prince in jeans

s i x

“You wrote this?”

My voice felt hoarse and I rubbed the tears away from my eyes with the back of my hand.

Harry hummed in response, leaning his head back against the sofa. “Why so surprised? I told you my book was about death.”

I looked back down at the plain black book in my hands, tracing over the small white crescent in the corner with my finger. “It’s…It’s really good.”

“Keep it,” he responded with a slow exhale. “I’ve got dozens of other copies.”  

“No thanks.” I placed the book on the cluttered coffee table. “It’s great but I really can’t read about death.”

Harry narrowed his eyes at me. “You’re scared of death.” His tone was amused and scornful but I looked him straight in the eye.

“Aren’t we all?” I retorted, gripping my mug as I got to my feet.

I stalked out of the room and just as I did, I heard Harry chuckle to himself.

“Not all of us, Celeste. Not all of us.”

“How was your day?” Elena asked later that day as we sat in the living room, watching the light rain drizzle down on the empty streets.

I flipped to the next page of So You Want To Be A Doctor? and answered, “Uneventful.”

Elena nodded, tapping her red nails on the table as she sifted through a magazine. “Mine wasn’t anything wild either.”

“I start work tomorrow,” I said after a few minutes of silence.

“I'm sure you’ll do great.”

“Thanks.”

We were so cold, so formal, so out of place. It wasn’t a normal mother-daughter relationship and I knew it would never be. But it still stung to remember her wretched goodbye note, my father’s month long depression, and the basket full of cards on Christmas but none from her.

Both Elena and I looked up as a rap on the door sounded and soundlessly, Elena swept out of the room and into the hall to open it.

“I am so sorry,” a girl’s voice ranted after I heard the creak of the door opening. “But it’s raining and I forgot my umbrella and my car broke down and I haterain—all types of gloomy weather really—and you were the closest house—”

By this time, Elena had got the gist of the conversation and efficiently, she invited the distraught girl into the house. 

“I’ll get you some dry clothes and hot cocoa,” said Elena. “Just go straight in there—no, not there. Here. You’ll find my daughter in there.”

And so, the soaking wet girl shuffled into the room.

“Oh,” I put the medical book aside. “Hi.  I'm Celeste.”

“Alexus,” replied the girl---woman actually. Her face was ordinary but it was so normal and plain that it made her very pretty. Short, brown hair and soft brown eyes with a small mouth and pale cheeks.

“Oh my,” Alexus went on as she looked at me with wide eyes. “Aren’t you gorgeous.”

I sent her a small smile in response. I knew I wasn’t ugly but I’d never attracted many men, mainly because of my obsessive manner of wanting to keep my heart intact.

“So your car broke down?” I asked, gesturing for her to take a seat.

“Yeah,” she sighed, heavily, shivering a little as she sat down on the sofa. “I was on my way to my brother’s. He lives somewhere in this neighbourhood but I couldn’t remember the address and then the car broke down.” She blew out a breath which pushed a wet strand of her hair out of her face and sent it into the air.