Nicotine Addiction and Other Such Things

two things (short story)

She sits in her usual spot, in the middle of the labyrinth. Looking at the cracks in the dusty wall, she smiles to herself, hoping that in the midst of those cracks, lies her unwritten story.

And then it begins to pour heavily. A rain so pure, a rain so calming, that the water drops almost feel like home. She closes her eyes and raises her head to the sky, letting the rain fill her up.

The drops, she soon realises, are her tears. The ones she has shed in her entire life over the two things which consume her heart. The only two things she's ever wanted.

The first one being the ever so cliché need for a fairy tale, albeit a realistic one. A modern one, where her saviour, is not a character out of all the stories she reads to pacify herself but is more like a character made from the hard hard world around.

The second one is to get out of this labyrinth she sits in the middle of. Sometimes she wonders, who is to blame for the creation of this maze. Is it her? Is it them? Or is it just a freak accident of nature?

There's this vast gaping hole inside her. A gaping hole she's tried to fill but has been unsuccessful. This hole is the side effect of loneliness. A loneliness which begun as an effect of lovelessness and now is just something she forces upon herself.

In hindsight, she realises, this forced solitariness is the reason she hasn't been able to get her first wish and it was just poor judgement on her part.

Her eyes are now open.

Suddenly the stars align and she smiles. And my oh my, that smile would put the biggest of galaxies to shame with just how it brightens the dark sky. It seems almost momentous, her smile. Or maybe auspicious is a better word to describe the simple curve of her dry lips.

Whatever you decide to wish for, under the bright light of her smile, you shall receive.

What makes her smile in this moment? This moment of utter randomness. Well, my dear reader, this moment isn't as quite as random as you might think it to be.

Her wayward thoughts have begun to travel to him causing her frown to turn upside down. He who hath no idea what he does to her. It's almost miraculous, the way he picks her up whenever she falls.

But the strange thing, my dear reader, is that he may pick her up, but he never lifts her. He picks her up and then leaves her to be on her own.

The reason she's falling into this pit called love, is a minor detail of his  features. When he smiles, his eyes shine as though the universe is a mere illusion in front of them and his hazel orbs are the ones who contain this world. A series of lines begin to form around his eyes and those are the lines which draw her in.

She wonders if those lines, like the cracks in the wall, contain her story. She hopes they do but hope is treacherous.

She closes her eyes, as the rain intensifies and she forgets everything, just for a moment. Just for a fleeting moment.

But as soon as she starts to forget, she feels a hand on her shoulder.

Her eyes snap open and she gently bites her lips in an attempt to control a wide grin from breaking out.

It's him. He hath no idea what he does to her.

"Hi," he says, his voice a mere whisper.

"Hi," she replies, her voice calm.

His hands are behind his back and he slowly brings them to the front, revealing–