Pieces

16. The Fifth Piece

I could hardly remember the last time I'd had such a good time. It'd been too long since I'd last smiled. And I could tell, it had been way too long since he'd last smiled. The rest of our evening had been perfect. Starting with a few nervous glances and sweaty palms and awkward laughs, we were relaxed by the end of it, used to each other's company, and there had been no mention of Marc, as promised. It had been a fine evening. We discussed everything from books to music, only to find we shared almost nothing in common. 

While I was easily influenced by pop culture, with a pint of punk rock, he was mostly into country, a genre I occassionally had a soft spot for. His favorite artists were Tim Mcgraw, Keith Urban but he said the newer, younger ones were just as well. He didn't read many books. He wasn't very fond of reading, but he only told me that after I'd already elaborated on my love for books and the ones that I liked the most and why. And he'd hang on to every one of my words, as if they were as important and intriguing as a cipher. He had read some books though, the ones strongly reccommended by Marc, which were, indirectly, strongly reccommended by me.

Though Marc had been a literature lover and adored every work of fiction as much as I did, he wasn't much for tragedies. He liked rainbows and unicorns and that was that. With all the fairytale endings, he said, they helped you escape reality, to which I argued, any other book, did. 

But any other book, especially a tragedy, would be realistic. Fairytales fill you with hope even if it's momentary. They're like dreams, unachievable but not impossibly so. They're in a way, an alternate form of reality. The better one. The one you can lose yourself in, when you get tired of dealing with our own reality's problems.

I, being the eccentric, practical, pessimist, I was, argued on and it lasted for almost an hour until he said he had to sleep. 

And as I walked down the eerily quiet lane, with Antonio by my side, his hand in mine, staring straight ahead, expecting him to reappear, like he always did, I couldn't help but think back to that conversation of ours. Because this, the night I'd had with Antonio, had not only been normal, but also too happy. It may sound cheesy, and definitely the kind of thing one would expect for Marc to say, but tonight had been much like a fairytale, like the alternate reality, that you crave for, when you want to lose sight of your own terrible and miserable and pathetic reality. 

I could only hope, it wasn't another fabricated fiction. 

"I had a great time tonight." I finally, said breaking the silence, as we neared the lane to his house. From what I could tell, we were only ten minutes away. 

"Me too." He said, and he took my hand to his lips and laid a soft gentle kiss on it as I giggled, like any other girl was expected to, as I looked at him, momentarily awed by his face beautifully illuminated by the glistening moon in the dark of the night. 

"I don't want this night to end." He muttered in his breath, and it was hard to miss the sorrow in his voice. And for once, I understood. Because I didn't either. 

"What if we kept walking down this lane?" The question surprised me, but I quickly recovered and flashed a smile. 

"Can we?" I asked, tilting my head to the side, as we slowed down, purposefully, because neither of us wanted to get home early. 

"If you keep looking at me like that, I don't think I'll ever be able to stop." He whispered, and I looked down at our feet, struggling to find a witty remark, but at the moment it was hard enough to keep the red in my cheeks from showing. 

"You're cute when you blush." He nudged me as he said, cheekily. 

"Shut up." I said, even more embarassed. God how cliched this sounded. How overused. I'd prefer the silence.