Beautiful Lovers

13.

EDITED
Walking through the mall was... even worse than Paris remembered. Not only that his mother forced him to try on fifteen identical t-shirts and maybe a zillion of even more similar pants, but the shop assistants watched him with curious gazes and giggles on their lips. Like he was a six-year-old child of his first summer before school. Every moment tortured him and sometimes he stared at a wall longingly and wished that he could bang his head against it. And somehow... it made him feel nice. Like he was home.

After three hours of torture, they walked out with five full bags of clothes. Two of them were his mother's. With nags in their arms, they walked across the parking lot to Paris's car that he used less than he should. Lauren was happily talking about someone, she met, while Paris was paying attention to the cars. Lauren was doing just that in Paris when they were small, but now it was the boy's turn to be overly worried. She was telling the story of how she met her romantic acquaintance. She dated more than Paris, which she liked to remind him of very often. He didn't mind that she dated, even though she could lessen the comments on his love life. He knew that his mother has a hole in her heart, not even Paris could fill.

He unlocked his car and opened the trunk. He looked at his mother that looked somewhat funny with big bags of clothes in her arms. The warm feeling fills him when he looks at his mom and he smiles.

"Mom? Why don't you go sit in the car? I'll handle it." he nodded to the bags. Lauren smiled heartily, kissed his cheek when he grabbed the bags. He put them in the trunk, while his mother got in the car. He cursed the overspending. He will give it away anyway. He closes the trunk, totally exhausted from the long day. He didn't know that it would become even longer. Paris got in the car and started it. In complete silence. His mother was looking out from the window, while he was nervously tapping his fingers on the steering wheel. Was it possible that just after a few hours, he didn't have anything else to say to his mother? Maybe if he let her talk about the guy.

"So... how is school?" she said awkwardly. Paris clears his throat. But the worry doesn't disappear from his lungs.

"Uhm, it's good," he mumbles uncomfortably. Lauren hummed encouragingly, but her tone was empty.

"And your sessions?" Lauren walked into deeper waters and like in silence before the storm, Paris was waiting for the flashlights and thunder.

"Good."

Silence filled the car and the sound of tires moving against the asphalt stopped being soothing. The black clouds collided in the tense atmosphere...

"You know... the anniversary of her death." said his mother brokenly. He hated that her voice cracked, but he didn't offer her any comfort.

"I know," mumbles Paris.

"May - maybe it would be better if you stayed here this year," said Lauren slowly.

Paris gulped. He didn't want to believe that she said it. The grip on the steering wheel tightened and he avoided his mother's pitying gaze.

"Why?"

"Well, she wouldn't want you to miss out on your studies, would she?" said Lauren falsely wisely.

"We do not know what she would've wanted, neither of us knew her!" snapped Paris angrily.

The only reason, why his mother would say that was because she didn't want to be a witness like every year of how she lost both of her children that day. And Paris was so angry. For so many reasons. But the main one was, that it was true. On that day from a brown-eyed, happy boy that watched sitcoms with his little sister became an addict on false hope with black eyes that don't light up, even though he was smiling, because the smiles he gives the world were shadows covered in wings of angels. Fake.