Pure Belleza | ✔️

(41)

Monday morning. The beginning of October. It was an odd start to the morning. No alarm went off. I didn't have to get up and shower at five before getting coffee and heading into the office.

I laid in bed and watched the sun replace the light pollution.

And I smiled of course because I thought about Amalia and the night that we'd spent together in the living room.

We'd laid under our own version of the stars - someday it would be the real thing - we talked, we filled up on sugar and had no regrets.

Baseball, the entire point in the date, was forgotten but we were too enraptured with each other to notice.

She's so beautiful. Laying beside her and watching her talk, the curve of her Cupid's bow and the fullness of her lips. Mesmerising.

And even in the morning when her hair was disheveled and her mascara smushed beneath her eyes, she was still beautiful.

I'd called Mom and Dad last night and explained I'd quit my job. They weren't hesitant to help me out but did mention they weren't going to support me sitting in an apartment for months on end.

Their words made it sound like they'd been talking to Abby. But I assured them I wouldn't waste away and I would work, travel or both.

Dad had been quite positive about one option I wasn't even allowed to consider.

"You're not moving home. I'd rather fork out for you to live in New York."

It hadn't occurred to me to move back in. But I promised him I would make no such suggestion.

New York was where I wanted to live. Just as Lucas had predicted would happen, I fell in love with the city.

I needed to explore more of it. But this was home now and it was where I was going to remain.

I decided to get up and shower before it got too late into the morning.

My reflection stared back at me as the water ran over my body. I'd been working out a bit more recently. I was starting to gain back some of the definition I'd lost when I fell into a slump after Kyla passed.

After I was dressed in a pair of dark jeans, boots and a long sleeve shirt, I pulled on a coat beside the door and flicked the collar up.

My keys jangled from the pocket while I shut the apartment door and checked my phone.

There was a Snapchat from Amalia and I opened it, feeling warm at the thought of seeing her smile.

It was a photo of her in a full length mirror. It looked like a tattoo studio. There was art all over the walls behind her, a stretcher bed and chair.

She looked perfect in a pair of overalls with a long sleeve turtle neck underneath. The message read,

'Dad is at the Philadelphia gallery today if you still want to go and talk to him. The New York gallery is closed because he can't staff both 😅 not a great start to a second location. Anyway. I'm in the parlour all day. Catch up later? xox.'

I stood in the elevator and took a photo of my boots with the caption. 'I'll go and see him. Have a good day. You look really beautiful xx'