✓ | falling ➝ j. cade

xiv. written within stars

❝FOR A SMILE THEY CAN
SHARE THE NIGHT.❞
- JOURNEY, DON'T STOP BELIEVIN'

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As November drew to a close, it got considerably harder to find Theodosia without Johnny or vice versa. There had been a shift in their dynamic, and everyone knew it. The only catch was none of the labels they tried to use to describe the two didn't match. No one really knew what they were. Theodosia and Johnny didn't know what they were. They were more than friends but not quite a couple. They were somewhere in between. But neither were too anxious to address it just yet. They just wanted to relish in being together again.

So, late one Wednesday night after the conversation died down, Theodosia spoke up.

"Johnny," Theodosia broke the silence,"did you believe Syme's whole speech about fate today?"

Theodosia knew she should've been on her way home from the lot long before she asked the question, but she didn't want to go home to an empty house (and the stars were too pretty to leave). Her mother took an extra shift again. Obviously Theodosia didn't resent her mother for it, but she missed having someone at home. Even Alexander would've sufficed tonight. In hindsight, she and Johnny just could've stayed at her house rather than the lot but, still, the stars were pretty.

Johnny nodded, eyeing the girl curiously."Didn't you?"

Theodosia shook her head and shuffled some loose asphalt around with her foot from where she sat."Nah."

"You don't believe in fate?" Johnny asked, taking a seat next to Theodosia on the old couch.

Theodosia turned her torso to face him, tucking her legs under herself. She cocked her head to the side, studying the boy's face in the darkness.

"No. I don't believe in a lot of things."

"Like what?"

"Soulmates."

It was true. To Theodosia, things like fate and soulmates and love were just abstract concepts humans created to get themselves through their short, mundane existence. To make it more interesting. The same reasons folk tales and all art exist, to make life more interesting. It's why conspiracy theories and talk shows exist. It's why anything exists. Humans craved entertainment and things to think about, legends to fill their brains and distract them from the mundane thing called life and the inevitability of death. All they wanted was a distraction. It was why Socs go to beer blasts and why Greasers got into fights. It was all a form of distraction, of entertainment.

"You don't believe in soulmates?" Johnny's tone was utter disbelief and then it turned soft."Why? If I can ask."

Theodosia swallowed and averted her eyes from the Greaser's.

"My parents."

"What 'bout 'em?"

"I always had this picture in my head of them being perfect for each other. It always sounded like they were from the stories I've heard. They had it pretty good. It was average, though, but good. Eighteen years of marriage. I'm told at one point they were happy together. Then one day, it wasn't good enough. No one was. So my dad left, and I haven't seen him since I was five. If eighteen years and four kids weren't good enough, nothing was. If you can fall out of love with someone you've built a life with after so many years, are there really such things as soulmates?"

Johnny was quiet for a moment.

"What 'bout the marriages that work? What do you call them? Ain't that love? Ain't that soulmates if they last?"
Johnny asked after a second.

Theodosia sighed through her nose before answering Johnny.

"They're lucky. They've fooled themselves in believing that there's actually true love and soulmates," Theodosia muttered darkly.

"Theo," Johnny quietly whispered the nickname he had picked up for the redhead.

"It doesn't exist, Johnny."

"Things happen for a reason."

"How can you believe that? Everything bad is supposed to happen? How do you get behind that idea?"

"What about everything good?"

Theodosia's face turned stoney. Johnny had a point. Johnny had a point, and Theodosia knew it. Still, she stood her ground.

"It's coincidences. People try to connect them and find security in it."

Johnny was quiet, processing everything the girl had said. Theodosia looked down, choosing her next words very carefully. She didn't want to accidentally offend him. Theodosia didn't want to lose the Greaser again.

"I think that's why people believe in religion so strongly," Theodosia's voice was quiet, barely above a whisper."They want to think that their existence wasn't short-lived and for nothing. They couldn't bear the thought of there being nothing after death."

Johnny didn't respond, so Theodosia continued to talk, but, this time, not about religion. About her father.

"Y'know... I think the only memory I have of my father was when he drank a lot, and there are somethings you know you'll never forget. And I know I'll never forget when, one night, my dad was so drunk he threw a beer bottle at Tommy's head. I was five. Alexander was nine. Tommy was fifteen. Dad had been griping about some of Tommy's grades, and Tommy'd finally stood up for himself. Something about that set Dad off, screaming and yelling. He threw the bottle at Tommy and missed. That made Tommy started yelling, too. I don't remember how long it went on like that, but I remember it got bad enough Mom made us leave the house so she could try and talk some sense into him. It didn't work. They started screaming at each other then. Me, Tommy, and Alexander slept in a barn that night. It was February. And cold."

A silence fell between the two. Theodosia didn't know what compelled her to tell the story, but it felt nice knowing she had told someone about it. No one else knew that it had happened.

"My folks fight a lot, too," Johnny said quietly.

"I'm sorry to hear that. It's awful. You're welcome to my place if you ever need an escape from it," Theodosia offered.

"I wouldn't want to be a bother."

"You wouldn't be."

"You sure?"

"Positive."

Theodosia's eyes stayed glued on the ground, unaware of the soft smile a big eyed Greaser was giving her in that moment.

"I should probably head home. It's late," Theodosia said, standing.

"Let me walk you home," Johnny offered, standing up, too.

Theodosia nodded, smiling."Alright."

So, the two ventured off into the darkness together. Somewhere between the lot and the Mickelson home, they had intertwined their fingers. Whether the two teenagers knew it or not, they fit.

author's note: inspired by the lines:
"don't you think when you look through a microscope, you miss the bigger picture?"
"no."