❛ do you mind if i smoke? ❜
“Whatever,” Giselle waved, letting the other invade the space that was originally hers on that balcony. She liked this cafe, and she’d come early to snag this only table on the tiny balcony. Felt like France here, and perhaps she only let him smoke there and share her space because cigarettes were so… Parisian.
Well, what the fuck did she know about Paris apart from what a spoiled brat who went only for shopping sprees would, anyway?
“Can I have one too, then?” She decided to stick to the Parisian theme, getting up from her seat and approaching, pushing her newly-colored dark blonde locks behind her shoulder.
Giselle never saw this side in her; she wasn’t one to feel compelled to offer acts of kindness, ever. She knew better than anyone not to trust people, and she also knew to only ever trust what she saw. “You’re fucking crazy,” she therefore bursted into a series of chuckles, waving a hand as she turned away with a flick of her hair in the wind, before turning back to stare straight at him with a pointed look. “It’s not a favor, nor an agreement.” This part was where she didn’t want to be looking at him when she spoke, because she might just end up being the one read from front to back. “All your plans, your intentions,” she began, flicking the cigarette butt from her fingertips down the balcony, watching it flitter in the wind. “They’re acts of love.” Love was such a cheap word. People used it and abused it, until the world no longer could define it within a universal meaning, universal feeling. “I wish I had someone who’d do that for me.”
The scowl on Ayden’s face twitched in a thin layer of confusion at Giselle’s alleged insult and the sound of her laugh.
He blinked, once, twice, intently seeking explanation in her hands’ movement, in the ash of her cigarette, in the gaze that seemed to pierce through his soul. A big gulp of air rushed into Ayden’s lungs when she showed some mercy, letting him know through words the thoughts that were circling her mind.
At first, he was half convinced that he had stepped into some sort of bizarre trouble, in the form of a Psyche’s daughter who enjoyed smoking and could gain free access to others’ brains with a touch. But it seemed like the universe was trying to prove to him that genuine kindness from strangers still existed, just often hidden behind a deceitful facade.
“I guess that’s the point of our soul contract, if you ever believe in that. My sister helps me see the future, I help her banish her past, and we both help each other live a better life.”
He stubbed out his cigarette into the small astray on the coffee table, no longer interested in playing around with nicotine puffs. His curious gaze landed back on the side of Giselle’s face, refusing to leave.
“Since you’ve seen a piece of my mind and accepted it,” he started, the journalist in him was itching to jump out and pull a whole interview. But Ayden refrained from his eagerness, not wanting to make Giselle think that her story would make headlines tomorrow. He leaned slightly backwards, his back facing the sun, elbows resting on top of the balcony, his smile soft like a breath of spring.
“It’ll only fair for me to lend you my ears, don’t you think? Your secrets are safe with me.”
Giselle leaned forward, forearms dangling off of the railing of the balcony. Her father was her only family for most of her life - his fatherly love was never a priority for him, despite it being real. Perhaps that was what hurt the most; that he tried giving her the most he could, but that love could never surpass that of a romantic nature, for a woman who he’d much prefer to spend the rest of his life with.
And so here Giselle ran, so that she could be the one to turn him down instead of the other way around. As thoughts of him calling her on the phone, most likely to tell her how much he missed her and wanted to see her again floated in her memories, tears unknowingly welled in her eyes when she remembered it was only an act of guilt from his part.
It was all Ayden’s fault she now sunk deep within her nightmares, she reckoned, and so she turned to him and gave him a strong shove away from her, yet not leaving the scene, simply standing with her back turned against him to hide her sorrow-ridden face, one she wasn’t willing to just show anyone yet. But why did she stay? Perhaps someone like her longed, just for once, for some comfort and solace, too.
