I slowly slid open the glass door to the balcony and stepped outside. The chill of the night was a pleasant one, as it generally was this time of year in Boston. I had been here so many times, it was almost like a second home to me.
Then again, I had been to a lot of cities within the last few years, and they all seemed like home to me. Not because they were welcoming, but don't get me wrong, they generally were. No, it was because I had no choice but to make them my home.
A few years ago I found myself on a subway heading to New Jersey when I met him. He sat in the corner with a look of annoyance and aggravation painted on his face. I sat across from him, wanting someone to talk to as the subways weren't very busy that time of day. He looked up from the screen of his cell phone as I casually said hello. He gave a half-hearted smirk and looked back down at his phone.
"Something troubling you?" I asked, trying to ease the tension in the car.
"I'm just running late is all," he sighed.
"You don't usually take the subway, do you?" I asked, looking at him.
He looked up from his phone and back at me. "No. How could you tell?"
I leaned back in my seat and folded my arms over my chest. "You just don't come off as the city-dweller type."
"Fuck the city," he said with a small chuckle.
I raised an eyebrow. "With who's cock, yours or mine?"
And that was what broke the ice. A set of chuckles and an empty subway car. He told me about his friends in New Jersey, his job, and a few of his hobbies. He asked me about myself and what I did for a living and I happily answered. We seemed to have some sort of, connection, if you will, and became fast friends.
Less than a year later he landed a shot in the entertainment business, a lifelong dream of his. I was proud, but couldn't help but worry as I watched the bright lights of the cameras suck up every last ounce of happiness he had in him. The hours were long, the work exhausting, and every night he came home to an empty house.
One night, after twelve hours of filming, he knocked on my door. I looked at his face and my heart broke. His cheeks were red, eyes puffy, and hair matted down from sweat. Without a second thought I wrapped my arms around his large frame and buried my face into his warm chest. In all honesty, I expected him to either just stand there, or push me away. Instead, he wrapped his arms around me as tight as he could, his hands firmly grasping the back of my sweatshirt. I opened my eyes from the shock of his reaction and heard a small sniffle just above my head.
I carefully slide the glass door shut and walked up behind him.
"Do you remember that night?" He asked, continuing to gaze upon the cityscape of Boston. "When I was ready to give up?"
"I remember," I said. That was the night everything changed for us.
"There's something I never told you," he said. "It wasn't just the show I was ready to give up. It was everything."
I wasn't surprised at all by this news. I could see it in his face that night that the stress of a television show wasn't the only thing bothering him. I knew how he felt, like he didn't belong anywhere we went, like he didn't have anyone that truly understood him. But he had me.
"It's insane, looking back at it," he exclaimed, still looking at the skyscrapers. "I had less on my plate then than I do now! Filming, photo shoots, interviews, touring, it's crazy. All this just to make people smile."
I wasn't sure where he was going with this, so I simply stood there and listened.
"At first it was chaos, but now, it all seems to fit," he turned his head ever so slightly, as if to glance back at me, but quickly turned back toward the sky. "And I'll never be able to thank you enough for that."
"There's nothing to thank me for," I said, taking a step closer.
He signed. "For the first time in a long time, you made me feel like I was worth something."
I took one small step and hugged him from behind, resting my head on his back. It felt so right to wrap my arms around him, feeling the softness of his sweater and warmth in my hands as his placed his own overtop of them.
At that moment, it didn't matter where the future would take him. I knew that he would at least be happy.
YOU ARE READING
Glass Door
FanfictionIncredibly ambiguous one-shot. Reader's point-of-view. Brief language.