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Aurora ☪︎
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Chapter 19:
May My Dream Life Be Forever [Edited]

There's something about letting yourself be a little out of control that makes you feel so free. Your heart pounding so fast, you can feel it pulsing throughout your body. The way that your hair blows back from the force of the speed you're going, the deathly tight grip you have on the wheel, relaxing for a millisecond every now and then when you think it'll be over soon, but not quite. Then there's those little high pitched shrills and gasps that escape from your lips unexpectedly because you've never done this before and it feels so, so amazing.

That's me, at this very moment. I'm going so fast I can't even comprehend what had happened a mere second before and instead more focused on the now.

I see a blur of black and white, crossing the line and my body immediately relaxes as I slow to a stop. I pull myself out of the go kart and take my helmet off, swaying slightly. I turn behind me to see Theo copying my actions, shaking his headlight, and running his hand through his hair in an attempt to smooth it down.

A burst of giggles escape from my lips and I don't try to hide it as I walk over to him. "Your hair has never looked so good," I say sarcastically, tucking a piece of my own hair that got in front of my face.

He throws me a grin and a playful eye roll. "You wanna get some nachos or something? Before we go to our final spot."

I think about it for a moment, glancing at the food court. "Yeah sure, I'm paying for this though." I give him a pointed look as I start walking. He already paid for our dinner and got go-karts so the least I can do is buy some nachos for the guy.

"Hey, fine by me." He chuckles and catches up to me.   

☪︎

"No way." I laugh, my head touching the headrest as it falls back. "I'd be so embarrassed."

"Trust me, I was probably embarrassed enough for the both of us."

"At least you have a funny story to tell." I look on the brighter side of things. I mean despite the embarrassment and people laughing when you slipped in the mud, it still makes a kickass story. "My life is so boring compared to yours."

He glances at me for a second before focusing back on the road. "How so?" He lowers the volume of the song.

"Well," I start, giving myself a moment to think how deep I should go into it. I want to practice being transparent but I don't want to dim down the mood. I shrug. "It was just always school, work, and staring at my chipping wall for hours when I'm supposed to be sleeping. I don't have any other relatives around besides my mom and she's at work for most of the day so it was always just me."

"You didn't have anyone to talk to in school? You were in tennis and a couple of clubs though, right?" He questions.

I take a deep breath nodding, faintly remembering moments in tennis. They weren't horrible, but not quite memorable either. "Yeah, but it was only freshman year. Most of my teammates were upperclassmen, after I quit tennis to work I stopped hanging out with them. For clubs... I don't know, I guess I never just clicked with anyone."

"Wow." He lets out a long breath of air. He doesn't say anything for a little while, which makes me think the conversation ends there and I just made everything awkward. I slowly start regretting talking about it and put my arm over my eyes in annoyance.

"You've come so far though." His voice interrupts my internal battle which makes me drop my arm. "I mean here you are, in college, friends, reconnecting with family. This is some major change considering what, half a year ago looked totally different to you. It's impressive don't you think?"

I scrunch my nose slightly, getting where he's coming from but everything he listed is what most normal people already have. "It's impressive to have a normal life now?"

"No." He laughs lightly, which is his way of easing the tension. "You've always had a normal life Aurora, the impressive thing now is that you're happy." He pulls into a parking lot of this grassy empty field before facing me, taking my attention off the field. "Not many people become happy with their lives."

"I have a surprise for you, it's actually inspired by your favorite movie," he says. I give him a questioning look, my immediate thought is Tangled, but this field has nothing to do with the movie. Nonetheless, I don't question him, following him out the car and to his trunk.

He pops it open and I stare at the contents, then at him. "Is that for me?" There's a red box smack dab in the middle along with a few giant blankets and a couple of giant flashlights.

"Yeah." He nods, with a flash of excitement in his eyes along with his giant smile. I automatically feel butterflies, my grin stretching even farther across my face. "You can get the box, but don't open it yet."

I nod before grabbing the box, wanting to shake it out of instinct but I decide not to. For all I know it might be something delicate. I bite my lower lip, staring at the box as if I can see through it.

"Staring won't let you see the contents inside, darling." My head snaps over to Theo who has the other stuff in his hands and I look away, feeling the heat creeping on my face. The nickname he gives me makes me feel warm inside, it makes me feel complete.

"I know," I mumble under my breath.

He lets out a light chuckle, shaking his head before gesturing to me to follow him. "You're too cute."

That comment does nothing but make me even more heated. I thank the universe for the lack of light there is right now. It's pretty much all dark, besides the moonlight above us and a few lamp posts here and there. Which also means, I can't see for crap.

I bump into Theo which causes him to tease me about having bad eyesight, which is completely false. I fire back that he was the one who has glasses, not me. Though bumping into him for a second time doesn't help my case very much. I decide to just be quiet and use my phone light to aid me, mentally cursing myself out for not thinking of it in the first place.

We eventually get to a spot where Theo deems as perfect. I help him set up the flashlights and blanket on the ground while the other two are meant for us to keep warm, I leave it to the side for now.

"Okay before you open the box, just know I'm unrealistically terrible at art stuff it's kind of embarrassing so keep in mind the whole, 'it's the thought that counts.'" He puts in air quotes and I laugh lightly.

"It's okay, I'm pretty crap at art stuff too." I feel a little awkward opening the box, but that's not surprising. It's also one of the reasons why I have a love/hate relationship with Christmas. Even though it's just my mom and, I always feel so awkward opening gifts in front of her.

I don't know what I was expecting, but this wasn't it, and I have no idea why I didn't think of it. I let out an 'aww' looking up at him in which he nods at the box, gesturing for me to take them out.

Cushioned in purple and white tissue paper, there are all Tangled related things. Cutouts of the castle, the lanterns, stars, Rapunzel and Flinn, scattered around as fillers. Quotes from the movie written in pieces of paper are glued to the sides of the box. There's a couple of my favorite snacks lined up on the side while a paper flower that almost looks identical to the one in the movie placed on top of something.

Lanterns. Paper lanterns that you light up in the sky, like the movie. The ones that come every year.

He looks at me nervously before asking, "I hope you're silent from awe and not from absolute horror."

My smile: gigantic. Without thinking I lean over to hug him, feeling his heart pound. "This is the sweetest thing I've ever done for me. Thank you." I squeal, hoping he can understand the leave of happiness I feel. My entire body glows of warmth and my appreciation of Theo grows a thousand times more. I let go of him all too soon.

"I remembered how you said you wanted to light lanterns one day and I finally figured out an idea last minute, Amazon really pulled through for me." It was a while ago, but I remember that conversation. We were at the diner, I was working but business was slow so I mostly spent my time cleaning while talking to Theo. He brought up the topic of things we want to do in our lifetime.

I take out the lanterns from the box, putting it on the ground in front of us, wanting to take the time to appreciate the cutouts he made too. "These are so cute, the flower must've taken a while huh?" I gush, twirling it around by its fake stem. There were some minor mistakes on some of the cutouts, accidentally cutting a piece off, some crooked sides, some uneven, but still cute.

"I had to freehand all the petals that's why they're a little... interesting," He says, offering me a shy smile. Despite the dim lighting I can see his cheeks turning into a shade of pink. "But anyway, you wanna start the lanterns? I brought these marker pens so you can write stuff on it if you want."

To be honest, I know nothing about the whole lantern tradition or what it symbolizes. It's just something I want to do because I saw it in an animated movie that made it look so, so magical. "What do I write?"

He pulls out the pen and hands it to me. "Anything really. Your hopes, dreams, biggest fears, it's kind of a way to start a new chapter in your life," He explains, clearly has done his research.

I let out a breath before nodding, my heart warms at the fact he took his time doing all of this. "Okay, I got it."

We both stay silent for a little while, focusing on writing on our lanterns. It starts to get colder, the wind stops by every once in a while. Both of us decide to keep our message a secret, so it can just stay between ourselves before we let it go. I silently thank Theo for bringing extra blankets, despite me wearing warm clothes anyway.

"Are you ready?" He asks, lanterns lit and ready to be released. He assured me that these are completely biodegradable seeing as it consists of a bamboo frame, rice paper, and a yellow cotton fuel cell. I think he knew I wouldn't release it if it meant hurting the environment.

"Yeah," I reply before both of us let go of our lanterns. I let out of a breath of relief, as if the lantern just took all of my burden. They both immediately fly up, shining brightly against the sky's darkness from the fire inside it. The words on my lantern become less and less visible, eventually turning into random black symbols that no one is able to read with the naked eye.

We watch it for a good few minutes, even after it disappears. Somewhere within those few minutes, Theo and I end up being only a few inches away from each other.

"So, we're really not going to tell each other what we wrote?" He asks, turning to face me. I look at him, shaking my head no with an amused smile.

"No, silly," I laugh. "I didn't know you were actually curious about what I was writing."

He frowns at my reply, but a glimmer of amusement fills his eyes. "I'm always curious to know more about you... how about if I tell you mine first, you tell me yours next?"

I smile at his suggestion, but shake my head no. "Nice try."

"Yeah, I figured it wouldn't work..." He glances down at my lips, then back up to me. I start to feel the familiar butterflies coming back and my breathing hitches when he steps impossibly closer to me.

He leans down and my eyes automatically flutter close, my heart races, anxiously waiting for his lips to touch mine. I'm about to open my eyes, feeling impatient, but then the sparks explode all over.

I feel an electric jolt as he places his hand on my cheek, hand gripping on my waist. I bring my arms around his neck, my breathing labors as the kiss goes on. Before I know it, we're full on making out.

Somehow we end up lying on the floor, Theo's body pressed against mine and I can feel his erratic heartbeat. One of his hands end up entwining in my hair as we tease each other back and forth.

After what feels like forever but also only feeling like a few moments, Theo breaks apart. I slowly open my eyes again, my chest rapidly rising and falling as I try to catch my breath.

His golden colored eyes are dilated, staring at me with such intensity and it makes me feel nervous. For a while, all we do is stare at each other until Theo reveals an award winning smile.

"That was fun." He laughs lightly at my response and I start to go red again. My heart continues to pound, but at a steadier rate and luckily my breathing isn't as heavy anymore.

"Of course you'd say that after making out." He teases, leaning down once again to give me another kiss. Before I can try to deepen it, he pulls away from me and stands up.

"Come on, let's dance," He announces holding out a hand for me. I give him a look, unsure of what he's trying to get at but take his hand nonetheless.

"I don't know how to dance," I say quickly when he spins me around before grabbing both of my hands. Sparks fly all over me, I'm positive he feels it too.

"Who says you have to know to have some fun?"

For the rest of the night, we do just as Theo says, have fun. We blast out some music from our phones, dancing around the blankets as we eat the gummy bears and red vines from the box. We even start trying to scare each other with 'spooky' stories we came up with on the spot.

We would talk, kiss, have a couple silenced moments, then laugh about it, laugh some more, talk a lot, kiss again, up until midnight. It starts to get too cold for us to stay out like this any longer.

I'm a little bummed out that the date is ending so soon, even though we spent five hours together it doesn't feel long enough. I'd offer to go to the diner or we could hang out somewhere a little longer but I could tell he was getting tired so I don't want to keep him up all night.

Though he seems to not want the night to end just yet. He pulls up to an ice cream shop that's miraculously open at this hour, and on the way back to the campus anyway.

I scrunch my nose in disgust, shocked he would get such a flavor. "I have never heard anyone get pistachio flavored ice cream." Why does that even exist?

He laughs, playfully rolling his eyes at me. "It's a unique flavor, much more original than mint chocolate chip, which is basically eating cold toothpaste." He picks up our ice cream bowls, handing mine to me with a look of despise.

I scoff, ready to defend my taste buds. "So unique that you were practically the only person who got this flavor today." I gesture at the whole tubs of ice cream on display, most flavors are running out while pistachio looks like it hasn't even been touched.

"I can't help it." He shrugs, taking a bit of his life cream dramatically like it would prove a point. "Not everyone can have amazing taste buds. I would eat this flavor all day if I could."

"Oh really?" I take a bite of mine before leaning back on the cushioned booth. The shop is similar to the diner with the classic retro look.

"Really, and to prove it I'm going to buy another scoop." He announces, standing up and sauntering to the line, again. I watch him, not believing he'd really buy more, but he did and another one after that.

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He gives me a final kiss once he drops me off and when I open the door, to my surprise, both my roommates are up, wide awake with curiosity and excitement in their eyes. I could see the lights through the bottom crack of the door while in the hallway. I'm surprised seeing Nisha up, she normally sleeps relatively early and it's almost 1:30 in the morning.

"You came back pretty late," Nisha says with a sly smirk. I take off my shoes and jacket before putting the box on my desk. They both watch my actions, eyeing the box and snickering to each other, as if the box had unspeakable contents.

"Well, I couldn't leave my lovely roommates worrying about me all night," I reply sarcastically. I sit down right in front of Nisha's small heater, warming my hands up from how cold it was outside.

"Come on now, spill! Where did he take you, what happened, did you guys kiss and then some?" Emrie starts bombarding me with questions which makes both of them laugh when my cheeks start getting red.

It's quite humorous to see them act like fangirls towards Theo and I. I know it's partly an exaggeration and they want to boost my confidence.

"Okay, okay." I put both my hands up, a gesture to get them to chill. "So..."

I tell them everything that happened. From the race to the ice cream flavor and everything in between. Well, not everything with too much detail. They look at me intently, soaking up all the information in. They both squeal every so often when a 'cute' part comes up which keeps making me flustered.

Happy Friday loves!

This chapter is mainly cute and fluff, but what chapter of mine isn't?

If y'all enjoyed comment & vote :)

Stay safe

Jess