❝she was the girl, who bit the horizon, who peeled the stars from the sky and put them on her tongue, the girl who was hungry for the universe, who craved magic and saw the broken boy for who he truly was- a broken boy.❞
Beca...
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Chapter 45
New York, New York
Ellis
The scenery of snow-capped trees and dead patches of grass ran down the sides of the murky glass windows as the train sped into the untamed wild, disappearing from the hazy skyline of skyscrapers and concrete jungles. The sky was grey and dizzy. Raindrops slid down the window panes as it pattered softly onto the train's metal roof, painting the green, brown, white and blue city lights with distortion and blurriness. Everything was still and chaotic at a calamity of total serenity, which seemed like an oxymoron but it made sense- somewhat. The world outside was a mess like it was sucked through multiple bendy straws and spat out onto the landscape, making a way for the spinning world, but it was better than unnatural orderliness. It was like I was looking at it from an omnipotent's point of view, floating above this transient world. I gently land a finger on the cold window, feeling the crispness seep into my flesh, and retracted it.
"Yo, you want some coffee?"
"Hmm?" I was stolen from the moment as Jem's voice grabbed me to the present.
"Coffee?" Jem offered for the second time and I tilted my head into a nod, then buttoned up my bulky coat tighter around my upper body in order to conserve heat. In a wrinkled flannel button-down, a warm wool fleece and battered jeans, Jem looked like an uncompleted hipster without a pair of horn-rimmed glasses, a leather-bound book and a faded photograph tucked into the half-unfinished pages. He shifted his weight from one foot to another. "You want some food as well?"
"Um, no thank you," I said with a small smile. "Get what you want instead."
"'Kay," he gave me that crooked little grin that would tie every other girl's panties into knots and flitted away down the narrow aisle of the train. I slumped into my seat, lazily slacking into the plush velvet seats. The comfort of it was enough to lull anybody into sleep but I trained my eyes onto the ceiling, staring fixedly at the patterned sky.
It was December and my Dad had given me the green light to visit New York for University tours, even if he was slightly salty about me considering New York instead of sticking to Boston like he wanted. It was funny how before Jem, Boston and Harvard were all that I saw. My Dad's decisions influenced every one of my own, even my future, and now I was making my own choices- not because my choices were sprung from Jem's ideas but because Jem helped me opened my eyes and see what was out there other than the straightlaced path I was used to walking on. He helped me forged an idea of what I really wanted.
But what was it that I really wanted? I had no idea. I was just keeping my options open. The uncertainty would've scared me ages ago- not really knowing where I was heading, the entangled complexity of a mess that was my future, the distortion of what used to be clarity, but now it comforted me. Not knowing was better than knowing because knowing created guidelines and chained you up to the indefinite restrictions and you would never know if there was something better.
