Lovely

7. A dream

"I invited the next door neighbours over for dinner." I looked up from my book. "Celia's family?" My mother nodded and made her way over to my bed to sit beside me. I closed my book to remove any distractions.

"So you've met Celia. She is a nice girl, very beautiful," said my mother, and I looked away. "We've met. Once." Mum tucked a curl behind my ear. "I haven't seen them in a long time so it'll be nice to have dinner with them. She is also an only child, so you have that in common." My eyebrows raised, but my cheeks also reacted at the thought of having another thing in common.

"It feels weird to be so far into my stay and not of even had any alone time with you," I all but whined.

"So far? You mean the whole 3 and a half days you've been here?" When my mum saw my unimpressed expression, she backtracked. "I know darling, but it's been nice. I've been spending time with my friends, you've been making friends. You mustn't think so negatively." I sighed. She had a point.

"I missed you."

Leaving a kiss on my forehead, my mother started her exit. "I missed you too. Promise me you'll be more positive. After you decide to be more positive, you'll feel better. You'll let yourself have fun. For me." I offered a weak smile and she closed the door behind her.

I flopped back onto my bed. The ceiling was blank and boring. Not a place worthy of having my eyes on. So I turned to my side. From where I lay, I couldn't see anything that was happening below. But I could see a few birds soar through the orange sky past my window, chasing the sun before it disappeared for the rest of the night. The sounds gave away what was happening out in the garden. Laughter, yells and clapping. Mark was playing with the younger kids. Callista was probably helping Delilah with Theo, Kahlo laying on the couch whilst reading a book. The world felt like it was asleep. How it could be so loud yet quiet, so full of life but dead was mysterious to me. But here I lay, in a world that fit that exact description.

Later that afternoon, during the time when the mother's were setting the table, 2 unfamiliar faces drifted into the house followed by Celia. The guests of my mum's house assembled at the outside table, at first to greet the guests, then to sit and eat. There was an array of different foods, it was a promise that no stomach would go empty. It was the truth that I stole one too many glances at the girl sitting diagonal from me. Every time my eyes found her, she was smiling. When she smiled, it felt like the sun stayed up for a little while longer just to watch her. I stole glances in between at Kahlo and he too smiled just as brightly. It was a beautiful thing to see Celia smile in her angelic beauty and to see Kahlo smile in in way that could persuade flowers grow. Two different worlds inside my own little world. Never touching or colliding, just existing side by side.

The food was beautiful too, and it was finished pretty quickly. Kahlo, being his usual lazy self, disappeared with the rest of the kids as soon as the food was all gone. The two dads followed them in order to supervise and the older girls were happy to clean the table. Once all of the dishes were in the kitchen and ready to be washed, Celia urged the mothers to leave. "We will do the dishes, right? Aurora? Hey!"

Maybe my attention wasn't on the current situation.

"Y-yes! Yes, of course. I will...... gladly d-," my sentence was interrupted by a cough. Almost a coughing fit.

Everyone in the room looked at me with funny faces, faces I would have laughed at if I hadn't been gasping for air. My mother awkwardly inched towards me to pat my back. The pat was completely ineffective, and both of us knew it, but mum wanted to show her support. "It's nothing you have to get choked up about," she told me.

"Am I really that beautiful?" Celia joked on her way past us with a dirty plate in her hands.

"Thanks mum," I finally choked out. "You ladies go relax, we can take care of it." My mother kissed my cheek before her and Delilah, after some time, left to join the others in the lounge.

"I'm sorry about that."

Celia joined me by the sink with a tea towel. "It was cute."

I chuckled, pretending to be unaffected. "The veins in my forehead and my bulging eyes seduced you, did they?" She was glad that I had carried on the joke. "I happen to think they are very beautiful." Shaking my head, I muttered, "you would."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"You're the girl that thinks vanilla ice cream is perfect. It makes sense that you would find something so hideous, beautiful." Celia shrugged as she picked up a clean dish to dry off with the cloth in her hand. "It's a matter of perspective. Everything can be beautiful if you make it that way." This was another case of the words spoken by Celia meaning more than she intended them to. Another one of her sentences hit me and plunged itself deep into my chest. Even the waterfall of ginger down her back couldn't wash away all the blood.

Silence fell between us. We worked mechanically. I was almost finished washing all of the plates and cutlery when she broke the silence. "My mother told me that you are an only child as well." Straight to the point, blunt, not scared by the possibility of me thinking she was asking about me. "She was telling the truth."

Celia nodded. Something in the air shifted and I knew what was coming. This was how the air felt every time someone was about to mention this topic. I was about to say something, anything, whatever I had to in order to derail her train of thought, but then I detected a hint of rose in the air. Rose, rain, peach. I could smell this because Celia was leaning across me in order to grab the square of fabric meant to be used to wipe any access water left on the bench back into the sink. Her hair was pushed back, her neck was exposed. The area that Kahlo had once kissed on me was hovering an immensely small distance from my lips, but on someone else. If I were to breath too hard, she would feel it. And if I were to move my head forward even just a tiny space, I would be doing to her what Kahlo had done to me. Would she enjoy my kisses as much as I had enjoyed Kahlo's? This wasn't important for long, as she moved away, oblivious, and began to wipe the bench. "So, your parents.....-"

"Got a divorce. 3 years ago. I mostly stay with my dad, used to stay with my mum in the weekends and we'd go away to her family beach house during the summer. I'm over it." The generic answer I gave her. Suddenly she was facing me, gripping my forearm. "Your parents splitting up is not something you just get over. Aurora, you're still hurting. And that's ok." By now I had stopped working at draining the water and had turned to her. "If it's worth anything..... you seem very strong to me. It used to hurt, and may still hurt, but I can tell that you can deal with anything." A breath left my mouth. Then my mouth drew into a big smile, tears threatening to spill. No one had touched my weakest spot like that. Not even my mother or my father because everyone else liked to pretend that certain things didn't exist. But not Celia. She wanted heavy things out in the open so that they might become lighter and easier to carry. She wasn't afraid of confrontation, of opening oneself. I could tell she liked figuring me out.

With a kiss on the cheek, she was gone. She vanished. Almost like she never existed, like she was a dream. And if it weren't for the wet tea towel on the bench, I would have believed that was all she was. A dream.