"But when I lose my temper, I find it difficult to forgive myself. I feel I've failed." ~Emma Thompson
* * *
"What the fuck are you-"
"What the hell are you-"
Their voices clashed like a minor chord with no uplift, only silence afterward. They were unknowingly mimicking each other with their quiet gazes down to Earth and awkwardness that surrounded their beings. But the girl finally broke the glass.
"Why are you here?" She said quietly.
Lukas bit his tongue to avoid spitting out the same question in return. Instead, he responded, "This. Is my apartment complex."
"...oh." Was all the girl replied. It made Lukas's head churn.
What? Do I seem like a lower life that I already am? Is it so difficult to understand that people struggle like this? What do you want!?
But then he couldn't help it. He sneered in return, "Why? What about you?"
"I-I also live here, damnit!" Her voice echoed through the dreary-looking room, ringing it up the stairway.
"Ha! Real funny, Princess," Lukas snorted. As if this couldn't've been bad enough as it started...
"I'm serious, jackass." Her arms crossed over her chest, drawing his gaze there. The girl noticed as well, her body shaking a little bit before dropping her previous action. "If you have this place, can't you just smoke your disgusting drugs here instead of at my place?"
"Pfft," he started, "first of all, not drugs. That's illegal. Secondly, it's not like you would understand, Princess."
Her face grew red with anger. The tension in the air grew static with hatred, mainly from the brunette. As soon as Lukas was about to turn and collect his small but beneficial paycheck, the girl sauntered back up to him, ready to give him a piece of her goddamn mind.
"Let me tell you something, Smoker," she said in a threatening tone. "I don't know what shit you've been through to get you here," a foot stomp to the floor proceeded, "but I know I would probably be the first person to understand your bullshit if you, and the rest of the goddamn world, would understand mine." As attractive as he seemed, her demeanor stood strong while she jabbed a finger at his chest, her mail still tightly grasped around her palm. He studied it quick, noting no sending address, just a receiving address that read 'Harris'. "But let's face it, that's not gonna happen, is it?" His eyes connected back to hers, almost confirming her statement. "That's what I thought," and with that, she finally turned on her heel to speed away from that toxic boy and up to her dump.
Lukas blinked a few times, trying to comprehend what all just happened. He had a mind, he had a heart, and obviously, so did Princess. Troubled, it seemed, just like himself. Past memories must have affected her present-day.
It may not have bothered him back in Florida, back when he was just the glorious surfer boy every girl thrived to date, but a small, sinking feeling told him she wasn't telling her problems, but rather, just maybe, asking for help instead.
The crumpling of paper distracted his thoughts on the girl when he realized his mail was splayed on the ragged carpet underneath his feet.
His own paycheck.
Lukas stumbled quickly upstairs, careful to avoid the one cracked step the owner never seemed to fix, despite constant complaints from himself, his hazy mother as well as other people on the floors.
He opened the envelope gingerly after entering their battered down kitchen, like a secret message from ancient times. The off-white check read its amount blatantly to him:
YOU ARE READING
The Addict's Weakness
Teen Fiction"I'll make you a deal, Harris," he said to her, his signature smirk clearly in play. "I'll stop smoking." It couldn't be that easy, she thought to herself. There has to be a twist. "If, you can find me a new addiction to replace my nicotine." And th...
