Aurora's Point Of view

One...two...three

Hadley and I stick our tongues out as her Macbook laptop Photobooth takes a picture of us.

"Okay, okay, okay...now...serious face!" She smooths her hair out of her face and angles her eyebrows up like a model, pouting her lips.

We adjust our faces into serious poses, which is quite comical considering we're in green face masks and PJs, and the app snaps a photo of us. The app sets another 3 count timer, when a bit of a smokey smell emerges. Horrified, Hadley's face contorts in terror.

"Oh God, the pizza!"

The macbook takes a photo in that moment and hilariously captures her worrisome face.

She dashes to the kitchen from the living room and I follow in suit, Cannoli barking and jumping off the couch, following at my ankles.

"Oh, can it, Cannoli, this isn't the first time you've seen me burn the place down!" Hadley yells, sprinting to the oven. Cannoli barks in response.

Just in time, Hadley yanks on a yellow oven mitt and cautiously lowers the oven door. Waving the wisps of curling smoke away, she sees the crust is a crispy black color, but the pizza itself isn't entirely burnt.

"Uh...whoops?" She says, giving me an anxious smile.

"There are worse things that've happened than the Great Hadley Pizza Mishap," I joke. "Like actual fires."

"Which in hindsight, would've been a much more thrilling story to tell," She served me a plate, "but I'll be damned if my olives and mushrooms get burnt. Come on, let's go watch a movie."

"When do we take these face masks off?" I ask, the texture a bit weird and foreign on my skin.

"We can do wash it off after the movie, these ones are meant to stay on for a while."

We head into the cozy living room and plop onto the soft couches, throwing cashmere throw blankets over our laps. Hadley picks John Tucker Must Die on Netflix as Cannoli jumps up and settles next to me, curling into himself. He seemed to take quite fondly of me, it makes me want a puppy. I sink my teeth into the Great Hadley Pizza Mishap, melted cheese and warm veggies decadently meeting my tongue.

A little into the movie, I hear the front door doorknob starting to wiggle. I grip the blanket anxiously, praying to every God it's not Arlan or any of his men. Hadley turns her head towards the direction of the door before diligently back to the movie.

"Beck's home from work," Hadley announces, and I immediately relax, but then grow nervous again. A good kind of nervous, though. "BECK, WE HAVE PIZZA!" She yells through a mouthful of her slice.

"I have leftovers from work, but thanks!" He calls back, and my skin shivers hearing his delightful voice.

He walks past the living room and I watch him, feeling my face flush. I had only ever seen him at school, it made my senses overly excited to see him in his own house. He takes off his green work hat and pushes a hand through his sweat-damp, red curls. My guess is his room is in that direction. He's probably exhausted from work.

I turn my head back to the movie, trying to focus on the characters. I hear the shower go on and my face flushes bright red.

"Are you okay? You're blushing," Hadley looks at me strangely.

I quickly cover my face with the blanket, clearing my throat.

"U-uh, yeah, I'm fine. Just the guy in the movie, he's really hot. Super...super hot, right?"

"I'm literally gay."

"I-I know...but you know, just saying," I awkwardly conclude.

"I guess, man," She shrugged, "I'm just lookin at Sophia Bush. We love an actress who's a human rights activist off screen."

"That we do," I say, trying not to think about Beck naked.

Without looking at me, Hadley extends a hand holding Ben&Jerry's.

"Ice cream?" She asks through a spoonful of chocolate ice cream.

I lick my dry lips, taking the carton.

"Sure."

When the movie ends, I help Had with the dishes back in the kitchen.

"John Tucker is such an idiot, thinking he can play three girls at once," I retort, shaking my head. "I'm so glad they stood up against him. Those girls are far too intelligent, he never deserved them."

"Amen, sista. I still can't believe you've never seen this movie until today. Girl, we really gotta build your chick-flick repertoire," She looks at me pointedly with narrowed brows before drying her dish.

"Mean Girls is next, for sure. Hey," She grabs my arm when we're done drying, "I'm gonna hop in the shower to rinse this face mask off, but just make yourself at home, you can go anywhere."

"Sure," I nodded.

When Hadley left, I was excited to go back to the couch to cuddle Cannoli. I had a strange attachment to the small pup.

"Cannoliiii," I sing-songed, dashing to the living room. Only, when I stop my feet at the front of the entrance, he isn't there. My brows scrunch together.

"Ohhh, Cannoli!" I say, ducking under the couch, seeing he isn't there. Puckering my lips in a few kissing-noises, I clap my hands, trying to summon him. "C'mon, puppy!"

Hopping back up, peering around, I go back to the kitchen. He isn't under the table or near the cabinets. I pout, wanting to cuddle and play with the feisty, friendly puppy.

Absentmindedly wandering through the hallway, I don't see him near Hadley's door, where I hear the shower. Pivoting and making my way through the other side of the house, I look all around trying to find him.

"Cannoli!" I cheer, finally finding him smiling and panting on the floor. Success!

Then I look up and see Beck's back is to me as he's pulling a shirt on, and he turns to see me standing across from him.

Holy shit, this is his room!

I gasp, mortified.

"Oh, hey,"-

"I'm so sorry," I sputter, turning and whacking my hands over my eyes, my heart jackhammering against my collarbone as I shook my head at my idiotic timing. "I-I was just,"-

"Hey, it's all good," He gently insists. "Are you girls having fun?"

Turning back hesitantly, I let my hands drop from my face to find him in a black 'GreenDay' T-shirt and gray sweats, his red velvet ringlets dripping with fresh shower water. Cannoli yelps and runs to me, licking my ankles.

"Oof," I say, clutching the puppy. "Yeah, we are," I giggle.

"Someone likes you," Beck smirks.

"Yeah," I laughed under my breath, leaning down to pet Cannoli. "I was looking for him, I wanted to play with him. I'm so sorry, I didn't realize he was in your room. I would've never just, like, barged in..."

"Yeah, he usually comes in when I get home from work. He's got this strange attachment to me," Beck crosses his arms and grins at his dog.

Cannoli had a strange attachment to me too...Beck and I had more in common than I thought.

"Don't tell Had that Cannoli likes me more.... or do," He shrugged. "I love rubbing things in her face. Like the fact that I'm older."

"You're older?" I repeat.

"Eight minutes, never forget it!" He boasts, pumping his chest with a fist and I giggle at his adorableness. "And I'd say we're even for you barging in on me considering I get to see this interesting disarray on your face," He grins.

My face falls into a horrified look remembering I have a green face mask on. I quickly bring my face to my cheeks, trying to cover up.

"And is that Ben&Jerry's?" He asks, pointing up a brow.

To make matters even worse, I remember I have chocolate ice cream over my mouth. I quickly move my hands over my lips, trying to rub it off when he chuckles heartily.

"It's okay, Aurora, relax, I don't care or anything."

Stopping my frantic efforts to clean my face, I look at him with soft eyes and laugh softly, dropping my hands.

"Me and Hadley did face masks and I-I guess I forgot to wash it off. Is that a piano?" I say, leaning up to stand and seeing a keyboard on his desk.

"Yeah, come in, I'll show you," He beckons me after throwing on a crimson red hoodie.

Beck was inviting me into his room!?

Beck was inviting me into his room!!!

....Beck was inviting me into his room.

I bit my lip softly and walked into his room, Cannoli yelping and licking my ankle.

"I didn't know you played," I say softly, feeling a bit anxious stepping into his room. Yet, it was so exciting, it felt like a dream.

I was in Beck Merrit's room. It wasn't as colorful or decorated as Hadley's, the gray walls had all but one Rolling Stones poster, his bed was navy blue with crimson pillows. He had a few picture frames of adorable, childhood baseball photos, and a couple of him and his friends at the beach.

"Yeah, I was almost a music major, but I didn't want to turn something I loved into an academic endeavor."

I peer above the keyboard to find sticky notes all over his wall. I assumed it was all lyrics.

As if I couldn't be anymore smitten with Beck: he's a song-writer.

"And you write?" I ask, hoping noticing the lyrics wasn't too much an invasion of privacy.

Turning his head to find his lyrics, he smiled shyly, stuffing his hands in his hoodie pocket.

"Uh, yeah, but I can't sing, so it kinda just sounds like a drowning fish reading poetry."

I giggle a loud, unfitlered laugh and muffle my mouth with my hand.

"You can sit, if you want," He says gently, gesturing towards his bed.

I smile softly and sit on the foot of his bed. He lifts a baseball from a desk and absentmindedly throws it up and catches it, pacing.

"I started piano lessons at four by the request of my mom, not much of a choice there," He continues throwing the ball up and catching it as he speaks. "But actually fell in love with it later on."

"It seems like you're a sports kinda guy, too."

He catches the ball and grins at me.

"I played baseball for a while, yeah. Every now and then I play with my friends. I think the love for it will always be there, just not as much as it used to be. Kinda like a good nostalgic memory, you know? But I mostly like to focus on school and music. What's your major again?"

"Uh, animal studies."

"Ah, right, right, dutiful vegetarian girl," He says, saluting me with his fingers to his forehead and I giggle under my breath.

"I don't think I actually ever learned your major?" I ask him.

"So I was undeclared for a while but I'm thinking about JLA, criminology, something like that. It's interesting, you know, I'm feeling it out. I like my classes so far."

I look at his music poster and then his keyboard.

"I've always wanted to play an instrument, but I never had the money for lessons or an instrument or anything," I explain, watching him rhythmically throw and catch the ball.

"Damn, your parents never listened when you asked?"

I look to him, his pretty, chocolate eyes meeting mine, before I look down. He stops his baseball throwing abruptly and sets it on the desk, approaching me.

"Uh, Aurora, I-I'm sorry if I hit a soft spot there."

"I've never met my parents."

Licking his lips, he looks as though he's not entirely sure what he should say. He sits next to me quietly. Finally he says,

"You don't have to explain."

"No, it's okay, like...I was in foster care my whole life, so," I shrugged, looking at him.

I didn't like admitting this fact to people because it made me feel uncomfortable, it made me feel "other". I didn't want people looking at me differently, looking at me like I was strange. Even though it wasn't my fault, my situation, my life, rather, made me self-conscious. I hoped to God Beck wouldn't judge me.

"My parents are hardly ever around either, you know," He shrugged, scratching his hair and leaning onto his knees. "They travel for work a lot and they've hardly been around for Had and I. They've been in Japan for the last two years and we've kinda just had the house to ourselves. They barely came to my baseball games, or watched us make friends, and stuff. But they give us a shit ton of money to "make up for it"," He quoted with his fingers.

"Can I ask something?" I say gently, he looks to me and nods. "If you have so much money...why do you guys go to community college? Not that there's anything wrong with it, I just..."

"Well, Had and I always knew we never wanted to go to some huge party school. It wasn't our scene. We wanted something close to home. We also didn't want our parents to think that they could just ship us away for four years at some expensive school and that would make everything okay. It doesn't make it okay. They're never here, and we didn't want them thinking an expensive college would make us just forgive them."

We sat in comfortable silence for a few minutes. Opening up to Beck was actually a lot easier than I thought. He was just so...warm, like caramel and honey and a blanket fresh out of the dryer. Comforting. Soothing.

"I always felt like something was wrong with me because I wasn't like the other kids...the kids with parents," I timidly admitted.

"Even though I wasn't in your situation, so I'll never fully understand what it's like, I get what you mean," He looked sincerely at me. "My parents neglected us a lot. I would watch other kids with their parents and always feel left out. It made me worry how I'd turn out. But I think I'm pretty okay. And Aurora, there's nothing to be embarrassed or self conscious about for you either, I promise. No matter your family situation, you have every right to come as you are."

"Thank you. Seriously it means a lot to hear someone validate me like that. And, well, I think you've turned out really great, too, Beck."

"Yeah, I'm alright," He shrugged with a sheepish grin making me laugh. "Some aspects of life suck sometimes, but that's just life, right? What're you gonna do, let that stop you from living?"

"SOMETIMES I WALK A LITTLE FASTER IN THE SCHOOL HALLWAY JUST TO STAND NEXT TO YOU!" We hear Hadley sing from the shower and both burst into laughter.

"You guys are clearly a musical family," I shake my head and snicker. "I'll give you that, I'm jealous."

"Well, here, sit, sit," He instructed, leading me to the wooden chair in front of his desk. I sat myself down, grinning, excited. "I'll show you, it's not that hard, really."

He leaned over my body to turn his keyboard on and I felt my skin vibrating with anxiety and excitement. The close proximity was driving my crush for him towards insanity. I was so nervous being so close. I knew it was wrong, it felt wrong, for many obvious reasons. I didn't want to upset Hadley, and God forbid she sees us like this. Beck smelled so fresh and soft, just out of the shower, even a few beads of water from his hair plopped onto my bare arm. Everything about him was gentle, from his soft aroma, to the way he carefully touched my hands with his over the keyboard. Instead of putting my body in a state of anxiety, he always managed to put it at ease.

"Okay, here," His arms hovered over mine and I felt my face turn fire engine red. Softly, he lifted my right hand, placing a finger at a time onto each key.

"It goes...this finger...this finger...this finger," He hummed the key of each piano key as he set my fingers down. He pressed his hand over mine and my fingers played the chord. "That's a C chord."

"C," I sang out the chord, mirroring how it sounded on the keyboard.

"Woah," Beck said, a bit taken a back. "Do that again."

"Uh," I laughed nervously, looking down. Clearing my throat, I sang out, "C."

"Damn, kids got chops," He complimented me, laughing. "I didn't know you were a singer, Aurora. You've got a good voice."

"Really?" I asked unsurely with a soft laugh, shrugging. "I don't know...I was never really, like, a musical kid."

He leaned over me once again, my breath hitching in my throat, to peel a sticky note off the wall. Placing it in front of me on the keyboard, he said, "Can you sing this?"

"B-but I don't know how it goes," I sputter nervously, fidgeting on the chair. "It's your lyrics, are you sure...?"

"Shh, it's okay. Just sing how you think it goes," He insists gently. "I just wanna see."

With a deep breath, I peer down at the lyrics. Licking my lips, I sing softly:

"I want your midnight's and madness, your enigmatic smile is like magic, the night time is when it all happens, my thoughts of your sweet face," I clear my throat and stop myself, twisting around to face him. "I-I'm sorry, that probably sucked, was that okay? I-I'm sorry," I shake my head, doubting myself.

"No, stop," He said quickly, shaking his head. "Aurora...that was beautiful. It's like...what the song's been missing. An actual good voice."

"Really?" I ask, brows knitting together. "I-I mean, but you wrote it though...how could I have made it any better?"

"Well, I'd show you how, but I don't think you wanna damage your eardrums by hearing me sing."

I giggle and he comes behind me as I turn to face the keys. His hands over my shoulders, he rhythmically starts to play the chords as I watch in awe, the music sounding so effortless and ehereal.

"Try it again," He said.

Smiling and biting my lip, I repeat the lyrics with his piano under my voice.

"I want your midnight's and madness, your enigmatic smile is like magic, the night time is when it all happens, my thoughts of your sweet face,"

He quickly pulls down another sticky note and I read the lyrics as his hands find the piano again.

"The bittersweet melody of your heartbeat, entangle me with your eyes, only me. Even your bad days are my best days, cause I'm with you..."

He finishes the last chord delicately.

"Damn," He says under his breath, and I shiver from his soft breath hitting my neck. I'm still feeling a high from singing with him, my body buzzing. "It's seriously like what's always been missing. It's like the song feels real now."

Beck, I want to be with you. I think in my head. I like you so much, please. You make it impossible not to be absolutely smitten with your existence.

"AURORA, I PUT THE NEXT MOVIE IN!!!" Hadley yells from the living room, making me jump.

I frantically move Beck's arms off of me. He lets out an oof as his hands might or might not have hit him in the face. Beck gives me a bewildered look, confused.

"I-it's a really good song," I frantically stand up, push my hair behind my ear and give him a tight-lipped smile. "Sorry for barging in again, have a good night," I run out of his room.

"Goodnight, Aurora," He says softly, waving me off.