A Teaspoon Of Stardust

fin.

“         To love or have loved, that is enough. Ask nothing further. There is no other pearl to be found in the dark folds of life.

           - Les Miserables

This was it. The day.

Exactly five years from when Luke asked Scarlett to be his girlfriend, and of course, she'd said yes.

They graduated high school together, switching their tassels simultaneously with anticipation pounding their hearts, and they graduated as friends.

The curse and everything Evangeline had said about Fate and how the stars lined up just for them... it had no effect on them. They remained best friends, and of course Scarlett visited Dylan's grave every Sunday, but they didn't let what had occured change the way they saw each other.

For anyone else, it would have been strange, knowing who you would end up with like some sick sort of arranged marriage, but Scarlett always heard that marrying your best friend had to be one of the most joyful things in life, and she believed it.

But tonight, August 7th, Scarlett wasn't so sure.

She was vaguely depressed and kept to herself, lying in bed the entire day. To be fair, she hadn't spoken so much as word the entire week before to Luke, moping around their flat and barely eating anything.

Luke was frightened. Scarlett was so out of it, that her eyes held a permanently glassy look and her lips seemed frozen into a frown. He came home from working as a music teacher at the little shop down the street to find her sleeping on the couch with their white cat, Pangur Ban, and he was scared. She wasn't being lazy, she was purely so nervous that she cried herself to sleep. When he would go to wake her up, her cheeks would be wet and red with tears. The most awful thing he'd seen though, was when she would cry from something she was dreaming about. He didn't know it- he always thought it had something to do with the scarring situation involving a vengeful witch and a near death experience- but the source of her tears, was that in which she saw Luke leave. He would walk away from her without looking back, as if nothing had ever even happened between them. That, that had to be the worst thing she could imagine.

Scarlett tilted her head up achingly, a crick in her neck from a painful position, and glanced at the clock.

In the guest room, they hadn't shared a bedroom for a month  when Scarlett's fears first began to succumb her, was a mess. The tv was on mute, flashing scenes of a reality show she could care less about. On her side table was an empty bag of Doritos and a plethora of other spare trash items. Her room was dark, just the way she wanted it to be. That way she couldn't see the way she looked while making the journey past her mirror to the bathroom when she needed to.

It was 8:30.

He's not coming home, he's not coming home. This is it, Scarlett.

In happier times, she would wait for him to arrive. He would be so content, doing what he loved. Directly out of high school, around the same time Scarlett agreed to go out with him, she convinced Luke to make his part time passion -singing and guitar- something he could do everyday and even, be paid for doing so. He then applied as an instructor down on Main Street and got the job almost immediately. Every night he'd come home at quarter after seven, just like clock work, and Scarlett would greet him with a smile. She didn't sit home and do nothing, though. Taking a college course is difficult when you're so far away from everything, so it seemed online schooling would be a terrific option for her to gain a degree, any degree that would help her get a job writing. It was an unspoken agreement between the two; they were very much in love, but marriage was out of the question. For now, at least.