Poisoned Star

Epilogue

"And those... are the 10 reasons why I can't love you, Ethan Ross. A name I will never forget as my unrequited first love. The reasons I left. Unrequited love is beautiful. Yes, it's incredibly painful but it's also so pure. Don't you get it? Continuing to love someone so much, while knowing that you will never get that kind of love back from them. Loving with no expectations. Just loving. I think that's the most beautiful thing in the world. It's ours and only ours. You don't have to share it."

He chooses to watch Alison reads her novel from the back of all audiences. "What bullshit are you talking about, Alison?" He whispers to himself.

"The end."

Then, the audiences give Alison a big round of applause as she concludes reading her novel to them and they dismissed. It is a small reading session held in a bookstore with very few attendees but it is a dream come true for Alison to read aloud her piece of thought, her writing, her soul to the audience. She is beyond pleased and delighted.

On the other hand, Ethan feels lost and confused. He is like a ball of tangled yarn. The parts that are untangled are available, useable; the rest is a mess, useless until it is untied. That mess feels endless and at most times unyielding.

As Alison clears things up on the stage and the tech team helping her with her mic, Ethan steps from the shadows, stealing her breath and the heat from her skin. Suddenly her defences are just paper, paper that is being soaked by the rapidly falling briny drops.

"Hi, Al."

Her hand spread like pale starfish around her standard-issue coffee cup, and it is cold too, resisting the warmth that struggles to seep into it. Her stomach shifts uneasily and she notices that the hand that she is hugging herself with is pinching into her skin. She releases her hand but then she can't figure out what to do with them, so instead it clasps and unclasps as if in constant need of touch and reassurance.

"Ethan." She mutters it under her breath.

"I have to find out about it from a novel? And to hear it from your mouth through a novel reading event?"

She remains silent.

"Why didn't you tell me? Or hint at me? Or maybe show a little effort?"

When she tries to speak, her voice falters into unintelligible croaks, she wants to tell him she loves him but she doesn't think he'll believe her and she's afraid it will sound hollow.

"Do you know why I chose this piece for my background music for my reading session today?" her index points heavenward, referring to the music that is still playing since the beginning of her session. "This classical piece by Duke Ellington is called the Star-crossed lover. It's a story about unfortunate lovers. Two stars that missed each other. When shooting stars fall, they fall in a different direction... Even though it is very rare, sometimes they meet briefly but never meet again after that.

"That's-that's an unfortunate story..." Ethan is gaping at it, lost for words.

"But oh well, who did I think I was... don't get me wrong. I know we were never a star-crossed lover. I loved you, but you never loved me the same way I did. Thus, we are just a couple of poisoned stars. Poisoned stars that crossed paths and the encounter wrecked her and she just had to go in a different direction." She moves closer, his eyes are the same, still that vulnerable boy from the meadows. "But the memories of their brief encounter might make the stars happy."

The grin, when it finally comes, spread slowly across her face, moving all her freckles. "Coming to you, to be healed by you, will break me. For to come to you is forbidden, yet to stay away is pain. So here I remain locked in love that brings sorrow, for my heart strayed where it should not and now my mind must pull it back to within the confines in which it is permitted to roam."

Her heart beats faster and faster. Her heart, that only beats for him.

"If I had told you, would that change anything?"