24.
8.9.11
Apple Cinnamon
Molly
fairy lights, jingle, sea salt
Molly had grown up a realist with great plans for herself.
As a child, she had been the stiff, non believing type, shying away from other kids who chased 'fairy lights' at night—"They're just fireflies!" she'd yell from her perch under the apple tree with her book, but they never listened.
As a teenager, she met a boy (the boy, as she liked to think of it). He had eyes the color of cinnamon and a laugh that sounded like a thousand bells jingling together to one special tune and he was so different than what she had known growing up and Molly knew she shouldn't—she shouldn't—but she did. Momentary lapse in judgment. The boy was gone as fast as he had come and Molly just felt lost afterwards, like how she did sometimes when her parents pulled her off of the beach when she didn't want to go home and she only had the lingering taste of sea salt in her mouth to remind her that she had even been there to begin with.
She waltzed straight into adulthood with a walking tall assuredness that none of her peers had. They didn't want to grow up, to live on their own and work and wash their own clothes and cook their own food and be independent, damn it, for the first time. They wanted to be young forever.
And while they cried over their youth being taken away from them, Molly couldn't wait to grow up and make her mark on the world, unhindered by that illusion called love and those stupid fairy lights.