Paranoia

The sky was cloudy, and Aurora almost smiled.

No strange winds. No sudden changes in temperature. Just ordinary clouds on an ordinary morning in the suburbs of New York. For many people, an ugly day. For Aurora, a relief.

Years of living with Helena had taught her a pattern: before each new escape, the weather would go crazy. Literally. The sky would give signs—and her mother would see prophecies.

When a heat wave hit Alaska, they left in the middle of the night, leaving behind furniture, friends, even the dog. Aurora was still twelve years old. At the time, she believed there was logic to it. Then came the sandstorm in Canada. They left in the afternoon, without packing anything. They just got in the car and went. No explanations. And the last one... the worst of all. Lightning cutting through the Nevada sky as if it were summer in hell. Helena didn't even sleep that night. She grabbed her bags and disappeared with her daughter before daybreak.

Aurora thought it was all an exaggeration. Paranoia.

Helena saw signs where there was only unstable weather. And she thought the whole world wanted to hunt her daughter down. It was always about her eyes. About her hair. About not drawing attention.

Aurora turned her back to the window. Her hair tied up in a high ponytail hid the strands she had dyed the night before. Dark, obedient, normal. The brown contact lenses were already in her eyes. The uniform of an ordinary girl on her body. She descended the steps of the small apartment as if treading on a minefield.

Helena stood motionless in the kitchen, her eyes fixed on the living room window, as if waiting for something to appear among the cars parked outside. The mug of tea, forgotten in her hand. No sound. No movement.

Aurora stopped at the door. She felt her stomach tighten.

“No,” she thought. “Not today.”

“Did you sleep well?” she asked, feigning lightheartedness.

Helena didn't answer, just blinked slowly, still staring at the street.

Aurora pulled out a chair and sat down. She took a slice of bread. She couldn't swallow. Helena's silence was always worse than any warning.

“Mom...” she tried, more firmly. “What is it now?”

Helena turned her face away. Her gray eyes were deep, and she took a deep breath. Her hands clenched the mug tightly.

“I had a dream.”

There, the sentence fell like a sentence.

Aurora threw the bread on her plate, pushed her chair back with a sharp creak, and stood up abruptly.

“No!” she exploded. “Don't even start, Mom. Don't even try to start with that today.”

Helena frowned, surprised.

“Aurora...”

“You had a dream? Great. Keep it to yourself. Because I'm tired, Mom. Tired of living as if I were invisible. As if I were a faded blur of a life that never gets to begin. Always the odd one out. Always passing through. I can't take it anymore...”

Her voice faltered, but she didn't back down.

“Tomorrow is my birthday, Mom. I'm turning nineteen. Is it too much to ask to go out? To eat something decent? To do something normal?”

Helena opened her mouth to reply, but Aurora had already turned her back.

"You could, just once in your life, act like a normal mother. Just once. And let me live without having to look over my shoulder all the time."

She clenched her fists. If she stayed there another second, she would scream. Every year it was the same thing. Every birthday, the same damn story.

And then Aurora left, slamming the bedroom door. The silence in the kitchen grew heavier.

But Helena didn't move, she kept looking out the window. Her eyes fixed on something Aurora couldn't see.

Something that — deep down — might actually be coming.

The technical school was ten blocks away. It wasn't her childhood dream, but it was the closest thing to normal Aurora had ever had.

When she was little, she wanted to be a veterinarian. But with Helena's constant runaways, college was a luxury. The technical course was plan B. And, to her surprise, it worked.

For the first time, she had classmates. She had a routine. She had Kaio.

It was strange to like someone. Even stranger was having enough time to realize that someone liked her too. Kaio smiled calmly, spoke slowly, didn't ask too many questions. And Aurora felt her chest tighten every time he approached her.

She turned the corner absentmindedly — and bumped into someone.

The impact was slight, but it paralyzed everything for a second.

The man apologized with a wave and kept walking, disappearing into the middle of the sidewalk. No big deal. But Aurora froze. Because she knew that face. Or thought she did. She was sure she had crossed paths with that same man in France. And again in Brazil. It wasn't possible. It couldn't be.

She shook her head.

“Paranoia,” she muttered to herself. “You're becoming just like your mother.”

But it was hard to ignore. Mainly because she saw blue eyes. Those eyes. Always the eyes.

She didn't know whose they were. She just knew she saw them. Reflections. Crowds. A dark corner on the subway. Always the same eyes. Intense. Too blue. As if they were waiting.

But all she had to do was look at them — and they disappeared.

At school, she tried to push the thoughts away. It was exam week, and she couldn't afford to lose focus. The class went by faster than she expected. At the end, while she was organizing her notebooks, Kaio approached her with that half-smile.

“Are you doing anything tonight?”

Aurora looked at him, surprised. He scratched the back of his neck, awkwardly.

“I thought we could go out. Get some ice cream. I don't know. Nothing big.”

Aurora took a second to respond. Then she nodded with a small smile. A genuine one.

“I'm in.”

That invitation was all she needed. And best of all, she hadn't told her mother she was leaving work early.

Since the previous month, she had been working part-time at a snack bar. She had gotten the job on her own, against Helena's wishes. It was close to home. Discreet. Quiet. But enough to save a little money. And, with luck, get a break of freedom.

Aurora went to her afternoon shift with a lighter heart and couldn't stop smiling during her shift.

Not even when she dropped a tray. Not even when Carlos complained for the third time that she was too distracted. And certainly not when she was sure—absolutely sure—she saw those same blue eyes at the last table, outside, watching her openly.

But she ignored it. Or tried to.

Her heart was beating too fast to deal with paranoia.

There were twenty minutes left. She said she was going to the bathroom. Carlos snorted, but let her go.

“Go on, go. But come back to close the register,” he said, without even looking up from the order pad.

In the bathroom mirror, Aurora took a deep breath.

Her uniform was clean. Her hair was tied back in a simple bun. Nothing special. Still, she tried to fix herself up. She ran her hands over her eyebrows. She bit her lips, as if that would give them color. She let two strands of hair fall out of the bun. She looked sideways. She tried to smile.

Then she smelled her own hair and wrinkled her nose.

“French fries and hamburgers,” she muttered.

She laughed to herself.

“Great. If Kaio kisses me, it'll be a complete combo.”

She closed her eyes. It was ridiculous. To be nineteen and never have kissed anyone. Not even a stolen kiss, not even a wrong kiss. Nothing.

Maybe, just maybe... that would change today. And what a gift that would be.

She left the bathroom with her heart beating faster than it should. She said goodbye to Carlos with a wave. He muttered something about not trusting overly smiling teenagers, but winked shortly after. That grumpy old man had a soft heart he was trying to hide.

Outside, the street was empty. Aurora stopped on the sidewalk, her smile fading.

Had he given up? Forgotten? Or, worse, had it all been a joke?

She was about to reach for her cell phone when she heard the roar of an engine.

She turned her head. And saw the motorcycle.

A black, chrome-plated 600cc that looked like it had come out of a movie. The helmet down, the dark jacket, the dirty sneakers. It was him.

Kaio took off his helmet, revealing his crooked smile and messy hair. His eyes met hers. He said nothing.

He just reached out his arm.

“Get on, Aurora.”

She froze for a second. She knew what her mother would say. That it was reckless. That motorcycles were walking traps. That “people like Kaio” were the kind of people who complicated everything. And worse: if Helena knew she had even looked at a motorcycle, she would lock her suitcases before breakfast.

But at that moment, none of that mattered. Aurora took a deep breath and got on.

With her arms around Kaio's waist, the wind cutting through the empty streets of New York and her heart beating like a drum, she was sure: that night would be the beginning of something.

She just didn't know what yet.