Forever August ✔️

chapter fourteen

"you know it's hard, but it
just keeps getting harder."
- kaleo
________________________

GUS STOOD ON THE edge of the cliff overlooking the ocean, the same cliff he had watched Aurora jump off of what seemed like a lifetime ago; a lifetime that had been filled with bicycle rides, hidden laughter and nights under the stars.

But as he stood there, staring at the water rushing beneath him, the welcoming nature of the cool blue turned lethal until his toes began to inch away from the same vastness that had once made him feel safe.

He took another step backwards and then he sat down. The heavy wind blew his hair into his eyes and he wondered how he had let his hair get so long, and when he had stopped caring about things like the length of his hair.

In his pocket, his phone vibrated. He didn't need to look to know that it was a message from Aurora — another message that would fall beneath the dozens she had sent him since he walked out of her house yesterday afternoon.

Gus couldn't quite understand why this was so hard to swallow; why his feet stopped him every time he tried to make his way back to her house. He knew it had something to do with the little voice in the back of his mind that whispered cruelties like you're a burden and she doesn't want you there, either. And although that voice was little, it was far more powerful than the bigger voice that told him to speak to her.

But he couldn't speak. He couldn't call and he couldn't text. It seemed as if all he could do was sit, stare at the ocean and wonder what it would be like to jump. Or what it would be like to not feel unwanted by the ones you want. Or what his life would have been like if his mother never saw him as a mistake and put him up for adoption eighteen years ago.

And so, as the current moved forward, Gus sat on the cliff and wondered why life seemed to be pushing him backwards.

___

Aurora sat on the edge of her bed, phone resting on her knee, as she waited for the screen to light up and his name to appear. She waited to answer the call, to hear the smile in his voice and then the smile that appeared in hers. She waited for their nightly plans to take over the fucking world but he never even called.

She wished she could be upset about his absence, because feeling angry was a lot easier than the other emotions she had felt since Gus left the day before.

The sad smile on Gus' face was what haunted her the most. She had never intended to make him sad. In that moment, Aurora had decided that a smile became apart of Gus' identity because she had never seen him without one. And when she did, it seemed to stop her world until she brought it back.

She was obsessing. She knew that. But she just wanted her friend back and the happiness that come from being around him. Aurora stared at her phone one final time before walking out of her bedroom. She ran down the stairs and out the door, passing by her bike as her feet carried her down the gravel road and towards the beach.

When the water came into view and her lungs burned inside her chest, she saw Gus sitting there, on the cliff where they first met. Aurora had no idea how she knew he would be here, maybe it was a lucky guess. Or maybe it was because Aurora could always be found in her home, and the ocean happened to be Gus'.

Kicking off her shoes, she walked through the sand and up the grassy path that lead to the top of the cliff. Her footsteps against the damp earth were loud but the wind whistled this high up and she went completely unnoticed. She stood behind Gus now, the same way he had stood behind her. With her heart in her throat, she spoke.