Orange Juice

Chapter Twenty-Two

It was almost golden hour when Sunny and Lizzy hopped into Tulip and decided to go for an afternoon drive around town as they occasionally have done for the past four months they had lived together. Both widows were rolled down, welcoming in the refreshing breeze and the golden-orange rays.

The two were loudly singing along in harmony to a punk rock song by The DynaBugs as it blasted through the speakers of the moving van.

"You wanna take me?

Gonna have to break me.

Go on and cuff me,

Go on and rough me up!" the pair sang together from the top of their lungs, their voices loud enough to be heard from nearby passers on the town's streets.

Sunny drummed her fingers on the large orange steering wheel to the beat while Lizzy strummed her fingers on the strings of an invisible guitar in her hand. The song slowly came to an end, and the two wrapped it up as though they had been singing it in their own very personal concert.

"Thank you, thank you." Sunny said with her hand out as if she stood in front of a passionately applauding crowd, her long flowy yellow sleeves fluttering in the air from the window.

Looking at the road ahead, a deep and whimsically green crystal dangling from the rearview mirror caught Lizzy's curious attention.

"That's one cool rock, juice girl." she commented, pointing at the crystal.

"Hm?" Sunny glanced over what she was pointing at, "Oh, it's actually a crystal, but thanks."

Lizzy cocked her head to the side as she took a closer look at it, "Weren't crystals like...crystally?" she asked.

"'Weren't crystals like crystally.'" Sunny repeated mockingly, a trail of laughter in her words, "Wisest words ever spoken by 23-year-old Lizzy, honestly, never heard anything more sensible in my entire life."

"Oh, shut up!" Lizzy retorted defensively, "I mean, like, aren't crystals supposed to be more translucent and pink or white usually?

"Crystals come in very different shapes, colors, and properties." Sunny explained while lowering the volume of the radio, "This one's an Aventurine. It's linked with the heart and its associated chakras. It helps with dissolving negative energies and with prospering and soothing the soul."

Lizzy stared at the crystal with curious interest, holding it closer to her face for a better inspecting look, "...So it's like...magic?"

"Eh, it's more like...spiritual properties, you can say. But if you want to call it magic, then magic it is." Sunny replied while driving along.

"How many crystals are there?" Lizzy inquired.

"Ever?" Sunny asked to which she nodded. "It's hard to really give a specific number, I mean there are a lot." she continued.

"How many do you have?" Lizzy asked as she continued to inspect the deep green Aventurine.

Sunny rounded a corner while driving, the faint sound of the punk band CD still playing in the background, "I have about thirteen to myself, but most of them I kept at home back at the Netherlands. Olivia used to get them for me. She was actually the one who taught me about crystals and properties and stuff."

"You have some with you right now?" Lizzy asked while putting her feet up on the dashboard.

"Yes!" Sunny exclaimed excitedly, "I have an Amethyst, an Azurite, a Rose Quartz, and a Sunstone! They're in the bag with me, I couldn't just leave them behind." she rambled passionately before catching herself, "I'm geeking over crystals again, my bad."