It was fated, or so it seemed at the time. A chance meeting that completely shattered their lives in a mass explosion as if they had been hurled into a supernova. The kind of chemistry that good, great love stories are written about. But they were living two separate and very different lives. All they wanted was for their parallels to merge. But the fates have horrible twisted and warped senses of humour.
They wove an intricately beautiful fabric together, the kind that should hang in an art gallery. It was shaded with twirls of the brightest greens, trypan blue, vermilion and accented with gun metal grey.
Their bond seemed unbreakable and they dreamed together often of a life.,. Their life together. She found herself engulfed in the most sensual euphoria of commonality, care, and love... something that had seemed so alien to her. It couldn't be true. Not her, surely. She was not that girl that love stories comprised of. She was so utterly fucking broken. She asked herself again and again if it was just some sort of cruel joke. That she was the punchline, but she couldn't escape the feelings that welled up inside her. He had his life all straightened out to the last letter. Where did she even fit in? Would she ever fit in?
She confessed to him many times that all she felt was insatiable love for him, but those words were never returned. They left a dull ache, an open pause where the silence became deafeningly loud. It made her feel so utterly stupid for saying it, thinking it even. Almost ashamed, embarrassed. That didn't mean it wasn't true. It was truer than she had ever known. They spoke about it once. About how this beautiful thing they had, this feeling and bond they shared...was it even real? She swallowed the pain when he didn't want to talk about reality. This reality they had was a fantastical place they had built together, but it wasn't reality, even though they both wanted it to be.
They had responsibilities and oaths had been made with other people, some young, some not. So their paths remained parallel tracks in the dirt road when all they had wanted was to be in that vehicle together driving off towards some distant place. Her hand on his thigh with the music serenading them off into the sunset. A sunset under the same sky. She would have killed for that, figuratively of course.
There were also songs shared with other girls though, conversations too. Connections, jokes, it drove her mad to be an audience to that, but it didn't matter in the grand scheme of things, because she was already in a love triangle. A love triangle with him and that dreaded thing - reality.
They had arguments. Fights that led to her in tears, conversations abruptly ended without any conclusions. There were no hugs accompanying apologies. There were no sticky notes reminding each other they loved one another and that it was stronger than any of the trivialities. Their words stung one another from time to time, but they could never stay angry for long.
Years passed and it seemed more and more that life and that dreaded thing "reality" got to her. She felt like she was slowly dying. Becoming a husk. A nothing. That all the colour was being drained from her tapestry. That the colours were being replaced by different tones of grey. Was that maybe it, she wondered. That life was maybe just different hues of monotone? Was that reality? Maybe that was hers, but his? He recounted life to her and the beauty of it (even without her in it), the vivid and vibrant skies, the creek that only they knew, the daisies that he sent her showed to the world, where they were no longer only hers.
And one day she ironed it all out in front of her. A massive map with so many connections, tangents, distractions maybe? A map of reality. She traced the lines of each memory with her fingertips and drank it in. The sweetness bringing a soft and loving smile to her face. Hours shared secreted away together. Their own reality. The one they had built together. It was just as beautiful and vibrant as she had remembered. Scarred in places where rough words had been spoken in haste and annoyance. Jealousy that had bitten with vitriol. Healed through time and something they had always vowed. To retain the bond that had started them off on this adventure so, so long ago now.
But reality had dawned on her. It has been settling on her lashes each morning more and more. The words "Let's not talk about reality" rang in her mind louder each day.
Eventually, reality, the third party in this love story had to be dealt with. Would he ever give up reality to forge something out of the molten love they had? Would she? She had already. Years back. Time and again. She had laid herself down, stripped her soul to the core for him. She had waited, playing the odds that fate might, for once, find in her favour.
But reality? It is what you make of it. If you want something to change, you're the only one that can make it happen. She owed him so much, he had cemented his place in her heart forever, they had vowed to each other...One day... But until that reality could be created willingly, there would only be pain, guilt, jealousy, anger and hurt.
Her tears ran. Reality had won out. Had worn her down over time. And just like that, he was gone. He was never hers to mourn over, but mourn she did. She never knew if he understood her reasons, but he chose to believe she had lied. That it was all a lie. She swallowed that hurt too. Perhaps he hadn't asked the right questions, perhaps she hadn't explained anything well enough in all that time.
But reality remained...as it always had. How much had actually changed for him? For her?
The same skies they had woken up to previously still greeted them each morning. The same coffee cup? The same pillow at night. Her dreams dulled by reality, she accepted her fate as she had many years prior. The letters she had read were probably never even addressed to her, so she stopped reading them and she let the silence envelope her instead, chalking it all up to her imagination, limerence and the two maps of reality that she had intricately penned. One his, one her own. They had overlapped for some time on the peripheries, but he always had one foot in another world entirely. A world where she didn't even exist.