"Smoking kills but so does life, which death has a sweeter taste on the tongue?"
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When an avid smoker and an overly considerate girl worlds collide, someone is bound to get burned.
Published (Feb, 2019)
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"The human mind has 80,000 thoughts on average in the course of one day," Henrietta remarked, her fingers quickly running over the screen of her phone.
"What?" I asked, my focus shifting to her sentence. I wasn't paying attention prior.
"There are 80,000 thoughts that run on the mind of a normal individual on average," she repeated, her eyes still on her phone.
"That's a lot of thoughts," I heard Henry chide beside her.
"Agreed," I responded, still not completely focused on the conversation.
Henrietta chuckled, looking up momentarily.
"Safe to say at least 40,000 of those are dedicated to Harry huh?" She joked before going back to her activity.
I nearly choked on air as Henry high fived his sister, a laugh falling from his lips.
"So I guess the Harry jokes won't cease huh," I commented, attempting to look frustrated.
"Maybe if you'd stop trying to fight it, you'd realize how much chemistry exists between you two."
"She's not wrong," Henry said, siding with his sister.
"You guys are unbearable," I sighed, a light laugh coming out of my mouth.
Initially, we were all sat at the twins' house, me speeding over without an advanced notice so we could all sit in the living room and "study."
Really, we had just ended up blankly staring at pages of textbooks before Henry asked if we wanted to go to the mall.
It didn't take long for us to get there, and now here we were-mindlessly walking through stores and glancing over clothes we'd never actually buy.
Not to mention the constant drone of talking between our group.
Henrietta kept giving her daily dosage of factual information that would literally not be relevant besides this moment, Henry randomly brought up Kourtney at several occasions, shouting how much he hated that she kept trying to get back with him even after what she did, and I just remained super quiet- my attention span not lasting more than five minutes, as I constantly wondered off to thoughts of Harry.
It was the weekend but I could not envision him doing much, he wasn't one for company after all.
Really it was wrong of me to judge a book by its cover, considering Liam and his other friends all seemed to keep his company just a day ago.
I wondered how often they all hung out as a group.
"Up that number to 50,000," Henry said, his eyes trained on me as I blinked.
"Stop that," I demanded. I playfully punched his arm and he gripped it, closing his eyes and pretending to fake a groan as if he had been shot.
"You are incredibly extra," I said under my breath to which his eyes opened and he held a hand to his chest, his face falling as he said "I heard that, you know."
I rolled my eyes and linked my arm with his, all three of us continuing our stride.
"I'm going to the bathroom," Henrietta announced a few moments later. "Don't do anything stupid in my absence."
"No promises," Henry raised his hands before adding "We'll be at the food court."
As we made our way there, my eyes met a familiar pair and I almost froze when I noticed the face.
The moment lasted seconds as he turned away from me and I looked at Henry in exasperation.
"It's just Liam," Henry raised a single brow. "Calm down, its a mall. People come here all the time, it's a public space."
"Shut up Henry, that's not the point," I yell whispered, my body going into a slight panic as every possible scenario ran three my mind. "Don't you get it, if Liam's here then Harry must be too."
Lengthy brown hair suddenly came into view and I slowly stepped back in response, my eyes trained on Harry.
His usual unmoved expression lay solid across his features as he tapped Liam's shoulder, his lips forming what looked like incoherent words. He held up a pair of keys in his right hand and gripped a bottle of water in his left.
"Why are you freaking out?" Henry eyed me, an expression that had a mixture of confusion and amusement. "It's just Harry, you see him all the time at school."
It felt odd seeing Harry this time around, considering how often he had been inhibiting my thoughts. The concept of him running on my mind was really nothing new since it had happened on occasion since his arrival, it was just the fact that it had been occurring a little more frequently than I would have allowed a few days ago, and the thought in itself was enough to put me in a bit of unrest.
I shuddered. I needed to leave.
"Let's go," I lightly gripped Henry's shirt, turning to the exit.
"Henrietta's still in the bathroom, and the last thing I'm about to do is leave my twin sister to fend for herself in this big ass mall," he told me, and I let go shaking my head apologetically.
"You're right, what was I thinking," I sighed, slowly pulling at my sleeves.
"Is there a reason why you don't want to see Harry right now?" He smiled after a moment, doing that stupid head tilt he would do whenever he could tell what I was thinking about.
That best friend telekinesis was definitely not in my favor this time around.
"Nope," I tried to say, but I knew that to Henry, I was basically glass.
He could see right though all of my lies.
"So you do like Harry-"
"I don't actually," I cut him off, my eyes going back to the tall boy.
My expression paled in shock as I realized that in all my talking, he had somehow managed to walk away.
"Where'd he go?" I wondered out loud, Henry turning to the spot I was looking at before turning back to face me.
"Want to go find him?" He joked.
I nodded.
"Wait, really?" He questioned obviously shocked by my openness and I shrugged before saying, "I mean, yeah."
Henry kept looking at me like I had just told him to sacrifice his children to a demon and his expression remain unchanged after Henrietta walked up and we went to the parking lot.
"What's up with him?" Was the only thing she asked as we slipped into the car, and I merely sighed, pressing my face against the glass.
I shrugged, pretending to be clueless.
Suddenly, two figures passed by the car, before running into a parked vehicle not too far away from ours.
"Is that Liam and Harry?" She asked, her head dipped as she looked out of the window.
I let out a feign "yea" and she hummed before turning the key in the ignition.
"I know that look Vi, we're following them," she chimed, pulling out of the parking lot.
What?
"No, no, we can't do that!" I said, my voice a little louder than intended.
"Um the hell we can, it's a free country," she rolled her eyes. "Exercise your rights."
I turned to Henry for help and he retreated into the seat yelling, "I support you sis," and I groaned.
"Guys, this is a bad idea," I said putting my hand up to my face.
"I know," she responded. "That's what makes it such a good one."
