Cruel Summer | Jason Dilaurentis

The very first night

"Good afternoon Aurora." Max, her neighbour yelled from across the street as the girl got out of her friend's car.

"Afternoon Max!" She shouted back with a grin, knowing that he was trying to not be grumpy around her for one day of his life. This however, did not stop him from entering his house straight after her greeting to avoid further conversation. So antisocial, she thought as her smile widened.

Aurora opened the front door to her house, turning around to wave back to Noel who then sped off in his car. She was exhausted from the day of school she just had to endure and was in dire need of a nap.

The hollow silence of the Jenkins house had become unsurprising to the teenager. She hadn't seen her parents in about a month now, the only contact they had was to a weekly message to make sure the housekeeper had come.

So the blonde ran up to her room without a care and jumped onto her bed, not bothering to change. Her eyes fluttered shut as she controlled her breathing, willing sleep to take over.

But it never did.

An hour had passed, but Aurora was still in the same position, the only reason she sat up was to reach her phone. Her screen lit up as she saw a message that made her grin.

Yo, I'm in town,
you wanna hang?
-Eric

Eric Kahn was the blueprint of Noel. With the added bonus's of him owning a legal ID and getting her into all the college parties her heart desired. Aurora used to have a major crush on him (not that she ever told anyone) but now she knew him, he was more of a low maintenance older brother. 'Hanging out' with Eric was code for smoking a joint together.

Yeah, I'm down.
Pick me up in 15?
-Aurora

She skipped over to her vanity and made sure her make up wasn't too smudged, sighing in content when she noticed that it had somehow stayed in an acceptable state. The blonde then changed into a matching set of sweats, anticipating the high she was about to get.

Before she knew it Eric was outside and she had climbed in to the passenger seat. The radio was on full volume as they both sang along to the lyrics of a random Usher song. They arrived at there designated smoking spot in the woods and Eric shut off the engine.

While Eric gracefully got out of the drivers seat, into the back of the car; Aurora clambered into the back seat, not bothered about her muddy shoes getting on the car seats.

"Alright," she said, resting a blunt in between her lips, "Light me up." Eric brought the lighter up to meet the blunt, but before she could inhale, he snatched it away from her mouth. "Hey!" She tried to grab it back, but he held it out of her reach.

"You can have it back once you've answer one question." Aurora only raised an eyebrow, unimpressed. "How are you dealing with everything? And don't you dare try and lie to me.'

The words 'I'm fine' lingered on her lips, yet something stopped her from repeating the same words she'd been speaking all day. "I'm doing as well as I can you know." Her words were soft and airy, if Eric hadn't been watching her every move in concern, he probably would have missed them. "Alison was like family to me and now that she's gone, I feel so alone."