Strawberries & Cigarettes

Chapter 9

April 15, 2015

Aurora regrets ever standing on the cold, vacant, and dark beach with Louis.

With his cancerous smoke in the air and his goring stare unraveled on her and his now discovered tongue piercing shown to her.

It became all too much for her, she can still inhale and taste the dull tobacco from the inside of her lungs.

As if the tiny particles that infiltrated her lungs can slowly kill each nook and cranny within her body.

But that's how she perceives it.

Her weak legs practically run towards the car Spencer waits in, her eyes watering from the cool breeze hitting her face and the heavy burden wringing her chest.

The crisp wind sweeps her flowy waves of brown hair that twists and turns in different directions like her mind does right now.

She hates it, and hate is a strong word to use.

Her trembling hand pulls on the car door handle, quickly blinking away her tears when her vision becomes too blurry to mask it.

Spencer rolls his eyes as he unlocks the car, watching her step inside to take a seat with his arms crossed over his chest.

The definition of melodramatic.

"I almost finished my whole damn playlist while waiting for you! What took you so long?" he groans, plastering on a rigid face, but his lips twitch when he notices her odd behavior.

Aurora puts on her seatbelt in dead silence, her arms hugging her body to melt off the cold layer on her exposed skin.

Even the singing crickets and the impulsive tides in the distance dissolve from her ears.

Her hazel eyes fixate on her sandy white shoes, her stomach stirs that replaces the suppressed butterflies with fatal moths.

"Rory, what the hell happened when I left? Why are you so quiet — it's concerning, to be honest."

A crease forms in between his eyebrows, his pale arms fall to his sides and he leans in to examine her soft features further.

"Nothing... It's nothing," she mumbles, her voice brittle but loud enough so he can hear her.

She wipes the tears that roll down her heated cheeks with the back of her hands, her lungs strangling the oxygen out of her.

His toxic smoke, Aurora still smells of it, still tastes the stale taint on her tongue.

So she brushes the fabric of her clothes to obliterate the illusion of the loathed tobacco in jagged breaths.

Aurora wants to get rid of it.

The memory of it, too.

But she can't breathe properly, and her residing energy drains out of her with every frantic movement on her clothing.

She needs to get rid of the scent.

Spencer reaches his hand out to stop her. "It's not just nothing—"

"—It's nothing."

With a sniffle, Aurora pulls up her legs to bend against her chest and she wraps her arms around them to rest her chin on her bare knees.

She doesn't like to lie to him, she wants to tell him the truth.

But no words can interpret her cloudy emotions, not even she can figure them out.

"Okay," Spencer heavily sighs while he starts up the car, soon driving in the direction of their house.

"Miss ko na magkaroon ng isang... Tunay na pamilya... I miss my Lola Perlah... So much." (I miss having a real family)