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Aurora ☪︎
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Chapter 07: So Why are You Doing This [Edited]

"Happy Halloween bitches!" Emrie squeals in excitement as she jumps up and down. There's no question that this is definitely her favorite holiday. "And I say bitches in the most endearing way." I can't help but giggle at her saying curse words. She doesn't do it often, but when she does it sounds cute with her accent.

"Happy Halloween!" Nisha says back with a grin while scribbling down some notes. She's majoring in chemistry right now but I think she wants to switch to environmental sciences.

"Yeah happy Halloween," I reply dryly before going back on my phone. I only slept for a few hours last night which isn't surprising but now I have a horrible headache. It's not unusual for me to get them, but this one is more intense than the ones I've gotten in the past.

What made it worse was that I started to freak myself out when I thought I heard voices. My mother's definitely, but two others that I can't decipher yet. I couldn't understand what they were saying, it was all soft-spoken and their words kept jumbling together.

Emrie frowns at me and throws one of her pillows, hitting me in the face. I throw the pillow back while shooting her a dirty look. "Where's the pep in your voice, Rora? Come on you can do better than that."

"Okay, fine. Boo!"

"Ugh, you're no fun."

"It's my specialty," I say sarcastically and giving her a forced grin. Halloween isn't exactly on my top five favorite holidays list. I think it's pretty boring and quite strange. I mean, who made up the idea to knock house to house to get some candy from a stranger?

"Anyways, Irene is coming in a couple of hours so start cleaning up your messes, I can't impress her with my room when your dirty clothes and random crap on the floor." She says, gesturing to all the things on the floor to prove her point.

"I'm injured, remember, Nisha has to clean my stuff up." I groan in fake pain, pointing to my ribs and cast. Honestly, they've been healing well, it's been five weeks now so I'll be getting my cast off next week and my ribs should be almost perfect by then too.

"Aurora stop lying, get off your bed and pick up your crap now!" Nisha scolds, giving me a look. She sounds exactly like my mother which is quite concerning. My eyes widen slightly at both of the looks on their faces, deciding it would probably be best if I listen.

"Okay okay, jeez."

☪︎

"Irene, meet Nisha and Aurora. Aurora and Nisha, Irene." Emrie introduces while holding hands with Irene and the other holding Irene's costume. To say she's beautiful is an understatement.

Everything Emrie described her to me was insanely accurate. The wide doe eyes, freckles on her face, tan skin, and tall figure. The only thing that doesn't match the description I got of her last time is the long lavender hair. She's wearing a black cami with an oversized light blue flannel. Her denim skirt matches the color of her flannel as well with fishnets and heeled boots to complete the look.

"Hi!" Irene beams, and just like that the room fills up with double the happiness, coming in for a hug for both Nisha and I. I try my best to hug her back seeing as my cast is in the way but she seems to not mind it, or care. I have a feeling that Emrie had warned her about my injuries seeing as she's so gentle with me.

"Hey," Nisha and I reply, trying to match our enthusiasm with hers. Just like Emrie, she's very... energetic.

"You two are absolutely gorgeous! I just might need to start worrying about the three of you living together." She laughs, patting Emrie's cheek in a teasing way. Emrie rolls her eyes while Nisha and I laugh along with her. She immediately enters the room and looks around, already figuring out which bed is Emrie's and Emrie follows her.

"Aw, babe you have pictures of us here." Irene coos, staring at the multiple pictures Emrie stuck on the wall into a heart shape. It's so sweet it's almost sickening. I remember Nisha and I had teased her about it non stop but she never took it off. I have pictures of my own too- my mother and I. They're framed on my desk while Nisha has hers on top of the dresser.

"Duh." She laughs before climbing up the bunk bed to be next to Irene, holding the look of adoration in her eyes. Nisha's bed is right under hers while mine is across from them.

I give Nisha a quick side glance before the both of us mutually deciding we should probably leave to give them privacy.

"Okay so, we're gonna leave... just text us when we can come back. I don't wanna walk into whatever I could walk into," I say, picking up my keys, phone, and wallet and stuffing them into my bag.

"Uh-huh. Remember the party at Matthew's at ten," Emrie says distractedly, waving us off as she giggles from something Irene must have said. Since Matthew and I have gotten closer, due to my incident he's also gotten closer to my roommates. So now he invites all of us, well Nisha seeing as Emrie and I already have automatic invites to their parties.

"Yeah, whatever," Nisha replies before leaving our room with me following after her and shutting the door. She hasn't been to a party yet nor is she exactly thrilled to go.

"I guess I'll see you later?" Nisha asks me while checking the time on her phone. Not wanting to bother or use up more of her time, I nod quickly and usher her to go to wherever she needs to go.

"Yeah, of course, go on ahead."

"Bye."

"Bye." She doesn't move until I respond bye back to her, not wanting to seem rude about it. The next thing I know, I'm alone in the middle of the hallway, standing like an idiot.

Now what?

☪︎

"Wow, you guys look..."

"Hot as fuck." I finish Nisha's sentence for her, looking at the couple's costume in front of us. To describe it, in short, it's like a cop and robber meet sexy. It's quite a cliche outfit and rather ironic, seeing as neither of them has a bone in their body to be an actual criminal or using a gun.

"Thank you," They both say, grinning. I look down at my outfit and Nisha's, unsure if we were supposed to have a costume for the party. Both of us are dressed in dark washed jeans with me wearing a white top and Nisha representing our school with her sweatshirt.

"Yeah who cares let's just go," Nisha says as if she heard my thoughts. I shrug before agreeing. I'm sure not everyone has a costume on anyway.

As we walk to Matthew's frat we pass by the diner and I get a slightly weird feeling in my stomach. Maybe nervousness, seeing as I haven't worked in weeks and I'm going to come back soon.

The minute we enter the house the rush of familiarity comes kicking in. I can already tell there's some of the same people from last time, some wearing costumes, others aren't. That lifts the worry from my chest of standing out.

"Hey, Princess." Matthew grins, walking over to us- or me with a beer in one hand. He comes in for a side hug, completely unexpected on my part and I quickly hug him back. He hasn't stopped calling me that and I don't think he ever will so I just ignore it.

"Guys." He nods over to the rest before focusing on someone else. "Emrie you brought your girl?"

Emrie's smile widens before lifting up their intertwining hands. "Irene."

Matthew talks to the happy couple for a few moments before telling us to enjoy the party. As expected, Emrie and Irene are together and enjoying their own company. Nisha and I end up staying together, familiar faces, and all. Matthew goes back and forth between us and his other friends, being the entertainer. It's clear that he doesn't want Nisha and I to bail not even an hour into getting here.

We were doing pretty good with just each other's company at first, but then we started running out of things to talk about tonight. The awkward silences and the small talk starts to come into play and eventually, we silently agreed to just split up.

Matthew starts a new round of beer pong and asks me to join too but I decline, not in the mood to play games. Nisha eventually finds a group where she seems to be having a good time. I briefly hear things about a professor James, who they're not talking very fondly about. Apparently a new season of a show is coming out soon and art stuff.

So that leaves me, alone and with nobody to converse with. I end up trying to occupy myself by trying to find a damn drink in this messy kitchen. The drinks are scattered everywhere, it's almost impossible to find what you want. You'd think an unopened can of coca-cola wouldn't be hard to find amid alcohol bottles.

I unintentionally start organizing as I go, getting annoyed at how everything is just at random places. I'm used to doing these types of things though, all of my jobs incorporate it. From organizing the clothes on the racks, food in the proper aisle, or putting books on the shelves and everything in between.

My work doesn't go unappreciated, everyone who gets themselves a drink is thanking me for making it visible and quick to grab. I guess it does help quite a bit, especially if you're borderline drunk and don't want to have to search around for a drink.

I get too occupied, not noticing someone behind me until they speak.

"So why are you doing this?"

Since this is a shorter chapter, the next chapter will come out a little sooner than my regular once a week updates

Not related to anything but I'm almost done with the last season of Jane the Virgin and I have so much to say about it.

Anyways

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Jess