"There's only so many times I can put my heart back together"
"Why are you so sure I'll break it again?"
🖤🤍🖤
Andrew had a perfect life. Or so others would think.
Living under his father's control was a nightmare. Having his dreams ignored and bei...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
The grand Hotel Amanda Castro was home to the high society in the nineties. Women and men dressed in the finest clothes would dance all night long in the ballroom and sing along with the resident band. They'd eat and drink themselves silly. It was home for businessmen to talk business at the dinner table. Everyone knew it and everyone wished to walk through its golden doors.
Now, it was a shadow of its former self. What had once been shiny was now covered in dust, and what had been golden was now dirty grey. The large plate displaying the Hotel's name was missing the first A and M, an S, and an O.
"I think I drank too much," said Laura, pulling a green curtain that disintegrated under her touch. "Dude, the moths got here first."
Victória laughed, throwing herself onto a sofa and making a cloud of dust rise. Both of them coughed, but the sound was muffled by the soaring music in the ballroom. They had escaped the party to get more drinks from the kitchen, but Laura soon realised she needed to breathe some fresh air.
"I'm going outside. I'll be back in a sec."
Victória stared at her for a moment and then followed her into the wintry night. They passed through the heavy golden doors and leaned against the dirty walls. The redhead lit up a cigarette and pressed it to her lips, savouring it slowly.
"Want one?"
Laura nodded and took one between her fingers. She looked at the burning end, dazed by it for a second, and then brought it to her mouth. Before university, she had never touched one. Everyone smoked at parties, or at least the people she hung out with did. She figured trying once wouldn't hurt, but then she kept saying yes and yes and yes. It wasn't an addiction. She didn't even buy her own pack. But it had become more normal than she wished it were.
"How long until midnight?" asked Laura.
The other girl checked her watch. "Half an hour. I can't believe you're already drunk."
"American parties don't last until morning. I'm untrained."
"Are you liking it there?"
She shrugged. "Anything is better than living with dad. What have you been up to these past years?"
"I'm working three different jobs. It may sound stupid, but I actually like it. Being busy, you know? It keeps your mind away from the shit you're living in."
Laura nodded, but she didn't understand. Perhaps if she had said it to her sister and not to her, things would've made sense. But Laura was far from having that need. Her mind and her were in tune with each other. In some days, the ones when homesickness and anxiety hit, she would sit crying about her mum, but that wasn't stopping her from living her life.
"Was that how you met the kid? At work?"
Victória laughed. "Isaac? Yeah, he loves the theatre. Every time daddy drinks too much, he runs into a theatre room. Speaking of which, where is he?"
