H Y P E R G A L A X Y

A system consisting of a spiral galaxy surrounded by several dwarf white galaxies, often ellipticals. Our galaxy and the Andromeda galaxy are examples of hypergalaxies.

T O  T H E
M O O N & B A C K

I STARE AT her through a thick layer of fog which floats around us, and I hear her mostly smoked cigarette sizzling away in the puddle she had tossed it into. She's panting now, heavily. In fact, even when I chased her down the streets of London, she wasn't anywhere near this out of breath.

A car honks at us and we both simultaneously flip the piece of shit off, but Rory goes to the extent of shouting fuck off too. I lower her to the ground, waiting for her to stabilize herself as my hands linger on her waist.

"Atlas?" the way her voice clings to my name makes me want to ask her to repeat herself over and over again. When I don't answer she continues. "What do you feel?"

I furrow my eyebrows, staring down at her with a confused expression when she sends me a worried one. I open my mouth to speak but stop quickly when she grabs both of my hands and slide them beneath the thick material of her jumper, letting them rest on the bare skin on her waist. She's cold and when I touch her there, she gasps. It makes me wonder if I'm cold too or maybe this feels good to her.

"What do I feel?" I repeat the question, still confused.

In terms of emotions—not a lot, to be quite honest. Clearly, I don't know but the tingling in my hands and heat in my chest is not familiar. Saying familiar would be putting it lightly, this is so fucking foreign even if I weren't bipolar and instead a normal functioning human, I wouldn't know how to process what I'm feeling because it doesn't make sense in the slightest.

Or does she mean what do I feel in terms of what lies beneath my fingertips. Because in that case, I feel skin. Soft skin. I feel the coldness of her skin. And with each up-and-down stroke of my thumb, I feel where the deep dip of her waist curves into her hips. I feel her. I realize how her muscles tense beneath my touch, I notice the way her eyes waver like I might retract my hands any second, I notice the way her body gradually shifts forward like she needs more of my touch.

I realize that maybe she's never been loved before. Maybe she's never been touched before either. Possibly, she's never been warm before.

"When you touch me—what do you feel?" she adds and I purse my lips shut.

I don't know what she's hoping I will say because I'm not about to say what I actually feel. I'm not common with speaking upon positive thoughts, only the negative. And I'm not sure these thoughts are positive. The thin line between good and bad blurs and I don't want to be on the foreign side of that line: the good side. But I have no fucking clue where that side is.

I shrug. "Nothing."

She doesn't narrow her eyes nor does she smile. I can't tell whether that was the right answer or not, but I don't ponder. I don't care.

Finally, she nods. "Good."

Good?

My brows knit together in confusion. "Good?" I slowly tear my hands away from her waist to see what it is that she really wants. This time she doesn't whimper or pout. She lets me go and I don't try to stay. "Why are you asking me this?"

She shakes her head dismissively. I can't read her. Is she sad or is she careless? She's confusing the fuck out of me.

I chew on the inside of my cheek watching her closely with narrowed eyes. Still unable to properly connect the dots, I decide to ask a question that will either make her terribly uncomfortable or—I don't really know how else it could make her feel.

"Rory," I stare down at her with deep intensity and she can't hold my gaze for longer than two seconds. "Did someone touch you? Someone you didn't want to touch you?"

She shakes her head and I see more emotion on her porcelain face than I have in the small entirety of time I have known her. First, she looks uncomfortable—good fucking job, Atlas. Dickhead—and then she looks amused as she tries to laugh my words off, and then lastly, she looks guilty—almost conflicted. Like she did the wrong thing by even mentioning anything.

"Do I have to answer that?" she says but her words are an answer within themself.

I shake my head and she lets out an exasperated sigh of relief, almost like she would rather say nothing rather than lie to me. I don't know if I hate that or not. Because now I want to know who touched her without consent and why she is overthinking it. For some bizarre reason, I want to know if she's okay.

I'm overwhelmed with anger brewing deep within me and I feel my mind momentarily drifting off as I fantasise wrapping my hands around whoever did this to her and strangling them until they can't breathe. And then I hear the sound of her stomach growling. It roars obnoxiously loud and the weight of our previous conversation floats away.

"You hungry?" I ask and she chews on the inside of her cheek, nodding.

I grab her hand without thinking and once my fingers intertwine with hers, I realize how natural that felt. But I also realize how intimate the gesture is, so I drop her hand and walk near the road with her trailing behind me.

I wait for the traffic lights to turn red, so that the traffic becomes congested and slow, long lines of cars building up as they wait impatiently, before stepping onto the street and weaving through the cars until I reach the other side.

We stand on the footpath down from the petrol station when I realize I don't have my wallet, all I have are my keys and a fucking lighter. I already know she doesn't have any money, otherwise, she would have offered to pay by now.

"Fuck." I groan in annoyance. "I left my wallet in my car."

She rolls her eyes, but a playful smile remains on her lips. "Dumbass."

I send her a spiteful glare before leaning against the front window of one of the small stores, groaning in annoyance. Fucking idiot. How did I forget my wallet? I don't even know where my fucking phone is. What a bloody imbecile. Trust the stoner to walk thirty minutes away from all of his belongings and bring nothing but a fucking lighter.

"Hey, it's okay." her voice brings me out of my thoughts and it's only then that I notice how tightly my jaw is clenched—to the extent my teeth are grinding against each other. "I'm not hungry, anyway. Honestly, I'm still kind of drunk and the thought of eating makes me want to throw up everywhere."

But she just said she was hungry. She's lying.

I shake my head, my hair falling into my eyes. I huff, running my fingers through my hair as I brush the strands back. I don't say anything mainly because I'm fucking pissed off, and secondly, I just don't have anything to say.

We stand here for a while not speaking. She lights another cigarette and I just stand there, watching the cars pass by, the traffic fading away as it grows later in the night, and eventually, there is not a car in sight.

The rain is harder now. I don't mind, but I wish I had my car because from here to my apartment is at least a forty-minute or so walk away and my car is back near the party, which is a thirty-minute walk, roughly. And I believe Rory's house is even further, though I'm not sure exactly where exactly she lives.

"Do you want to walk back to my car and I can drive you home?" I ask, yawning.

Fucking hell I'm exhausted. Mentally exhausted. Physically. Emotionally.

Rory shakes her head. "I'd rather just walk. Cars are unpredictable."

I cock an eyebrow, narrowing my eyebrows. She's scared of being in a car? Clearly, this relates to the friend of hers that died on that bridge during a forceful crash. I can connect the dots. I don't understand why she won't just come right out and say that she isn't comfortable after that incident, rather than stating that cars are unpredictable. It's not shameful.

Maybe she won't tell me the truth because it isn't that she fears being in a car, but she fears that the driver is unpredictable. And she doesn't know me, and with that being said, she sure as bloody hell doesn't trust me either.

I wouldn't trust me to drive her somewhere either—I mean, we'd reach our destination but I do tend to speed unnecessarily, and when there are no other cars around, I'll do a few skids, but at the end of the day, I get from point A to point B in one piece. That's all that matters to me, but I can see how those habits of mine could frighten her.

"Why are you sulking?" her soft voice pulls me from my thoughts and I screw my face up. "Don't look at me like that. You're acting like a child. Let's just go."

I'm not acting like a fucking child.

She attempts to walk away but just as she does so, a magnificent idea appears in my brain, and I catch her wrist to prevent her from leaving. She turns around with a quizzical expression stuck to her face and I tug her towards me. She inhales sharply like she thinks I'm going to kiss her again, but I have other plans this time.

I pull the glasses off the top of her head and place them over her eyes—how they are intentionally meant to be worn—before pulling her hood on and tugging the strings tight, to the point that you cannot see her hair or the lower half of her face, and the top half is concealed by her thick, black sunglasses.

"What're you doing?" she asks, her voice muffled by the material of her jumper.

I tug my hood on and repeat the same actions, tightening it, then tying the strings in a bow and she laughs at how ridiculous I look. "We," I put emphasis on the word as I string her along up the side of the path and back toward the petrol station. "Are going to do some to go get some food."

I expect her to shout at me or tug her hand from my grasp, but instead, she laughs, and not in a mocking way, as though saying this is a terrible idea, but more so this is going to be fun.

Once we are two meters or so away from the sliding doors, I peer through the glass discretely, noticing that there is only one employee working currently, and he seems to be preoccupied by something behind the counter, I'm not sure what, but the point is, his back is to us.

"Fifteen seconds." I say sternly, staring into the tinted glass covering her eyes. "You have fifteen seconds to grab what you want, and then we run."

She nods, saluting me and I roll my eyes. And I thought she wasn't drunk anymore. Fucking weirdo.

I don't bother asking her if she's ready as we walk toward the doors with our heads hung low. The door separates as it slides open and we walk in. I notice the sign just inside the door stating that no hats or glasses are to be worn inside the store.

I look at the reflective circular security mirror in the corner and see the worker still has his back to us. Rory and I depart as she heads down one aisle and I make my way down another. I'm not even that fucking hungry, so I don't know why I'm risking my life to do this, but as I glance over at Rory to see her stuffing her pockets, I realize that it's too late.

I grab whatever I can closest to me that looks appealing, scouring each isle until the sound of glass shattering startles me. My eyes widen as I direct my gaze to the back of the shop, where Rory stands with the freezer door open, a pink can being held in her hand, but at her feet is a broken bottle, in many, many shards.

Fuck. I slowly turn around and as expected the man behind the counter is standing up-right, watching us. Everything proceeds in slow motion as his eyes drift from me to her, and then to my front pocket which is protruding out of my body, then to hers which is even larger than mine, then to the glass on the ground.

"Excuse me," his voice is loud and I see her visibly flinch at the harshness of it. "Are you two planning on paying for all of that?"

I narrow my eyes as his hand not-so-discretely slides over to the telephone and picks it up.

You fucking wish, dickhead, I think before giving Rory a nod, as if saying fifteen seconds up. She nods back, shrieking as she hops over the glass and within seconds, we are sprinting out the door, nothing heard but her laughter as the man shouts at us.

Realising we had not planned an escape route, I stop in the center of the car park for a moment, scouring the area before my eyes land on a bike leaning against a metal rack. Fortunately, it's not locked to the rack.

Unfortunately for the owner who thought it would be safe for a few minutes, I dart over to it and get onto the seat proving their lack of security to be an extremely terrible idea.

"Get on." I say in between pants as Rory shakes her head, but then she hears sirens and I notice her tense. "Red, get on the fucking handle bars or I swear to—"

Before I have to finish my sentence, she hoists herself onto the handle bars and I keep them stable and center as I place my foot down on the peddle and send us flying forward.

The sirens are distant, but I still rush to peddle us across the street and heading back the way we came, which is thankfully down a plethora of empty side-streets.

Five minutes of riding this bike faster than I could ever drive my car, we near a small park close to an estate and I lightly pull the trigger for the breaks until we come to a complete steady halt on the grass.

Rory leaps off before collapsing onto the grass, laughing. I stare at her strangely as I step off the bike, letting it fall to the ground with a thud as I walk next to her, but I don't sit down. I'm completely out of breath, but she looks beautiful like this.

I think her glasses fell off somewhere along the ride, but her hood is off now—which reminds me that mine is threatening the amount of air reaching my lungs, so I untie mine and tug it off my head—and she stares up at the full moon with a wide grin on her lips. Her black hair sprawls out on the grass, hovering above her head like a halo, meanwhile the moon reflects its light down on her and her only.

Once her adrenaline rush from doing something extremely illegal fades, she moves her eyes away from the star-lit sky and up to me. I see the twinkling lights above us dancing in circles around her pupils and I envy them.

I feel like saying a big fuck you to all the astronomers out there because they have to use expensive telescopes and rocket ships just to see the galaxy. Beneath me right now is a girl with hypergalaxies in her eyes; planets and stars spiraling around her irises.

A cloud shifts over half of the moon, casting a shadow down upon her pale face and she reaches her hand out to me. I take her hand in mine and tug her upwards. She stumbles, falling into my chest, but she doesn't move. I tense, my hands held up in the air as she places her ear against my heart.

I always thought brown eyes were bland until I saw hers. Brown eyes are darker and more reflective; almost like a mirror. I like when she looks at something, I can see exactly what she sees without having to look away from her. It means I can look at her longer.

"Sorry, just give me a sec." she apologizes meanwhile I remain a statue, unsure of what to do meanwhile she stabilizes herself. After a few seconds, she steps away from me, looking more serious than she had before. I furrow my eyebrows and she answers my internal question. "Iron deficiency." she states blatantly and I nod.

Unsure of what to say next, I shift my weight from one foot and onto the other, taking in my surroundings. Dull street lights line the perimeter of the park and the sides of the surrounding streets. The tree branches sway in the wind, the rain causing a pitter patter on the dying leaves.

"We should get going."

She nods, looking somewhat conflicted. Does she not want to go?

"Yeah," she agrees. "We should."

A U T H O R ' S  N O T E

hi everyone!

sorry this chapter was a day late but i'm almost finished chapter 20 so that'll be up sunday like normal :) please let me know what you thought of this chapter and the new cover!

anyways i love y'all and i'll see you soon. please remember to vote, comment, and follow me, as well as read "running for miles" by Gemma_Grace_ <3