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Chapter 15 - Aurora
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2024-10-29 19:42:56I lie nervously on the chair in the tattoo shop, my jeans pushed low and my top on the chair underneath me. I grip Shane's hand as the guy, Marcus, traces the tattoo onto my skin.
"Hey, you'll be fine." Shane whispers, kissing my fingers. The gesture is confusing and distracts me momentarily from my fear, but then the machine starts in the corner and I jump. Marcus comes towards me with the needle, buzzing like a thousand angry bees and I squeeze my eyes shut, crushing Shane's hand with mine. He whispers something in my ear, but I'm too stressed to take it in. Marcus's fingertips press into my skin and it's a matter of seconds before the needles touch me.
Oh wow! I can handle this! No problem!
It's nowhere near as bad as I was expecting, not even as bad as when I stabbed my finger with a pin at cadets the other day. I relax my hand, releasing the breath I was holding and opening my eyes to see Shane smiling at me. Even covered in cuts and bruises he's probabl
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We stop off for fish and chips after the walk and I notice the lights are still off in her house when we get back. "Do you live alone?" She laughs, shaking her head. "Pretty much. Mum's away a lot, she travels about the country most weekends now I'm old enough not to kill myself if I'm left alone for too long." "What does she do?" "Um… just teaches courses and stuff." I know she's being deliberately evasive, but there must be a reason she doesn't want to say and although I was only asking to be polite, now I'm actually interested in what her mum does for a living. I store it in my brain to ask about another time and hurry around to take the bag of food from her when she goes to carry it indoors. "I'm not totally without manners." I say when she stares at me, pleasantly surprised when she leads me towards the living room. "I thought you'd be a meals at the table kind of girl." "I don't know how to respond to that." She switches on
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"Morning darling, you look like death, why not stay home today?" My mother places her cool hand against my forehead, checking for a temperature. Then swats around my head, telling me I have dark spots in my aura that need removing. Despite the unexpected and surprisingly great day I had with Shane yesterday, I've woken up with the sick feeling of dread in my stomach. Maybe it was all a joke and today's the day I find out. My thoughts have been suggesting helpful things like this since I woke up this morning and felt like something bad was going to happen today. I fiddle with an apple, contemplating whether my stomach could handle even this small amount of food today. Deciding against it I put it back in the bowl and head towards the door, turning back to look at my mum. "I'm ok, I'll be ok. Can you drive me though?" "Of course darling, I'll be there in a second." She finally emerges about fifteen minutes later, forcing the ap
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I'll try to forget about her. I'll go back to how my life was before I went to that stupid party, before I got drunk and turned up at her door. Before I spent time with her and actually thought we could date and the past wouldn't matter. Seeing Ruby bullying her and her reaction was horrendous. She can't handle it and that's all she'd get if we got together. I need to leave her alone! "What was that today?" Ruby screeches at me the minute I walk into Luke's living room. "It was humiliating." "Fuck off Ruby, I'm not in the mood." I drop down into my chair. "You still trying to bang that boff?" Billy asks, his arm around Stacey. I shake my head. "Good, she's too much effort." "Yeah." I say, although I think
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Molly starts barking and dancing on the spot when the doorbell goes. Shane's standing there, school bag in hand, a deep frown on his face. "Before you say anything, I know, I'm sorry. I was going to back out but I wanted to see you." He stands on the doorstep waiting to be invited in or sent away. "Are we studying?" I ask, he's not met me after school all week, hasn't spoken to me at all apart from that weird, brief encounter at lunchtime today. "We don't have to?" "Do you want to?" "I never want to." He laughs, brushing his hand back through his hair. "But I need to." "Better come in then." I step back, letting him cross the threshold, more confused now than I was on
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After a while, she pulls away from me while I'm kissing her building herself a little pillow barricade to keep us apart and grabbing her plate, focusing a little two hard on the food so I know she's trying not to look at me. As we finish eating, we steer to safer topics, like school, family, university. Something I'd never considered before, but as she talks about what she's going to do, where she's going and how excited she is. I realise that I should have been thinking about what I'll be doing when school ends. The idea of moving somewhere completely different, maybe even living abroad for a while, suddenly becomes an amazing possibility. She starts clearing the plates away, piling the rubbish high on top of one and attempting to carry it out. I stand up, lifting the plates from her hand and following her out. Watching in amusement as she meticulously separates everything into various tubs in the kitchen. "My mum's really into recycling
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I wake up screaming from a nightmare that is almost certainly related to the horror film earlier. Shane jumps up out of bed and stands in the centre of the room, looking around for the reason for my scream. He looks so funny crouched there in just his boxer shorts, that I burst out laughing. "Sorry." I whisper, reveling in seeing him almost nude again. "Bad dream." "You know, my mum always said if you tell someone about it, then it won't happen again." He sits at the end of my bed, shivering but concerned. My heart's still beating fast from the nightmare and having him so close somehow makes me feel it pulse all over my body. He shivers again and I flip the quilt back, patting the mattress beside me, he slides in quickly, staring at me the whole time as if I'll change my mind or he's got it all wrong.
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How the hell I got through last night without doing more than kiss her I'll never know. When I wake up, her head's on my chest, her body pressed against my side, one arm and one knee curled over me and my arm's around her, clamping her in place. She looks so beautiful and relaxed, I can't help pressing a kiss to the top of her head and her eyes flutter open. "Morning." My voice comes out more of a whisper. "So, are you kicking me out or do you want to get breakfast somewhere? My treat." "Breakfast sounds good, but I do need a shower first." She quickly jumps out of bed and rifles through drawers for clothes before she leaves the room. I wish I'd not said anything and then maybe she'd have stayed in bed just a little bit longer. While the shower runs, I
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Monday morning I wake up with a stomach full of butterflies, I have no idea what to expect when I get to school. Yesterday with Shane was so much fun, it's almost impossible to dislike him, but still, the part of me that has been the butt of their jokes for nearly a decade is refusing to back down and trying to prepare myself for huge disappointment. It still could all be a horrible prank. After all, they saw me drunk, naked, and maybe now he's trying to make me fall for him so they can either humiliate me by revealing the joke to the whole school, or maybe so I sleep with him and they can say I'm easy, again to the whole school. Maybe it's only Shane because he's the one I didn't run away from at Danny's. He's the one who can act like a half decent guy, can pretend he actually likes me.
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"You look beautiful." I tell Aurora as she opens the front door, she's wearing a beautiful black dress that brushes the floor as she walks and she must have heels on, because she's almost tall enough that I don't have to lean down when I kiss her."You don't look bad yourself." She grins, looking me up and down in the stupid tux I got just for her."Woohoo Rory, get your ass in here." Luke hollers, sticking his head out of the sunroof of the limo we rented, her friends slip passed us to climb inside.As soon as we're in and the car starts to move, he pops the cork on a bottle of champagne while Jenny passes around plastic glasses.Despite complaining how lame the night will be, he definitely seems to be enjoying himself, Ruby sits beside him, clinging to his arm as
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"Morning love muffin." Luke's smiling face rests on the pillow beside mine when I wake up. Oh god, what did I do? My gaze drops to his naked chest, a vague memory of standing in my underwear and kissing him flashes into my brain. "How much do you remember? Because, I shit you not, it was fucking amazing." "I don't remember anything." I say, burying my face in the pillow, forcing myself not to crawl away when his arm curls around my waist and he slides in too close. "I thought you might say that. So I've got us breakfast ready for round two this morning." He smacks my bottom and jumps out of bed. "How are you not feeling like death?" I complain, mor
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Luke: Rory's at mine. Get here. Fast! It takes me ten minutes to get to his house, walking straight in and seeing her dress on the floor, two glasses on the table and an empty vodka bottle. Luke's on the sofa, his head in his hands, his shirt open all the way down. "I didn't, but shit did she make it hard not to." Luke slurs at me. "She's upstairs. Sort it out will you." She's under his quilt. She looks up at me, but struggles to focus. "Shane?" She gulps. "Are you ok?" "No." Tears run down her cheeks and I'm at her side, wiping them away with my thumbs
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Something breaks inside me when I say those words. He looks so hurt and I can't stand to see it. I don't think about what I'm doing, I just start running. The pain in my legs and lungs helps block out the pain in my heart, so I keep running until I can't breathe. Panting heavily, I look around, I don't recognise anything around me. I turn in circles, trying to get my bearings when I notice a car pull up beside me. "Rory?" Luke lowers the window and I scowl, walking away from him. "Rory, get in the car, I'll take you home." "No, thanks I'm fine." He creeps along beside me. "I can see you're not. If I have to, I'll wrestle you in the damn thing, but I'm not leaving you here." I stop, turning to look at him. Everything hurts, I need it to stop hurting.
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"Shane, what's going on?" My mother sits down on my bed. "Don't try to fob me off, you've been laying on the bed for days staring at the wall. Is it Aurora? Has she done something?" "We're done, I broke her mum, I broke us and I don't know how to fix it." She pulls me into her arms, cradling my head while I tell her what happened. About the bet, how I feel and how she won't let me explain. "It's fixable." My mum says decisively, stroking my hair back like when I was a child. "It'll just take a little time, tell her how you feel and show her how much she means to you. It'll work out, I'm sure of it." "Thanks." She leaves the room to answer the door. Minutes later, Luke appears dressed up in black jeans and a purple shirt. "Come on mate, we're getting your girl back, s
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"Do you…" Danny appears beside me and I shake my head. "Not yet, I can't." I lock myself in the bathroom, breathing shakily, staring at my face in the mirror until I know I'm not going to fall apart. It'll get easier. Forcing a smile, I open the door, walking out, ignoring the concerned looks of my friends and pretending everything is fine. I will not let them break me. ¥ The next day I plan to pretend he doesn't exist, but he's waiting for me outside the doors with his friends. I hold m
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Watching her drive away from me physically hurt, as though someone stuck a knife in my chest and sliced my heart in half before ripping it out through the hole. It takes me too long to recover and she's gone. Grabbing my phone, I know before I dial she's not going to answer, but I need to do something. Shane: Where are you? It's not like you think, please let me explain. I send her a message, running home to grab my car. She's not at her house, or any of her friends, so I just keep driving, hoping I'll see her somewhere. By seven, I've been back to her house twice and finally I see her car parked outside Danny's. "She doesn't want to see you mate, I'm sorry." Danny stands in the doorway blocking my path. A few of
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Luke's sitting on his wall smoking when we pull up outside his house the next day. "You alright?" Shane says, eyeing him carefully when he chucks his cigarette onto the floor and grinds it with his shoe, breathing out a cloud of smoke before he steps into the car. "Yep, it's done." He says and Shane nods beside me, mouthing 'Ruby' at me as I pull the car onto the road. "Are you ok?" I ask, glancing at him in my rearview mirror, he gives me a massive smile and nods. "Course I am, just let me know when you ditch him and we can run away together, alright babe." He chuckles, patting Shane in the shoulder as if to say he's only kidding. "So no Billy?" Shane asks, making Luke chuckle.
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I arrive back to pick her up early, planning to sit in the car and wait, but when a couple of parents start heading inside, I can't help myself hopping out of the car and following them. I hear her voice before I spot her, standing in the front of a group of teens, shouting instructions in a commanding voice and studying them all as they turn in sync with one another. The sound of their feet stomping in time echoes through the hall. She looks amazing, even in the shapeless blue uniform. I don't know why she didn't want me to see her. I watch mesmerized as she calls out instructions, marching alongside the cadets, turning them, marching them back. Correcting the few who make mistakes, she glances at the clock and calls out some more instructions. The cadets fall into a perfect square in front
