Embraces.

Her eyes are wild, her fingers searching for the couple of crumpled fivers in her jeans pocket. She digs out her money and slams it on the counter top, pointing at the pack of ciggs she's been dying to get. the Asian man behind the counter slides it across the surface. Her fingers curl around the plastic and rips it apart. She knew what she looked like on the outside. Untidy hair, mismatched clothing, tearing at the cigaratte packet, a hunched figure leaning over the counter. She cups her fingers over the lighter and brings a single stick to her dry, parched lips. She inhales and that blinding darkness lifts itself of her eyes. She blinks as her vision swarms, the sudden burst of fuzzy blue lights hurting slightly. As it clears, she stumbles outside, vaguely remembering the lazy fan that was spinning over her head, and the quiet murmmurs of onlookers.

She takes another long drag, letting the minty taste slide down her throat, seeping into her bloodstream. Every step she took seemed a little stronger than the last. She rubs the cold away from her fingers and hugs her overcoat closer around herself, unable to keep the blustery wind the winter brings, away.

Another deep breath. Not again, never this close ever again, she thought. What wouldve happened to her if she didn't get to the drugstore in time, she didn't know. She didn't want to know either. Though she seem to be able to hold herself together with the cigg between her fingers, burning away her worries, her life was falling apart.

She huddles close to a wall, brushing the snow off with her bristly overcoat. She watches people pass, hand in hand with siblings, children, families, lovers.

Her vision begins to blur again, and salty silver rivulets ran down her cheeks, marks of how lonely she is, streams of scars over her cheeks.

The sunlight is bleeched out by a person, a man, by the scent of him, cologne, not the cheap ones either. His arms wrap around her limp body like wings, wings of an angel. The cold seeped away from her blood stream. And tired, too tired to think about what is going on, she wilts and melts into his arms, two strangers with the urge to embrace like lovers.

He breaks away first, prying the cigaratte away from her lips. She looks up at him, and notices how stunningly good looking he was. His hair was golden to the point of being surreal, his eyes unnaturally dark in comparison with his ivory flavoured skin. He pushes back her hair behind her ears and flicks the ciggaratte to the side, grinding it with the underside of his shoe.

'Don't waste away.'

He smiles shyly at her before walking off, leaving her to battle his intentions in her head alone. She watches his sillouhette fade away into the distance, before returning his smile, shaking her head at the glimpse of life's few miracles, few angels.

She shoves her hands deep into her pockets, and pulls out the pack, dropping it into the next bin she passed.