“Hey, you’ve still got some flour on your nose”, I tried my hardest to stifle my laughter.
“Ugh, idiot”, he aggressively rubbed at his nose.
“It’s not my fault”, I raised my hands up in surrender.
“W-what?! Of course, it’s your fault! If you didn’t randomly appear, you wouldn’t have knocked over the flour bag!”, he accused, “Customers aren’t allowed in the kitchen anyways”, he mumbled, burying his face into his knees.
He turned to me, “You realise that neither of us would have to go through all this trouble if you had just not trespassed onto the restaurant’s private property”, he shot an accusing look.
I burst into a fit of laughter, “Well they always tell us to live our lives to the fullest, the second I saw you, I knew I had to know you before the sun rose again, Aiden”.
Aiden paused, his fiery attitude cooling down as he looked into the growing twilight. The cliff we sat on, so far away from the town. The breeze here ruffled his reddish-brown hair as Aiden closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
“Yeah . . . tomorrow”, he whispered, “Everything will have to start all over again”, he said dully.
I held his cold hand in mine, “Hey, you’ll be fine. With each new day, only our memories will be lost, not our feelings”.
Aiden’s whole face blushed a bright red, “W-what feelings? We’ve only met each other for a day! There’s nothing between us!”, he stuttered.
“Oh really?”, I smirked, “You know my name, right? At the very least, we should be friends”, I stated expectantly, waiting for the sound of my name to reach my ears.
Silence lingered between the two of us and I froze with each passing second.
I dulled, “Okay then”, I muttered as I curled into a little ball and was about to turn to the other side.
It was Aiden’s turn to crack up this time. A loud, bursting laughter escaped his mouth and, despite my previous saddened disposition, I could feel myself brighten up.
“I’m just joking”, he smiled at me, “You’re Nicholas. Nicky Laurier”.
I beamed back, happy, “You remember, Aiden Caddel”.
“Of course”, he raised his nose sarcastically as a display of self-confidence, “But tomorrow-”
I heard a small fizzing sound far away, “Shh”, I placed my hand over his mouth, “It’s starting. Tomorrow can wait”.
Aiden looked at me, his curious, wide eyes reflecting the vivid red of the fireworks. I stared into his dark brown pupils that looked like honeyed cocoa, now with a dash of vermillion.
“It’s here”, I looked up into the sky to face the endless twilight, now dusty with the explosion of emerald green, dark violet, midnight blue and golden yellow.
I felt Aiden rest his head on my shoulder, “It’s beautiful”, he whispered.
I looked down and swiped at his ash-brown locks from his face.
As the sun fell, so did the firework show, the remaining sparks falling down on the ocean below it like fairy magic.
“I’ll remember you, Nicky”, Aiden frantically spoke, aware of the last slither of sun fading, “When tomorrow comes and everyone’s memory is reset, I’ll know who is”.
“Will you?”, I teasingly asked.
In the last five seconds of the sun, Aiden grabbed my shirt and pulled me into his kiss.
“I will”, he mumbled, “No matter what, I will remember you”.
Warm tears pearled my eyes, “I won’t forget you either, Aiden”
by Dominique, Year 8 on Publishers Studio