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Aurora ☪︎
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Chapter 09: It's Matthew Dummy [Edited]

"I don't get how you can be so happy all the time. Even on the darkest of days," I say, glancing out at the gated window. On the other side, the sky is decorated in clumps of dark greys and misery, with no room for light to come through. "Literally."

It's been raining non-stop all week, meaning I can't go outside at night, which equals me being annoyed and restless. Sure Seattle rains too but it's just different. Seattle is home and here is not.

"Oh please, you make me sound like a ball of rainbow sprinkles." Emrie scrunches her nose in distaste while sipping on her hot chocolate. She leans over from her chair and moves another piece on our chessboard. "Check."

"What the hell." I quickly move my king to the right. It's quite obvious on who's going to win this game and I'm almost tempted to just give up right now. "Seriously though. This past crap of a week has been messing me up."

It's been raining way too hard for me to even attempt to walk to the Diner, and I doubt any buses will come in the middle of the night. So not only am I missing another week of making money to help my mom and college, but I've also been having these erratic dreams.

All of them about the car accident, well the aftermath: the hospital. But it's not me awake and talking to my family or friends, it's just me there, sleeping while the world goes on. Sometimes I would get an empty feeling in my body and other times certain parts of my body would feel overly warm. It's almost making me question my own sanity.

She meets my eyes, noticing my genuine curiosity before nodding. "Well." she moves her bishop over, checking me again. "I wasn't always so ecstatic over everything." She pauses, giving me a chance to comment on it.

"Then what changed?" Whatever she did, I need to do it too so I can get out of this sticky mood.

"As cliche as this sounds- don't laugh at me... but it was Irene."

"Wait- What? You're kidding."

"Not really." She shakes her head, taking another sip of her drink. This is probably her third cup today, drinking it non stop since November started. She claims it gets her into the mood of the upcoming holidays.

"Okay then... what's the story?"

"I was a shy kid in high school, like crazy shy to the point some people forgot that I was even in the room." She winces as if she's thinking back at the rough memories, which she probably is. "Probably a little depressed too if I'm being honest. I struggled a lot with social interactions which made my life all... grey."

"Yikes," I reply, wincing myself. I was pretty reserved as well, but a lot of people still knew me. I'm not in contact with any of them anymore, we all mutually agreed to it. Even though my school had almost a thousand students, my class had the smallest group of kids. Many of my peers have left for colleges all over the U.S. but many more stuck around Seattle due to financial issues.

I was one of the lucky ones to get a major scholarship for Berkeley. I had originally planned on staying in Seattle to do community college and then transfer to a university near home. However, my mom and friends wanted me to branch out and apply to other schools so I can have options. We all came to an agreement where I would apply to three other schools in California.

UC Berkeley, Pepperdine University, and UC Davis. I got accepted to Berkeley and Pepperdine, but Berkeley was the one who would be willing to cover most of my tuition. My mother was ecstatic when she heard I got into Berkeley and I didn't have the heart to decline my acceptance just because I wanted to stay closer to her. I knew how much going to a well-known college, or any college at the matter meant to her.

"All of a sudden this new girl shows up a little after the beginning of the year. Dressed in ridiculously bright clothes with bright red-dyed hair with a different hairstyle every day. Within a week at school, I swear she was friends with everybody, and she talked a lot." Emrie chuckles to herself at the memory and then checkmating me without even looking down at the board.

"I actually didn't like her at first, I thought she was too obnoxious and bubbly. But then we were stuck doing a project together. One thing after the next she gets me out of my shell. Some other things happened and I'm sure you can guess how this story goes, and now I'm almost at one year with her." She grins happily, either at the memory of Irene or the fact that she beat me in chess, for the fifth time in a row.

Judging by the looks of it, she's happy at both.

"You can only be miserable for so long until someone comes by and changes your world," She adds on.

"Your story is ridiculously sappy and cliche," I say in slight distaste but at the same time, it's really cute. "But now what? Am I supposed to find my own 'Irene' or whatever?"

"Honey, you already have one." She giggles, resetting the chessboard so we can play again. I groan, looking at the door in hopes that Nisha will come back from lunch with her parents soon so she can play instead of me.

"I swear you have some kind of obsession on beating me in chess." I give her a dirty look and all she does is laugh before moving a chess piece. "But what do you mean by I already have one?"

"Come on," She says in disbelief, reaching behind her for one of Nisha's pillows and aiming it at me. "It's Matthew dummy!"

"Matthew?" I repeat his name in confusion, cringing at his name. Not because I don't like him, but more so out of all people she really said his name. "Okay, good joke, you're a comedian we get it."

I pick up the pillow that hit my face before throwing it back at her. I scrunch my nose a bit thinking of Matthew as a romantic partner. It truly has nothing to do with him himself, he's great and whoever dates him is a lucky person, but he's not for me.

"But I'm not joking." She frowns at my expression, picking up her phone to answer a text. She puts her pinky finger that means 'I' for Irene and I simply nod.  "Seriously what's wrong with Matthew?"

"Nothing, I just see him as a friend." I shrug, not knowing what else to say about it. Another ping from Emrie's phone interrupts her and she groans before picking it up, forming a fist with her hand but tucking her thumb between her middle and ring finger that stands for 'N' for Nisha.

"Nisha's coming up the stairs, she says to open the door." Emrie reads out loud from her phone while I stand up to open the door. I prop it open with my foot and peep outside to see Nisha walking towards me with two bags of food from the restaurant, phone between her two fingers.

"Parents bought you guys Nepali food," Nisha says, putting the bags down on my desk. "There's momos, dal bhat with these veggies, meats, some other stuff, and I think sel roti ." Her slight accent comes out as she pronounces the dishes while checking the boxes in confirmation about the sel roti. "Yup, they got you sel roti. They also said hi and hope you're all doing well."

Emrie and I light up at the thought of food before scurrying up to get it. Hopefully, the food distracts her from the Matthew thing too. Nisha's parents are the sweetest people ever. Since they only live a couple of hours away from us they tend to visit Nisha a lot. My mother obviously can't visit me every other weekend, and Emrie's family is from North Carolina.

"Tell them I love them," I groan in delight, taking a bite of the sweet sel roti.

"Ditto." Emrie grins as she takes out the boxes and opens them up.

"Uh-huh," Nisha says as she takes off her raincoat, stopping midway when she sees the chessboard. "Hey clean that up."

"Yes, mother," I say teasingly, bending down to pick up the pieces. Emrie laughs before helping me put it away too.

"That's not even funny." Nisha frowns, crossing her arms as she watches us pick up the stuff.

"Well, it made Emrie laugh."

"She's a laugh box, it doesn't count."

"I'm a what box?"

"A LAUGH box."

"Am not!"

"Are too!"

"No, I'm not!"

"You are!"

"Aurora am I a laugh box?" Emrie turns to me expectantly, waiting for me to say no. I make the mistake of also looking at Nisha who gives me the 'I dare you to agree with her' gaze.

"Aurora, remember I just got you food."

I take a deep breath in before hesitantly replying. "Well..." I start. "I mean you laugh... a lot, but I wouldn't call you a box... that laughs..."

"See! I am so not a laugh box."

"You literally laugh at everything, I can say a word a weird way and you'll laugh, look." She pauses for a second before continuing. "Collywobbles."

Just like that, Emrie let out a giggle before slapping her hand over her mouth after realizing she just proved Nisha's point.

"See!"

"Actually-" My stomach starts to growl in hunger which makes me immediately head back to get my food and wait until their little argument is over.

After piling on a bunch of food I sit on my bed and start to eat. "While you guys are still arguing... I'm going to eat some... good ass food," I say between mouthfuls, hoping this catches their attention to be quiet for a good minute and to just eat instead.

It does.

Quick update I'm so sorry this chapter came out as late as it did. I'm gonna give you the typical cliche response of school but genuinely it is because of school (and a tiny bit of writers block but we don't need to address that)

After a couple weeks hopefully my updating schedule will go back to normal

Also do y'all thing I write too much of Emrie and Irene? Should I tone down on the couple and just focus on Aurora or any of the other characters Nisha, Theo, Matthew??