andromeda // matty healy au

Cigarette Daydreams

Sitting in the passenger seat of my coworker's pickup, I was on my way to a new beginning.

"Thanks for helping me out, Frances. It really means a lot. You're the only person I know with a truck and because of that, you've made this whole experience way easier on me."  I beamed at her,  "Please, let me repay you somehow."

"Celeste, it's no problem at all, you're the sweetest little honey at the café," her Southern US accent lilted through a toothy grin as she kept her eyes on the road.  Her bright pink nails tapped on the steering wheel to the tunes on the radio.  "I would never let you spend so much money on a moving van.  So, don't even worry about it."

Frances was my favourite person to work with.  Possibly my favourite person ever. She was a warm grandmotherly type, but she would kill me if I said that out loud.  She would much rather prefer the title "work mother", which I thought was quaint.

"But on a side note, I really do enjoy those little red velvet cupcakes you make, with the cream cheese frosting." She let out a guffaw and jokingly pulled on one of my bouncy blonde curls.  My work mum has a sense of humour.

"Of course,  I'll keep that in mind and get them to you sometime next week."  She winked and said how we would have to keep them as "our little secret".  Her mouth continued to move as she told me a story of how her husband ended up eating a whole cake behind her back, but I didn't quite hear all of the details.

I let my mind wander for a second, and my ears focused on the radio again.  Elton John's melody of "Your Song" flowed over me and I was reminded of what I was leaving behind.  Not much.  But my mother, my real mother, was not happy I was leaving.  I flashbacked to last night's argument.

-

"I refuse to let you treat me like a child!" I screamed. Her lack of response to my raw emotion made my blood boil even more. In this moment, I despised her.

"You won't make it." She said, not looking up from the glass of wine that she swirled in her hand.  She cooly leaned against the counter, but I knew she was scared of being left alone again.  She always had me to lean on, ever since I was old enough to talk, but she would never admit to being so vulnerable.  Lately, our dynamic hadn't been working, and neither of us knew why.  "You'll be back after the first month, or first two, tops."

She infuriated me.  Judging everything I did or didn't do.  She drove me up the wall.  I had to get a fresh start, something I had been craving for a long time.

"If don't let me go, so help me God, I-" I was cut off by her smug voice.

"Oh no, I want you to leave. I just want to see how sweet it will be to see you fail and have to come crawling back here." A cackle erupted from her lips, and they curled into a smirk that made me tremble.  She finished the wine in her glass and reached for the bottle; tears welled in my eyes as she said the final nail in the coffin.

"Just get out of my sight.  If you're still here by noon, I'll assume that you've thrown in the towel before you've even entered the race."

-

We pulled up to the building, and even though I had seen it when I was house hunting, I forgotten how tall it was.  I stepped out of the vehicle and my mouth gaped in amazement as the third floor seemed so much higher now.  Frances' heeled booties clipped and clopped as she made her way to the back of the truck and pulled out a box labelled "bedroom".

"Let's get going kiddo!  We've a lot of work to do!" She bounced towards the door and waited for me to meet her up the steps, an aura of excitement followed her.

I was still stuck in awe, looking up at the building, it hit me. It was official, I was starting adulthood.  I would have my own bills to pay, and my own dishes to wash, and my own laundry to do.

I would do it all by myself.

Shaking my head and reminding myself not to look like an idiot by squinting up at the rooftop for hours on end, I noticed someone's eyes boring holes through me.  A dark figure, a slender male, but I was unable to see his features.  All I could make out was a puff of cigarette smoke that fervently slipped through the open window.

And thus, the figure vanished.