In 18 years, Lyra Queen, has yet to:
- Kiss a boy;
- Meet her mother;
- Go through a near-death experience.
In a week, she is going to do all three.
cover by @sereneur
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Lucas
When people asked me about my virtues, I always told them I was honest. People often told me that. Recently, I've come to figure out I'm too honest. To the point I wish I could take back words I said. If I entertained that thought, I could say I was honest to a fault.
My point was proven to be correct once I had said those words to Lyra.
I would kiss the fuck out of you.
Truth be told, I was ready to kiss the shit out of her. She just didn't need to know that. But she already did. And acted like she didn't.
The words didn't leave my mind but they seemed to have slipped hers. I didn't blame her. I remembered when I wanted to meet my mother too, I never got this close and everything in my world was already insignificant to me.
"Maybe she's still working or she went for a run?" I asked when she knocked for the third time. I wasn't just trying to cheer her up, I knew for a fact people did that. Especially when the sun was setting. My roommate was guilty of that, no matter how many times I told her it wasn't safe.
"You think? Maybe we have the wrong address."
Her anxiety could be smelled from the end of the street of white-picket fenced houses. Every house looked as it had been finished yesterday with pristine white paint covering everything, complimented by the golden railings of the balcony on the first floor. The variety of cars we passed by alluded to the idea that these people had serious money. The driveway on the house we were knocking on didn't have a car.
"What if she doesn't even live here anymore?"
I grabbed both of her shoulders, "Hey. We're already here. If this is not the house, we'll knock every door on this neighbourhood... Hell, we'll knock every door in Baldwin 'till we find her."
Her familiar smile appeared and made me smile as well. She nodded in compliance and I released her shoulders.
"Do you need help?" The voice came from the house with a Lexus on the driveway, just one house away from the one we were knocking on. Her high-pitched voice could be heard clearly from the balcony she was standing on. Her short bathrobe gave me a sight I was not pleased to see.
"Yes, please. We're looking for the woman who lives here," At this point, it was a silence agreement that Lyra would do the talking whenever necessary. Not that I didn't want to, it was just how it happened.
"Oh, Jean? She's never here this late," If you considered three in the afternoon late, "Come back tomorrow before twelve and you'll find her, for sure."
It only dawned me later that she said 'Jean'. That couldn't be right. Her mother's name wasn't Jean. But I couldn't tell her that, she'd ask how I knew and telling her I had been meddling in her father's business was digging my own grave. Lyra smiled in appreciation and the lady dismissed us with a wave and strode inside, bathrobe swaying with every step.
