STRANGE HEARTS

#1 - Lone Nights

#1

Amelia Woods

31st December, 2011

It's New Year's Eve.

I'm at a threshold of new beginnings, a new life with a big bright future. I'm supposed to be happy but for some odd reason I just cant. My mother keeps saying that my unhappiness is not justified, that I have everything an eighteen year old could want.

But she doesn't understand that sometimes having everything is not enough and that sometimes nothing can save you from the demons that live inside you.

There was a big party at my parent's mansion in the Hamptons. The overly white and too big house was a sight of visual brilliance with lights adorning every inch of the great white brute, lanterns hung from the tall trees that marked up the path along the wide stretch of the driveway. Rows of delicious food were set up to entrance the seemingly unimpressed queues of guests who were obnoxiously dressed. There was a steady flow of champagne that danced on the lips of all three hundred vultures.

I was wearing a dress that used too little cloth and cost too much. My mother had wanted me to look like "the bell of the ball" and she certainly had succeeded. The glittery gold sequined fabric against my pale skin made me feel like a gold mine. The fact that the layers of foundation masked my face with a glow so unreal literally made me feel uncomfortable in my own skin. However guessing from the envious glares I got from the vultures I guessed that in their eyes I met their mythical concept of beauty.

I had desperately tried to be okay. I smiled, I laughed, I made small talk but after a point my façade felt weak and was indefinitely breaking.

A wave of emotion and adrenaline passed through me as I caught a glance of a bird taking flight in the horizon. As cliched as it sounds the reality of my life just felt so pointless, as if the birds in the sky had a more significant exisistence than i ever did. It made me realize that I was suffocating and in that second I forgot everything. Expectations crumbled to dust, concern got lost in the piercing need to breathe freely. So that's why I left.

I left to feel free.

I left to be free.

.......................................................................

I took the train from the Hamptons, I don't know where it took me. Naive, rich girl on the streets, one couldn't exactly expect me to make a lot of sense.

It was dark and I was walking at the greatest speed that my torturous shoes would allow me. The cold air was harsh and foreign. The mystery to this feeling made me feel so alive that I quietly chuckled to myself. That's when he looked up from the flask in his hands.

And in that precise moment as our eyes met, my life changed forever.

He was wearing a tan Burberry trench coat. I could tell because my mother had bought the same for my brother the previous week for Christmas. His blond mane was messy, it stuck up in all the possible directions an obvious result of the strong wind blowing in our faces. His green orbs stared at me with such an odd familiarity as if in one glance he had seen my whole life in flashes. And I swear on the lord almighty never in my life have I been so oddly attracted to someone.

It was odd because it was not that hormone induced rush of thoughts but something deeper and more meaningful. It was powerful enough for me to take those few hesitant steps and sit next to him. His green gaze never once left mine.

We sat there like that for hours...the silence uninterrupted and the distance between us comfortable until the myriad coloured fireworks ignited the night sky. It startled me and I let out a shriek of awe when I looked up at the glittery patterns as they illuminated the darkness, the symbolism was astonishing because somewhere inside my being sparks were flying haphazardly.