Forever August ✔️

chapter thirty

"you're all I need."
- the 1975
____________________________

GUS NEVER WAS good at keeping secrets.

His heart always thudded too loud. Sweat would line the sides of his face and his mouth became trapped shut. His tongue would tie into knots, and those knots had tangles of their own.

The woman in line in front of him at the pizza parlour paid, and he ordered Aurora's double cheese slices, handed the cashier the wrinkled bills in his wallet, and returned to the hotel with his palms burning from the heated box.

He never meant to keep a secret. When his mother told him that his name was August, he wanted nothing more than to run outside and tell Aurora that they could have a forever. But the walk from the door to the car seemed impossibly long, and it carried just enough time for his mind to convince him otherwise.

The elevator opened onto the twelfth floor and Gus was sure the word August was burned into his forehead by now—that the freckles coating his skin had rearranged themselves to spell out the truth he was too afraid to voice aloud.

Saying it felt like a curse. Like the two syllables held enough power to shatter the walls, bring down the ceiling until the sky crashed into him, too.

August, he thought.

Gus knew Aurora accepted her death, so how was he supposed to tell her that this entire summer had been a lie? That whatever refuge she sought in the end of all this would never come? That his trembling hands and lanky limbs were the fate that awaited her instead of the extraordinary fate she envisioned?

He had watched her choices be ripped from her one-too-many times. This summer and her will to live was all Aurora had left. He didn't want to take that from her, too.

And, there was always the chance his name was insignificant. A fluke. A coincidence. What if Gus told Aurora the psychic may have been referring to him, only for her to still die at the end of the month? Then what would he do, knowing he had taken the last few weeks of her life from her on an impulse that proved to be worthless?

The elevator doors opened and he stepped into the hall.

That name was six letters that never had belonged to him. And they would not start to be his now, because a woman whose eyes were distant told him so.

So Gus held the pizza box tighter in his palm, opened the door, and walked inside. August was coming to an end, and he would let fate play out the way it intended without serving as a harsh interruption.

"Aurora?" he called.

Gus expected to find the television on and Aurora lounging in bed in a robe, a sly smile on her face. He'd hand her the pizza and apologize. He'd tell her that he loves her more than the salty ocean water and the lethal waves. She'd hook her fingers through the belt loops of his jeans and tug him into bed. He'd fall into her like a hurricane rocking through a sandy beach and their love would shatter the sand, the earth and everything in between.

Instead, the room was dark aside from a sliver of light slanting in from the bathroom door, which was left slightly open. The pizza box slipped from his hands, landing on the carpeted floor with a thud! as he ran towards the sound of her cries.

"Rory?" The word lodged in his throat as soon as his palms pushed the door open.

She was sitting on the floor, naked, leaning against the tub on her side, knees tugged up to her chest. Goosebumps and teardrops covered her skin as she cried into herself, shaking like a fallen leaf.