It’s been that way since the dream, like I exist in a cloud of Maia, and it’s intoxicating. Sweet and spicy, lovely and brutal.
“It’s called makeup, idiot.” She jerks her face away. “Keep your hands to yourself.” She scoots down the bed, away from me, and I sigh. Stand up. Go back to my seat at Genna’s desk.
“Why haven’t you kissed her?” Maia’s voice is small, and when I look over, her head is once again buried in her book.
I rub the back of my neck, trying to knead out the nervous energy. “I…”
“It’s not 1940 anymore. Waiting to kiss someone for three weeks is considered weird, not gentlemanly. She’s getting confused. You need to speed things up — you asked for my help.”
She’s right. I’ve been stalling, telling myself it’s out of respect, that I need to rebuild the foundation of trust Viv and I had, but I don’t have time for that.
We sit in silence until Genna returns with something to feed her sweets addiction. Viv was the same way. She’d visit the bakery almost every day and emerge with a piping hot pastry, the icing oozing down the sides onto her fingers. She’d grow giddy like a child at the thought of anything sugary. I would save up every dime of my salary just to buy her treats and witness her joy.
For some reason, the slick plastic packages of multicolored candies make Genna’s sweet tooth discomfiting. Whether it’s the fact that these candies have shelf lives measured in years instead of days, or that the ingredients list on the back reads as if it’s from a chemistry text, I’m not sure.
I steal another glance at Maia before turning to Viv — Genna. For all their similarities, there are many differences. Viv was ambitious; she’d enrolled in secretarial school in the mornings and helped her father in his shop in the afternoons. She had her eye on becoming a bookkeeper and eventually selling the shop so her parents could retire by the sea. She doted on her younger sisters and was determined that they would study at university, something she had dreamed of before the war.
In this time, Genna and her brother were raised by a nanny. She’s never held a job and approaches her studies rather lackadaisically, in my opinion. Her major is fashion design, which I understand to be more complex than it sounds, thanks to Maia’s tutelage. Still, when I asked Genna what her plans were after graduation, she said that she did not fully expect to become a fashion designer. When pressed on what she did plan to do, she wasn’t sure. She said perhaps she’d figure it out in graduate school.
She looks over at me now and smiles, her mouth tinted purple from the candy. Her smile melts me a little. The differences don’t matter. You can only have one soul mate and, for better or worse, mine isn’t the moody, damaged girl I can’t stop thinking about, whose dreams I can’t seem to stay out of. Who, for some inexplicable reason, can’t stay out of mine.
My only chance is the girl with the purple mouth whose smile is like the sunshine, who greets each day as if it’s a gift, not as if it’s an extension of an ever-present nightmare.
When I met Viv, some part of me recognized her. She was so bright, it was like she belonged in Euphoria. I was drawn to that about her, her lightness, her effervescence. It draws me in even now.
“Where did you go? You’re always off in the clouds.” Genna nudges my arm. I reel my thoughts back in and tuck them away, smiling at her. She blinks rapidly. Maia clears her throat from across the room, and I look down to find that I’m glowing. I stop immediately, not sure how I’d almost shifted into my angelic form. My slipping control is definitely a sign that my powers are weakening much more quickly than the last time. Human form isn’t completely natural to me, so it takes a certain amount of concentration to maintain it. Letting my thoughts fly off, denying my attraction to Maia, worrying about Genna’s variances from Viv …
“It’s called makeup, idiot.” She jerks her face away. “Keep your hands to yourself.” She scoots down the bed, away from me, and I sigh. Stand up. Go back to my seat at Genna’s desk.
“Why haven’t you kissed her?” Maia’s voice is small, and when I look over, her head is once again buried in her book.
I rub the back of my neck, trying to knead out the nervous energy. “I…”
“It’s not 1940 anymore. Waiting to kiss someone for three weeks is considered weird, not gentlemanly. She’s getting confused. You need to speed things up — you asked for my help.”
She’s right. I’ve been stalling, telling myself it’s out of respect, that I need to rebuild the foundation of trust Viv and I had, but I don’t have time for that.
We sit in silence until Genna returns with something to feed her sweets addiction. Viv was the same way. She’d visit the bakery almost every day and emerge with a piping hot pastry, the icing oozing down the sides onto her fingers. She’d grow giddy like a child at the thought of anything sugary. I would save up every dime of my salary just to buy her treats and witness her joy.
For some reason, the slick plastic packages of multicolored candies make Genna’s sweet tooth discomfiting. Whether it’s the fact that these candies have shelf lives measured in years instead of days, or that the ingredients list on the back reads as if it’s from a chemistry text, I’m not sure.
I steal another glance at Maia before turning to Viv — Genna. For all their similarities, there are many differences. Viv was ambitious; she’d enrolled in secretarial school in the mornings and helped her father in his shop in the afternoons. She had her eye on becoming a bookkeeper and eventually selling the shop so her parents could retire by the sea. She doted on her younger sisters and was determined that they would study at university, something she had dreamed of before the war.
In this time, Genna and her brother were raised by a nanny. She’s never held a job and approaches her studies rather lackadaisically, in my opinion. Her major is fashion design, which I understand to be more complex than it sounds, thanks to Maia’s tutelage. Still, when I asked Genna what her plans were after graduation, she said that she did not fully expect to become a fashion designer. When pressed on what she did plan to do, she wasn’t sure. She said perhaps she’d figure it out in graduate school.
She looks over at me now and smiles, her mouth tinted purple from the candy. Her smile melts me a little. The differences don’t matter. You can only have one soul mate and, for better or worse, mine isn’t the moody, damaged girl I can’t stop thinking about, whose dreams I can’t seem to stay out of. Who, for some inexplicable reason, can’t stay out of mine.
My only chance is the girl with the purple mouth whose smile is like the sunshine, who greets each day as if it’s a gift, not as if it’s an extension of an ever-present nightmare.
When I met Viv, some part of me recognized her. She was so bright, it was like she belonged in Euphoria. I was drawn to that about her, her lightness, her effervescence. It draws me in even now.
“Where did you go? You’re always off in the clouds.” Genna nudges my arm. I reel my thoughts back in and tuck them away, smiling at her. She blinks rapidly. Maia clears her throat from across the room, and I look down to find that I’m glowing. I stop immediately, not sure how I’d almost shifted into my angelic form. My slipping control is definitely a sign that my powers are weakening much more quickly than the last time. Human form isn’t completely natural to me, so it takes a certain amount of concentration to maintain it. Letting my thoughts fly off, denying my attraction to Maia, worrying about Genna’s variances from Viv …
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