All the Stars Lead to You

Chapter One

LEO: Don't be too surprised if you have difficulty getting into a work frame of mind. It's likely that you'd rather daydream than be in the real world. You're susceptible to daydreaming and taking imaginative trips. 

You know what I like about romantic movies? Is it the passionate confession? The heated affairs? The adorable building relationships that occur over chance encounters? Or perhaps I'm just a complete sucker for happy endings?

        Those all are good answers, but they're not in the slightly what I'm talking about. I love the way the couple would look at each other. Eyes bright like a thousand stars, the love and intimacy that spanned between them, like I was interrupting something private. A shared secret between the two, and the audience was only getting a sneak peak before they would notice.

        I hoped that one day, some day, I would experience that moment. One of pure childish innocence to care for someone so deeply, and hope that this one second will never end, that this meaning of "us" will also be the meaning of "forever". I want to be naive again and have my first and last kiss in the arms of someone that will gaze into my eyes like this is the beginning of something so beautiful. 

        When I closed my eyes, I try to envision the scenes my head: the slides of my romance, flashing before me in a blur of smiles and light. The word perfect seems to picturesque to describe it. I prefer jovial or euphoric, happiness in other means.

        As I sat at my desk, polished oak wood the color of coffee that's been frequently spilled, I pondered the chance of meeting someone and loving them. All the conversations we'd have, the sneaky kisses at midnight, creeping past the doorman, the laughing and the smiling at stupid jokes. The ending was something I could hopefully predict—an actual ending or a eternity. It's just everything in-between that was so muddy, it's unreadable.

        Releasing a dreamy sigh, my eyes landed on the crumpled balls of paper flooding my vision. They were beginning to rival my breathing space, the avalanche of discarded ideas teetering on the edge.

        "Woah there, kiddo." A voice behind me chuckled. "Looks like you got a miniature pigsty in here."

        "Sorry about that, Jeff. I was experimenting with something," I told him. "I thought maybe if I look at all of this paper, this junk, maybe the failure can inspire me, like 'Huh, I need to get this Train of Creativity moving out of the station'. Do you get me?"

        Jesus.

        He nodded his head, pursing his lips. "Uh huh, gotcha. It's a New Age thing, isn't it? All of these chill ideas and radical movements—no, I get it. Totally. Rad—"

        I forced a wide smile. "Exactly. Can you please—"

        "Oh! Sure!" He gestured over to the water cooler in the back. "I'll be over there if you need me. Just holler and I'll come running."

        I nodded and watched the man with greying hair jog to the back, breathing again when he was gone. Jeff was the new CEO of the company that I work at, a small private office that produced greeting cards online and shipped them to people anywhere in America (we're still expanding). He's the oldest one out of all of us, at the back-breaking and joint-straining age of seventy. Surely, he makes the hairs of many of the women here stand on end and their stomachs churn with unrest, so I tried to kindly tell him off as many times as possible.

        Catching all of the wayward strands that fell around my face, I redid my chignon, pulling it tight and went back to work.

        Sweeping the clutter off my desk into the trash bin beside my chair, the computer and my pictures finally emerging beneath the rubble. A smile spread across my face when my gaze landed on a couple smiling, their arms around each other and foreheads touching. Another successful match—Lily and Amanda. Lily was my friend from college, and Amanda, well, the story of how we met is for another time. Lily had recently came out of a bad relationship, and when she was ready to love again, I found Amanda, booked a date at on old avant garde theatre, and gave the both of them a little encouragement. The two took some time, but in the end, they worked out. They always worked out. The picture was from their one year anniversary.