After Henry (Once Upon a Time)

Chapter One: Always

N/A: First chapter, guys ;) You've been dying to dive in my latest story, so I decided to stop your anxious waiting! As I have college keeping me extremely busy, I will upload every Sunday night, just as Once did back when it was on air. God, I miss that show so much, now I don't find anything quite like it on tv :( Thank God there's fan fiction. ENJOY! 

Henry: Jovi. At this time of night, he was the only one who held the power to distract me, to take me beyond the four-wheeled cubicle where I was incarcerated. The latest pumpkin that served as an excuse of a carriage for Swyft's customers.

The service was lousy. The model of transportation...far from being worthy to take Cinderella to the ball. However, it was my greenback, and as much as I didn't defend the alleged fastness of the Swyft service, whenever my clients left the car, I was still compelled to repeat the same old song "Swyft life is faster".

It was ridiculous, just like the rest of my life, but it came to a time when I didn't care anymore. I just drove and left my clients in the farthest places that anyone can imagine.

The money I received was not much, but it was enough to pay the rent of my dusty apartment, even though it still couldn't afford the fixing of the bedroom's window, reason for the daring entry of the northern breeze, which chilled my whole body, during my sleep.

Fingers beat rhythmically on the steering wheel. Sometimes, I'd spare my head, for a moment, Jovi would flood my mind. He would always be my favorite, he was the one I sang to you, Lauren, when you couldn't handle my attempts to turn you into a fan of Yazz!

In the back seat, life painted my pet cubicle. Life in all of its different colors. Sometimes I felt green with envy, seeing so many happy people "painted in front of me" with joy and passion.

I had forgotten what it was to be alive, long ago... It's hard for me to remember that one day we shared our first kiss, hidden in my yellow beetle, on a starry summer night like there will never be any.

Now it was my turn to drive that pumpkin, where in the back seat lived the stories that found its rising sun, its time to be told.

Couples sharing their first kiss... That night there were two very nice women who seemed very familiar. The eldest was brunette, black curls like the night, so much that they appeared to have been soaked in ink, fleshly red lips, hazel eyes that attempted to conceal the true fragility that lived behind the imposing look. The youngest was a passionate blonde; classic beautiful features, hiding an untamable force and an athletic harbor with a red leather jacket. They lit up my night, in what was already my eighth consecutive hour on the road.

In a blink of an eye, others were "painted" in the back seat. Three friends, with beards and long hair, beat their feet rhythmically, listening to Crazy. Aerosmith always had this effect on clients, I'll never know why, Crazy isn't even a noisy song.

I remember playing it on our first date, when we kissed under the stars, bodies stretched on the towel, refreshing breeze of summer night stroked our faces, fingers intertwined, lips sealed in a young passionate kiss.

That trio was the noisiest of them all, but I smiled at them, from the rearview mirror, I waged them unconsciously, thanking them for the sense of nostalgia they brought me. A sensation that went through my whole body in a sweet tide of familiar comfort, remembering the moments spent at the University of California, with friends very similar to those. We were so noisy or even more, we would find fantasy, joy, excitement, in every detail that life threw at us. We were euphoric and kept a tremendous urge to seize our lives with both hands and take it in exaggerated sighs.

The night was ending, when the nostalgia that the nocturnal visitors brought me wore a long black dress. On its face, melancholy's makeup. They shook my heart, Lauren, and made your name, your face, your touch, even more real, at the heart of my memory, in the hearts of my spirit.