Dedicated to my bro <3


C H A P T E R  3

"I need your grace to remind me to find my own,
If I lay here, If I just lay here,
would you lie down with me?"
- Chasing Cars, Snow Patrol

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Amor Roy has known who Nick Shaw was since he was ten. She knew him pre-puberty, when he was short and awkward and didn't know how to hug a girl. Amor Roy knew Nick Shaw when he was thirteen and had just started talking to people other than his neighbour turned best friend. She knew him when he was fourteen and had started trying new things like soccer. Amor Roy knew Nick when he was fifteen and was starting to grab the attention of girls. She knew Nick when he was sixteen and had come back to school after the summer holidays and the girls wouldn't stop talking about how he had stepped his game up. Amor Roy knew Nick Shaw when he was seventeen and all the after school visits to the gym had started paying off.

Amor Roy knew Nick Shaw because she saw him around school, every day. But she had never talked to him besides the few polite exchanges and awkward smiles when they crossed each other's path in the hallway.

Until one day in junior year. Amor remembers the moment clear as day.

She had been working a crazy shift at the diner, and her muscles were aching. The itchy material of her uniform was digging in to her skin and sweat stuck the dark strands to her neck. Most of her makeup looked oily and she smelled like grease. Closing the door to the diner behind her, Amor turned around to face the empty car park.

And that was the day Nick Shaw stumbled into her life, drunk as the offspring of an Irish and a Sailor. She watched him staggering up to her, barely managing to stand straight. He still grasped a bottle of liquor in his hand, the golden liquid sloshing haphazardly. Amor had seen Nick with his girlfriend earlier on in the day. He had just scored during the game and proceeded to jogged up to the pretty blonde and planted a kiss on her lips. If Amor wasn't so cynical, she would've thought the moment to be cute.

A bitter smile had tipped her lips. "Drunk in love?"

"No," he had scoffed. "Just drunk."

Unable to help herself, Amor had smiled in amusement.

"What happened to your girlfriend?" she had asked, mentally berating herself for being so interested.

"She cheated," he had answered, nonchalantly. "Did you just close up?"

Amor nodded, and that was when she started to feel bad. "Hungry?"

"Yeah," he replied, studying the bottle in his hand.

Amor lifted the bag of food in her hand for him to see. When his eyes followed the movement, she gestured towards the bench a meter away. He stumbled to the bench and slumped on it. Amor followed. He smelled like booze and a hint of cologne. Amor had never understood how male cologne lasted so long, especially since her perfume acted like she'd never sprayed it.

"I know you," he said, just as Amor had passed him the fries.

"I know you too," Amor had replied, her voice lilting.

And that was how Nick Shaw had changed Amor's life, just by saying three simple words.

Now, Amor Roy knows Nick Shaw, even when he's eighteen. She knows him. His little quirks and subtle habits that others might not have noticed. Amor knows what he likes and dislikes and how to tell when he's lying or trying to hide his disappointment.

She can recognise his figure or his walk a mile away.  The sound of his laughter is as mundane as hearing someone say her name. Amor is familiar with the tip of his lips, yet it manages to tug the strings of her heart today.

Today, she sits with him on the hill. The blanket Nick's mum had knitted protected her white dress from the grass. After the humid day, Amor welcomed the chilly wind against her skin with open arms.

"Happy Birthday, Amor," he wished her, smiling at Amor as if she were the first sign of rain in a dessert.

Today, his eyes seem brighter, his laugh sounds lighter and he just seems fascinating. Or maybe he's always been like this and she's just never noticed despite how much she knows him. Somehow, the sight of his smile can bring a smile to her face, and a tingly feeling forms in her stomach. It's almost like her eyes have a mind of their own as they study his face, run over the veins in his arms and stretch over the shirt on his shoulders.

There's something different today, she concludes. She feels a change in the air. The wind as it runs through her hair seems beautiful rather than annoying, the lit up city before them looks prettier than before and as her eyes bounce over her surroundings, it all looks so mesmerizing. The smell of the grass is refreshing, the touch of the waves: soothing, the taste of the berries are sweeter, and the sound of laughter is easier to bear. And the feeling of being barely alive is beyond her touch but is instead replaced with the sensation of being alive - of not just breathing, but feeling alive.

The change is there, and Amor knows that it all comes from within her.

She knows that the change comes from her acceptance of not just herself - body and personality - but of her life. Yes, her mother and herself hadn't been dealt the most glorious hand, but no one ever was. Lena had made something of herself, despite being raised in a foster home. Her mother had an alcoholic husband and a financial crisis, but she still smiled at Amor everyday. Whether that was after a long shift at a hospital or in the mornings as she prep-talked herself. Looking out at the lights and buildings gazing back at her, she finally feels like a teenager. 

A memory tugged at the seams of her brain. She can feel the dread that comes with it and suddenly she's not seated next to Nick. Instead she's lying over the shattered pieces of the coffee table, the sharp edges digging into her skin and paralysing her. Despite the pain, her fingers had twitched towards her father, her lips open in a silent plead for help. But he hadn't even spared her a glance as he swallowed an excessive dosage of pills. He had given himself mercy and left her behind with scars that no sixteen year old should've had. 

A warm hand rested on her back, and the action had Amor jumping and snapping away from the clutches of the memory. Nick's hand remained and she realised that he had been trying to get her attention. He didn't seem to care about the bumps on her back, not at all looking bothered as his fingers touched them. Even Amor hated the feel of them. 

Nick Shaw stood up and Amor's gaze followed him as he strolled to his parked car. He reached for a water bottle and Amor's steps followed him at their own will.

"Thank you for this." Her words are soft and for a moment she worries that he didn't hear her. Expressing sentiment was not something she wanted to repeat.

"I would do anything for you," he threw back the words casually, but Amor's heart jumped and soared. She leaned her back against the car, the metal hitting her bare back and not feeling nearly as good as Nick's hand. 

Mustering up her confidence, she remarked, "You use that line on all of your girls?"

"You know you're the only girl I say that crap to."

"I don't know that."

He rolled his eyes in disbelief. "Then you must be the dumbest girl I know."

"What does that mean?" Her eyes narrowed, and she removed her gaze from the trees.

He held her stare. "I've been walking you to class every day for a year now, I buy a shitty lemon pie from the diner every shift you work just so you can take my order. I invite you to every party I go to, even though you don't come. What do you think that means?"

Her heart pounded against her rib cage. Her brain bounced on a trampoline, jumping from one conclusion to another. There was no way that Nick Shaw liked her, in all of its elementary definitions and aspects. She had been dancing in a circle of unrequited love for the past year, there was no way it could be this easy.

"That you're a really nice guy?"

His finger reached up to brush a strand of her hair behind her ear. Amor's eyes closed shut at the feel of his skin against hers.

"Are you friendzoning me?" Nick asked, his tone light but his body rigid.

"I'm in the friendzone," she stated, as if it were an obvious fact that he should already know.

He tilted his head at her, amazed as he raised an eyebrow. Then, he did something Amor Roy could have never expected. He fucking kissed her. With his left hand on her cheek, he kissed her. Nick Shaw kissed her like he meant it, as if she were the answer to his prayers. Her lips moved against his, and for the first time in her life, Amor felt needed - in a good way. Not in a way that burdened her with pressure, but as if that need could lift her up into the sky. For once, Amor felt fearless.

His other hand pulled her closer, and the intensity of his kisses grew and Amor's head fused out like a burnt light bulb. Nick pulled away slightly, pecking her lips softly and slowly.

"Friends don't do that, Amor."

That exact moment was when Amor Roy realised that she didn't need to walk around with a cage wrapped around her yearning heart. Amor knew that there was a strange beauty and fearlessness of falling in love for the very first time. She understood that it required a form of boundless trust and produced the ideals of happy-ever-afters.

She had always thought that her first love would be an epic journey of forbidden love, where she would cry and laugh. Maybe she would see him with another girl and get her heart broken. But as she stood before him, his cheeks flushed and the strands of his hair falling onto his face, she realised that she had never been more wrong. Love was the little moments. Love was when he bought her a cupcake the day she flunked her science test. It was the little moments where he held the door open to her class. It was the bad days where their mental health wasn't the best, and it was the good days full of laughter.

Love brought on a fear of the unknown. You step into the uncharted. Feeling around in the darkness, and sometimes, you hit something good. And Amor had just done that, and she planned on holding on tight.

So that is done! I hope that was a satisfying conclusion. I am thinking of doing a companion short story with Lena as the main character. It will probably have a few more chapters, so tell me what you guys think about that too!