𝗙𝗢𝗥𝗘𝗩𝗘𝗥 & 𝗔𝗟𝗪𝗔𝗬𝗦, 𝐦. 𝐬𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐨𝐥𝐨

¹⁴

shopping made hope want to claw her eyes out. the way she practically had to drag her feet to various stores was most certainly not something she enjoyed. she had been shopping for at least two hours and she was truly exhausted. she had, for some reason, woken up on this random tuesday and decided her room decor wasn't pleasing her anymore. with a mission to find much better accessories, she set out to buy items. she had most things delivered to her house seeing as she was alone but she had a few objects in a handful of bags in her hands.

"i think the pastel would suit more with the vibe you've been telling me about," the worker at the small corner store reasoned with hope.

hope nodded her head in approval, pastel did seem more fitting and honestly, she just wanted to get out of there. she examined the two items held in the hands of the girl in front of her and thought for a while before selecting the object in her right hand.

"i think i'll take the clock," hope finalised and the girl grinned at her.

she quickly went to grab an unsealed version of the clock and gave it to hope. hope made her way to the tills and paid as fast as she could before placing the clock in one of her many bags.

she quite literally groaned in satisfaction when she decided she had brought enough and it was time to head home. with one final word of gratitude to the worker of her final store, she made her way outside and walked in the direction of the elevator. her legs ached and she had to refrain from flopping down onto the floor in the middle of the mall.

matt's shopping trip, if you could even consider it that, was much shorter and barely took him any time at all. he picked up his delivery from the store and held it by his side. he walked to the elevator, walked in and pressed the button for the ground floor.

he sighed as he felt the elevator halt two floors before his, meaning someone was going to be joining him. he hurriedly pulled out his phone from his jacket and pretended to busy himself with instagram, not keen on communicating with a stranger.

the doors opened and he looked up momentarily to be met by the sight of hope, making him raise his eyebrow in confusion. he waited for her to notice him but she was preoccupied with texting someone so she never looked up, aside from glancing at where the elevator was heading.

matt cleared his throat, trying not to scare the girl and smiled softly when she looked up at him.

she smiled at him, "oh hey, fancy seeing you here."

"hi, it was weird seeing you walk in," he replied simply but hope's face dropped.

the words echoed in her mind and suddenly she was internally living in a timeline over a year ago.

"i'm coming love, have some patience for my sake please," hope laughed over the phone as she exited the store.

"is your present hidden?" he asked with a teasing tone.

"way better than yours, i just know it," she retorted and grinned when she heard him scoff from the other end of the phone.

"no the worker hid mine for me! it's okay to be wrong," he mumbled softly.

"okay i'm getting off the phone because i'm almost there and i'll look like a weirdo," she chuckled.

"okay see you, i love you," matt said goodbye.

"i love you too," she said before she ended the phone call.

there was an almost skip in her walk as she walked closer and closer to the elevator. she pressed the button outside and waited for it to open.