Starry Eyed

La Douleur Equise

"The pain you feel when you want someone you can't have"

+ + + 

"What did you mean you could hear me?"  

She questioned, swatting away the hand that had been cradling the small of her back the last thirty minutes. She didn't want to break the contact, but the longer they stayed there tangled up together the more she felt oddly comforted and that scared her more than anything. 

Enveloped in Brandon's arms she felt the most secure she had in her entire life; like nothing bad could ever happen to her.

It was like he was this bright light she had never known was there, and being there for one another in that very moment was the one thing that mattered more than anything in the universe.

"I was sleeping, and all of a sudden I heard your voice - I know how weird it sounds but it was like you were calling me - and my body just went on auto pilot."

His eyes look to the stars and for a moment he thinks this could be it, the stars have brought him to the person he was meant to be with forever, but this couldn't be it...could it? Their eyes were supposed to glow, they were supposed to feel more than this.

Plus he was only 18, she 17, and there was no way anything close to this could be happening to them right now.

Callie sees how in-his-own-mind Brandon is in that moment and places her hand delicately on his knee; like if she had used any more force they would both shatter into a million pieces.

"Brandon this can't - we're not even of age yet - you probably just heard me crying and - "

She looked so sad in his eyes then, realizing that the only hope they had left to be together would never happen. "We are not destined to be together." 

Her voice was desperate and unsure, wanting it to be untrue, but they had just started to really move on for - what they thought - was the greater good and they couldn't risk any more slip ups.

With pursed lips and a sad smile, his legs extend and he walks away from her without another word, afraid that looking at her any longer would cause his whole heart to break, not that he had many pieces left anyways.

Callie watches him walk away and she curses the bench for whatever black magic it stored under the cushions, and she wishes that she didn't have to continually watch the boy she loves and can never be with break apart piece by piece. 

Minutes pass, her eyes still glued to the last place his feet touched before she could no longer see his body, and for once in her miserable life she finds herself asking the stars for something else - she takes back her previous request for happiness and comfort and asks that Brandon take it instead.

'Please let him be happy, align him with someone good and someone who doesn't make him miserable...align him with someone that forces him to forget about me.'

 A satisfying feeling eases her mind and she allows her feet to carry her to the couch to finally sleep, and just as her eyes seal shut, her body relaxing to the sound of steady breaths and the house settling back in, she hears something - 

It was like the voice in her head wasn't hers anymore; the words tickling her ear with a whisper. She didn't know what it was, but it was the reason why her lips curled up into a smile.

'Goodnight.'

+ + + 

Awaking the next morning Callie felt odd - like something wasn't right. She woke up and she was.... happy. And not the kind of happy where you find a 20 dollar bill on the ground or you get an A on a test you were sure you would fail. This kind of happiness was something different, something new, and it was a little terrifying.