You sighed in relief as soon as the fresh night wind hit your face, replacing the thick, musty air inside the building you just got out of. You exhaled, fog momentarily clouding your vision. It made you smile. As a child, you'd always imagined being a baby dragon who couldn't spew fire yet, but instead spit smoke. You sometimes wished to return to the simplicity your life held back then.
A fraction of the buzzing from inside managed to find its way outside, but it was faint, and therefore much more bearable for your eardrums.
Still, you knew you should be inside right now, yelling along with the crowd, head over heels in love with the lead singer, like every other girl, or boy, in there. You knew, however, that being inside just wasn't an option right now. You had tried, for him, but the loud noise was too much for your head, and the lyrics were not sung, but screamed by the singer, too much for your heart.
Carefully, considering you were wearing your only pair of heels right now, you started to walk alongside the wall, breathing in deeply, letting the wind wrap itself around your body. But the more physical distance you created between you and the stage, the more your thoughts seemed to focus on that same stage, and the singer on it.
From an outside perspective, he was everything you would expect from an ideal guy, 'boyfriend material', they'd say, and you saw all of that too, but he wasn't right for you, not in the beginning, and not now.
'The beginning' had taken place around 7 months ago. He had been your new classmate. Whispers had filled the classroom as soon as his famous face had been visible, and all the girls in your class had been jealous of you when the teacher put him next to you. You, however, had grimaced as discreetly as you could, not really keen on giving up your extra space. The jealousy of the other girls had only continued as the two of you constantly got paired for partner assignments. You would rather work on your own than having to compromise with someone else though.
For some reason however, he seemed to have a special interest in you. The interest wasn't genuine and you knew it, but you couldn't turn him, nor the attention he offered you, down. Not because he was irresistible, no, you knew for sure that you'd rather be alone than with him. It was the icy tone behind his charming words, the cold eyes above his broad smile, that made you unable to say no to him. You were scared.
What started as being classmates, ended up in many more labels. Friends, some would say. Lovers, others would gossip.
The truth was much more complicated. The truth was that you didn't really know what to think of the two of you, only that you felt an immense amount of pressure from the outside world to finally get together.
'What do you actually want? He's perfect! If you don't claim him soon enough, he's going to be gone, he won't wait forever. And then that's your loss. Stop being so picky!'
You had lost count of the number of times someone had felt the need to tell you something along those lines. It made you panic, made you feel restricted, invisible claws pinching your throat closed. You didn't know exactly what you wanted from a romantic relationship, all you knew was that he couldn't give it to you. True, he was perfect to the outside world, society, but you knew better. You had soon picked up on the small things, like how he always divided the work of partner assignments and made you do the harder part, or how he treated all girls with an equal, but fake kind of chivalry.
Soon, making duo assignments 'together' had turned into you writing the songs for his band while he claimed them as his own, you taking the pictures he posted on his Instagram, you writing back nice letters to his fans after they had sent him fan mail.
