are so light but still mesmerizing to look at from this distance—or lack thereof. "Liam said to come over at 6, is that good?"

"Yeah," I agree, nodding. "My mom said she'd get Eliana at five. Doesn't want us to stay out late though," I sigh, nervously looking up at him. "After last weeks hospital visit, she's been really on edge with me, so I don't want to give her a reason to be more unbearable."

His nose scrunches a little with distaste. We've barely talked about what she said to me that day in the flower shop when I had to leave, mostly because I'm scared to tell him that she thinks he's wasting my time. Those thoughts from that day have barely made their way back to me, but I'll admit that sometimes they seep through the cracks. Doubt is inevitable, right?