Stars

00:01

[ dedicated to anne lia, who made the lovely banner and for being such a cutie ]

.*.*.

The floorboard of the attic groaned under the man's weight as he made his way through the piles of junk that was sprawled everywhere. He picked up a frame, it's back was facing him. He turned it around and he was immediately rendered speechless. There was his girlfriend lying in the grass and he was right beside her. They both looked at each other with love and sincerity. Looking at the simple picture, he could feel the emotions that were in the atmosphere when they took that photo alive up in the attic with him.

He swallowed hard, the grip around the frame growing harder and his knuckles turned pale. He was angry. She had just upped and left. The only reason Evaline Gold gave him for breaking his heart was that she felt no longer happy with him, that their relationship was based solely on the fun and recently there was none of that. She complained, in a crude letter that he found on his refrigerator one morning when he awoke and didn't find her beside him in bed, that all he did was want to talk about stupid things like if they should get a bigger apartment, if this vase looked better than that. He vaguely talked about sex, which apparently to her was very prominent in the beginning of their relationship.

Fun, in Evaline's dictionary, didn't consist of not having sex, of talking about forever plans. She didn't want him to be her forever. But he wanted her to be his forever. He had managed to fall in love with Evaline in the span of six months and he was willing to spend the rest of his life with her. He wanted to propose.

Angry with both himself and Evaline, he threw the  frame aside with all his might. He heard it bang against one of the other objects in the attic and something might have fallen out of its place but he all but cared. He was fuming. Was it wrong to be in love? To fantasize about sharing a future with Evaline? Their relationship lasted for six months and it had all gone to waste.

His body suddenly felt exhausted and he sat down, perching himself on top of a stack of thick, dusty books. Accidentally, his bottom scraped the books, which he intended to be his seat, and stumbled forward, tripping and falling to his knees. Frustrated, he let out a cry. The tears gathered in his eyes and he turned around. His eyes landed on the stack of books and he tore through them, throwing them and trying to rip them to shreds. Stupid stack of books. Even they were useless.

His body began to shake, his hands failing to tear the books apart. A sob erupted from deep within his throat and soon, he didn't know how it happened but he was hunched over, his head in his hands and he was crying. Not loud wails for the entire neighbourhood to hear. No, they were soft, almost silent, sobs. The worst kind of cries.

He gasped for air, wiping furiously at his face. He tried to calm down, tried to level his breathing. But it was easier said then done. Every time he tried to calm his frantic nerves Evaline would enter his line of thoughts and that would send him into another one of his roller-coaster emotional rides. He usually watched the television to distract him - comedy shows always put him in a lighter mood. Most of the time he would read to escape into another's life and sometimes he would continue work at home. Evaline hated that. She hated when he read and when he brought work home. It wasn't fun, apparently.

This time it was a book with the title Stars written across the cover that caught his attention. It must have been with the stack of books that he had vented out his anger on. He picked it up and blew at the cover, making the dust fly into the air. He coughed when some of the dust entered his mouth and he rubbed the rest of the dust off the cover with his sleeve.