Hurricane Boy // h.s au

8.

❝He was a dangerous sin, wrapped in angelic eyes; it made my heart pound with distrust and my mind cloud with bewilderment.❞

— A.L Nash

Lately, she hadn't been feeling like herself.

"Juniper."

Hot tears would strike her eyes at random moments, and she'd lifelessly wipe them away each and every time, trying to ignore the lump rising in her throat. The hollow, sunken feeling in her chest was something of which she'd grown used to. As the budding spring leaves bloomed, rain showers turning into sweltering, sticky afternoons, sun beating high in the sky, she'd felt every ounce of light that was in her slowly drain away.

"Juniper."

The flowers he'd planted within the spaces between her ribs began to wilt, tumble over, petals ripping off and crumbling into themselves. He was constantly irritable, constantly frowning, constantly mad at her for reasons she had not known. Their routine was simple, same as always, with him calling her up in the middle of the night, her rushing over, tending to his wounds, wiping away the tears, drowning in the harsh waves overtaking her moment by moment, the sea raging and roaring, spilling out of her eyelids whenever he was angry with her.

The nights would be calm, nothing heard but the low, deep breaths of him next to her, lungs slowly contracting and retracting, swelling up before falling into themselves once more. He was kind in this state, pure even, peppering soft kisses, touching her so lightly, so tenderly, that it almost felt like she was floating.

But in the mornings he would be distant, cold, angry. She'd still stick around, figuring it was him just taking out the anger from his father's actions on her. She'd known it was wrong, known it was toxic, known it was an inevitable cycle that'd cause the tears to once again return, the anxiety to seize her form, the deep sadness to swirl behind her dull gaze. But she still loved him. And so she stayed.

"Juniper."

She blinked, pulling herself out of her thoughts.

Angela sighed.

"Did you hear anything I just said?"

Juniper once again broke eye contact, staring at her fiddling hands as she ashamedly shook her head.

Angela gave her a look of pity, resting her hand over the purple bruise splashed across Juniper's wrist.

"What was it this time," Angela said. Her voice sounded hoarse, slightly cracking at the end, and it was then Juniper knew she was holding back her tears just as she was. She bit her lip.

"S'nothing," Juniper whispered.

"Tell me the truth."

A few moments of silence passed. The clinks of teaspoons against porcelain rung throughout the busy cafe. It had just finished raining outside, the leftover droplets racing across the large glass windows next to their table. Juniper took the time to observe them, watch as each drop melted into the last which melted into the last, an endless string of connected webs and lines, bursting and entangling into each other infinitely. She watched as people occasionally walked past the cafe, some of them absorbed in their phones, others throwing their heads back in laughter with the person next to them.

She forgot what it was like to be that way, to live so normally, so everyday. She wished she could go back to the times where he was still kind, still soft, still her gleaming golden boy. If she could, she'd bask in his glory, feel the gold seep into her skin and burst across her veins. She'd drink him in, let the memories melt on her tongue like ice cream on a hot summer day, cold, sweet, milky and creamy.