Midnight • (Zayn Malik)

spray paint and cigarettes

"Luna!" Violet called out as soon as I came into seminar.

"Yeah?" I replied, my mind still feet away in an art room, across from irises of amber.

"Lucky is amazing, you'll never guess what he did!" She gushed while I situated my stuff at my desk.

I shook myself, "What'd he do?"

"He scored four floor seat tickets for The 1975 this weekend!" She grabbed my arms and squeezed.

I came to my senses, "Holy shit are you serious? How in the hell? No, you're shitting me,"

She shook her head and was gnawing on her lip. She was serious.

"I could kiss him if he wasn't yours! Violet, holy shit I love you!" I engulfed her in a hug.

"I know," you could basically hear the smirk in her voice.

Her five foot self slipped out of my embrace and looked up at me, "Now the only thing is-"

"Wait, there's four tickets... and there's only three of us. Violet,"

"Yeah see that's the thing, you have to bring someone because I kind of told Lucky you would," She smiled sheepishly.

"Why in the hell would you tell him that? Never mind. I'll just bring Mon-"

"Someone besides Monte," Violet stopped me.

"What? Why?" I pouted.

She gave me a look.

"I hate you."

"C'mon! This is your chance to-"

"No, don't even finish that. I'll find someone. Whatever," I crossed my arms.

"Really? I uh- I mean yeah you will find someone," She seemed proud of herself.

My mind flashed back to drawing class only moments before. And I honestly don't even know why I thought of him because he was annoying, slightly rude and you could just tell he had an over confidence issue and I barely knew the guy. But he was different, and that had to count for something. Or maybe I would just defy Violet and take Monte anyway.

"Yeah okay but you have to tell me how Lucky scored those. Like there is no way in hell he did that legally."

The bell rang and our seminar teacher liked absolute silence so I got out my journal and used it to pass notes. I flipped the spiral to a half doodled on page and let Violet scrawl her story as I pretended to work on calculus.

***

It was five twenty-five in the evening. Aka the exact time I dragged my sorry ass to work giving myself only five minutes to get somewhere that takes seven minutes, if there's no traffic. What are ya gonna do?

I tucked the company polo t-shirt into a pair of my bleached out ripped up art jeans and slipped on a pair of flip flops for the sake of not wasting time. It's not that I hated where I worked, it's just most of the time it was boring as hell.

"Have fun at work," My mom called without looking up from her magazine.

I responded with the loud sound of biting into my crisp apple and walked out of the door. My trusty black Prius, Ciara as I called her, always got me to work right at five thirty. It was a miracle, but I never questioned her magical ways. That and I ignored the fact that I have a terrible habit of speeding.

The afternoon rain had left the sky gloomy and grey, just the way I liked it. The automatic sliding doors to Jo-Ann's opened and I was surrounded with the smell of those cinnamon pine cones and their lemony scented cleaning supplies they used around the store. It was a scent I had grown to like. The harsh fluorescent lights took some adjusting as I tied the green employee apron around my waist and took my position at the cash register.