All the Best People Are | ✓

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Maybe one day we'll find the place where our dreams and reality collide.
~The Mad Hatter
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Listen to City of Stars by Ryan Gosling.
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"Skott, please don't cry," Leo pleaded, pulling up closer to me. But then it just got worse. When anyone asked me what was wrong or told me not to cry, I became a waterfall. We were then sitting on the sidewalk, a few streets away from the hospital. "I swear, I just wanted you to be happy," he said, his face masked with guilt.

In that moment, he looked perfect under the silvery shadow of the moon; his fingers intertwined in mine. I looked away from him, suddenly scared my face was betraying my inner notions. He tightened his grip on my hand.

"You're like the ghosts of Christmas and I'm Scrooge,"I remarked with a watery smile. He couldn't resist breaking into a grin as well. He nestled in closer to me and slung an arm across my shoulder. "Well, in that case, you're going to learn to believe in the end," he whispered with a wink. I wasn't quite so sure about that.

"But that's all the places. You've tried everything already. Nothing worked." I tried to keep the misery out of my tone, but failed. I didn't want to let on that I was disappointed nothing had worked. After all, I'd known that'd be the case from the very start.

Suddenly, he shot to his feet, eyes alight. "Maybe I haven't tried everything," he mused. I threw him a questioning glance. He smiled and lent me a hand. I let him pull me up and he didn't let go. "And what if this doesn't work?" I asked, growing aware of the slight blush creeping onto my face at the sight of his hand still holding mine. I hoped the dim lighting of the street lamps concealed it.

"We'll see about that." I nodded, growing unsure of whether this last resort would really be the one thing to change my life forever. Hell, I didn't even know if I wanted it to change my life forever. Believing in love had hurt me on more than one occasion and I wasn't certain I wanted it to again. Things were a lot easier when you chose to bottle down your emotions rather than letting them go. Or so I thought.

"Where are you taking me?" I asked, curiosity getting the better of me. He stopped in his tracks. "Actually, there is a bit of a story to this one." I waited for him to continue, and he sighed. "Once upon a time, I was in love."

I didn't know how to respond to that. I mean, it was fairly obvious he had experience with the way he described that so-called magical feeling. The way he said it, I know he wasn't talking about the love one has for their family. He'd been with someone. That thought alone made me want to dig myself a pit, bury myself in and never see the sun again. I didn't know why that upset me so much. Maybe it was jealousy, for I had never been with anyone in my life. Maybe it was self-pity, for I couldn't even fathom the idea of someone being interested in me like that. Or maybe it was just hopelessness, for I knew that I'd never be able to relate to that feeling. Either way, I maintained an inscrutable facade and continued to listen.

"We were childhood best friends," he began again. "The most overplayed cliché of all time, but it was real. We grew older, loved different things, but never grew apart. It still remains a mystery to me how we made that work, but we did. One day, when we were sixteen, I told her I was in love with her. She loved me back. My life was perfect."

I tried not to think too much on it, but my heart sank in jealousy. He had a perfect life with a perfect girl and I was just some homeless chick he was doing charity work for. He was being a good person. Maybe I was expecting too much from him.

"......but then it came to an end." He finished. A tear slipped down his cheek, but he wiped it away as fast as it had come. I didn't fail to notice it, of course, having inherited Gran's eye for details. His eyes grew stormy. He looked confidently up ahead at a small house just around the corner. "Years went by and....I never saw her again." He sighed again.