Summary: Sometimes letting go is the hardest part for dreamers like her. NickMacy. It's kind of really strange, so be warned.
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1.
He didn't fall head over heels for her the first time he met. In fact, the first time he met her, he distinctly remembers getting hit on the side of the head with a hockey stick and passing out right on the spot.
It's kind of hard to fall for a girl that knocks you unconscious by accident. Their relationship is based upon her cringe-worthy fan girl giggles and his frustrated frowns and disapproving brown eyes.
That's it, nothing more.
What more can you expect from that sort of relationship.
-
He's seen the gazes. He's not an idiot, especially when it comes to girls. In fact, he's probably the least clueless when it comes to girls out of the three brothers.
He just chooses to ignore it because he rather not lead her on, rather not break her heart. Because he knows what heartbreak feels like, what it tastes like and he rather shelter her from it than push her to experience it.
He doesn't know why he feels the need to protect her from it, even if he may very well be the source of it in the long run. It's just another one of those ironies that make up life he supposes.
2.
He's always been fascinated by the whole black and white escapade.
It's classy and timeless, plain and simple. He's been watching old black and white classics since he was a little kid, and he still watches them now, late into nights with the lights out, while everyone else in the household has fallen fast asleep, in the confines of the family room.
The scenes fill up the television screen with black and white images of charismatic dark and handsome heroes in trench coats, standing in the rain with their respective sophisticated fifties' heroines drenched wet and waiting for that suave and passionate farewell kiss. He always falls asleep just as the climax of the movie is about to happen.
It's a tragic cliché, a romantic notion; it's everything he embodies and inspires through his melancholy melodies on the piano and soulful ballads.
-
She's always been intoxicated by color.
By the soft pastel colors worn by the flower girl and bridesmaid at her cousin's summer wedding, the royal blues and majestic ruby reds of the school uniforms, and the striking violets and yellows of children clothes that blur against the canvas of subdued greens around her as she rides her bike down glittering pavement trails around the neighborhood park.
And as she lies against the grass, eyes staring up fearlessly at the blue June skies after her field hockey games, all her mind can process is the million images of technicolor, of visions that represent unconventionality.
She paints her dreams of brilliant shades because color seems to soften the past setbacks and downfalls, and brings out the beauty of life and inspiration instead.
Colors glorify the unwritten future and she breathes in their air of untold tales willingly.
3.
The first time she took his breath away was on a mid-July afternoon. He'd been feeling restless and had somehow found himself walking aimlessly in the park, when he found himself on the top of the hill near the park.
She had been standing on top of the bench, facing the sun that fragmented rays of light upon her and highlighted the contours of her figure. Her arms had been wide open as if to welcome and soak in the warmth of radiating heat coming from the sunlight and she spun around slowly in place and her mouth open slightly, indicating quiet words being spoken.
She'd laid her dreams out across the ground for the world to see and admire and they glittered like scattered stardust, and for a second he had almost felt jarred in place by momentary fear.
The sun shined so bright, almost as if to promise to evaporate her scattered dreams and never give them back if she kept them out to be scrutinized by the world around her for too long.
She gave away her trust so easily, shared the things most important to her so freely, her faith unwavering.
And as she stopped in place, keeping her chin up to face the sun, with the wind blowing at her light summer dress and exposing the curves of her lithe and slender figure, wisps of brown hair carelessly encompassing her face, he thought she looked like an angel, honey-kissed and born out of blue moons that arise from nocturnal ocean waves.
-
He's a hopeless romantic. He believes in love at first sight and soul mates and kismet connections and destined lovers, regardless of the tragedies being involved in the mix or not. He absorbs the anguishes and joys of what love is meant to be, of each definition of love thoroughly and takes them wherever he goes, just in case.
But just because he's a hopeless romantic doesn't mean he's also a hopeless dreamer. His imagination only stretches as far as love can go.
She's a hopeless dreamer. She believes in happy endings, prince charmings, and fairy tales they could never be. She keeps herself enchanted with oceans of sparkling sea-green dreams. She believes in the impossible and the extraordinary and love stories are only the beginning. There is so much more in the world around her to propel her to be a visionary.
He's old enough to know hopeless romantics and hopeless dreamers are doomed to fail, no matter how hard they might try to work at it, no matter how right they might seem on the surface.
4.
The boy breaks her heart. Truth be told, Nick knows enough of the guy from some classes they had together to acknowledge he's a nice guy and probably never meant to hurt her; that it was probably just a byproduct of the inevitable. Breaking up is just another part of the cycle of first loves, first relationships, and first break-ups.
It's when he finds out the real reason behind the break-up and faces the scrutinizing stare of Stella, that he can't help looking down at the ground and pretending to be more interested in the dirt that he draws figure eights on with his shoes, rather than the details of the break-up that Stella wants him to digest .
And as Stella continues talking about her concern towards her best friend and hints at his indirect role in her love life and 'how she has absolutely no idea where she could be', Nick takes a breath and decides to just give in. Because they both know he knows exactly where to find her.
He's out the door without a second glance back.
He finds her sitting alone on the bench on the hill top, staring up at the dusky sky contemplatively, and without a second thought he sits down next to her carefully, unsure of how to start up a conversation. She doesn't need to turn her head to know it's him, it's built in her system, this internal radar that lets her detect his presence flawlessly when he's near to her.
They sit in silence for some time before she finally speaks. "He thought I wanted him to be more like you."
He doesn't comment immediately, observing her side profile slowly, studying the way her small nose juts out ever so slightly, and her eyes still watery from before (but just as doe-like and childlike as always) refuse to meet his gaze. He wants to ask her if it is true or not, if she'll deny it if it is, and if they'll just pretend it is not like they always do. But then when she finally turns to him, he realizes it's not necessary to ask.
She knows the answers to his unspoken questions just as well as he does and it's pointless going around the borders of a circle, if neither of them plan to go in completely.
-
The sky is a swirl of cloudy dark blues against the crescents' fluorescent glow, and against the moonlight rays, she thinks she can see her imagination coming alive yet again, a gleam of hope in his presence.
The night seems so lonely most of the time, but tonight it is full of never-ending possibilities, almost alluding to the promise of tomorrow, and threatening to fill in the cracks with dead ends and the contours of concrete finish lines.
She likes to think it covers away the blemishes and doubts ever so discreetly, if only for a few hours and as they sit on the bench, a careful space between them, she wonders why the nighttime air always seems to be frozen, even in the most humid of nights.
"I'm sorry." She hears him whisper and if she listens closely enough, she can hear the undertone of regret in his husky voice against the heartbeat of the wind. She's not sure if he's apologizing about the obvious or the not so obvious. It doesn't really matter though at this point.
"Don't be." She replies back bravely, her voice coming out unshaken but fragile, as she forces a smile and watches the dash of hope fade away again.
She's glad that the night hides her away from the world, from him.
5.
"Did you ever love anyone?" He turns around, curiously staring at her.
"That's kind of personal, isn't it?" He replies in a low voice and she shrugs her shoulders, "You don't have to answer if you don't want to."
She lays back into the grass and sighs and she thinks from up here, it's almost like she can catch the stars laid across the dark blue sky. If she could, she would make one of those stars twinkling down towards them, her sanctuary, her escape. She tells him so and all she gets in response is more of his intent gaze upon her.
Moments pass by and they sit in silence, listening to the crickets chirping, and everything seems at so much ease, like the world isn't spinning nearly as fast it should.
"If I could, I'd catch a star." He finally confesses, lying down next to her, with one arm behind his head, and staring up at the sky.
She laughs, a quiet song in her voice, funny because she can't sing for her life. "Catch a falling star and put it in your pocket, save it for a rainy day..." She says breathlessly, making sure to not go anywhere near adding melody to the song.
"There was one girl." He finally says, his voice cracking at the end. "She had the prettiest brown hair and blue eyes. She's the closest I ever got to—" He can't say it. He has no idea why, but it keeps getting stuck in his throat.
She turns onto her side, her brown eyes signaling she's listening and something ignites in him. He's never talked to anyone about this, except maybe his brothers.
"Sometimes I fall so easily, but I never seem to fall in love in time," he takes a deep breath, shuddering, "Maybe I over think it, maybe it's supposed to just come to me, but it never does when it should, and then I lose them, suddenly I'm a heartbreaker—" He stops short, composing himself, and looking away. He's already said too much.
"Casanova." She concludes thoughtfully.
"I'm not a—" He starts defensively, feeling betrayed after revealing so much to her, and having her—
"Kidding," She murmurs reassuringly, soothingly, and he doesn't know why little things always get to him so easily. "You're just a terrible romantic," she finishes off.
"Love should be perfect. Is that too much to ask for?" He mumbles, feeling restless under her discerning gaze.
When did everything get so serious with Macy?
-
"Nothing is perfect, no matter how much you want it to be," She speaks softly, a resolute strength in her words and it's so unlike her. The night seems to bring so much out of her, things never visible to the naked eye in the daylight.
"Well I want to get as close to it as I can." He says with a quiet determination, a quiet zeal in his tone and he thinks maybe he's finally grown into it. "What about you? What do you want to be?"
The words start rolling off of her tongue like poetry. "I want to be absolute, I want to float away, I want to find unintended love and keep it with me wherever I go, no matter how far I go. I want to be a song tonight, a ray of sunlight peaking in through the crack of the shutters in the morning, an international, world-ranked tennis player in the afternoon, a—
"What don't you want to be exactly?" He cuts in pointedly, because she's always throwing him off some way or the other.
She taps her chin, deep in thought, before smiling dreamily. "I'm not sure exactly. There's just so much out there, just waiting for us. It's practically calling to us, can you hear it?."
There's a magnified silence overwhelming the space between them.
"Nick?"
And it's then he realizes how extraordinary she is. Because she's a shape-shifter, a world mover, a prodigal of sorts, with a spirit beyond glorified perfection, maybe something much more euphoric and magical than he'll ever understand. All he knows now is she'll stop the world with her ceaseless imagination, with the trail of dreams she gathers from the Milky Way. And the star-like aura that makes her seem slightly spacey or scatter-brained sometimes, in actuality is completely paralyzing once you take the time to look at it."
"Nick, are you there?"
Suddenly he sees her in a completely different light and it's so unbelievable, he wants to start laughing.
He inhales the scent of Japanese blossom trees and chlorine, letting the slight twinge of eloquent dreams that lies somewhere in the middle of it all sober him up and overwhelm his senses if only for a little while.
He has all the time in the world to fall in love, just like she has all the time in the world to dream.
"Yes, I'm here."
6.
He doesn't know how it happens, but something inside of him tells him to go find her one stormy August summer afternoon.
She's standing on top of the bench, her arms wide open, and the rain beats down against her skin, and her eyes are closed again, but he thinks she's breath-taking – beautiful – and all he wants to do is write a song for her, and let the rain wash away the ink, because the closest to genius he'll ever come to song-writing will be about her. He knows it, can feel it throbbing in his veins, and it's too perfect, too idealistic to be shared with the world.
He watches the slick droplets of water trail down her body, dripping down with a pearly sound and her clothes cling to her body, and she looks so desperate to let go and he wonders if it's selfish of him to not want her to let go just yet, to not be ready just yet.
The sky promises a never-ending storm with its thunder and somehow he finally finds his voice as he calls out to her, her name resonating against the gathering storm they've found themselves in the middle of.
-
She turns around to him and he's never thought a girl could look so lovely with tears in her eyes. He can't hear the words coming out of her mouth, but she keeps speaking them, repeating them almost inaudibly and he can't help walking closer, till he finally reaches the bench and stands up on top of it. He gathers her in his arm, the coldness of her skin prickling his own, and he finally understands what she's saying.
"I need to get on with my life. I promised myself I would."
He doesn't know what happend but suddenly he's desperate for her to not let go just yet. He cups her face, looking into her sad, shimmering eyes, trying to memorize her gaze, and it all happens almost in the slow motion, the pelting rain and the ominous gray skies forgotten, and all he can see, all he can think about are her lips. He captures them with his own fearlessly, and he hears a sound of surprise come out of her mouth, but it's lost soon as the kiss deepens and he claims the part of her she's always kept just for him, that has always kept her a little hesitant from jumping in headfirst, like she'd like to.
Kissing her is like playing the piano for hours on end, gliding fingers across the black keys (because they've always been more mesmerizing to him) and he knows he'll always keep this kiss close to his heart, no matter how far she goes, no matter how far she runs. He'll keep it close to him, he promises himself that as he opens his eyes to see a rainbow taking shape and lighting up the sky behind her just in time.
He wonders if she finally feels any less suffocated now, any freer now.
7.
She stiffens in his arms all at once, as if finally realizing what they're doing (what he's doing for her) and suddenly she breaks away, trying to catch her breath, and there's a silhouette of lightning in her eyes, electrifying and vulnerable, and he wants to take her back in his arms, never let her go, but it's too late now.
She touches her lips ever so faintly, like he's burned them, and her eyes lose their storminess, and suddenly everything around them is turning into a shade of perpetual gray and he watches everything slip out of his grasp.
It's temporary though. It has to be.
"You shouldn't have done that." She says softly, regretfully, and all of a sudden her eyes are empty, void of color and the receding stillness around them can't seem to dull the weight of his actions.
She jumps off of the bench, still facing him, and as she starts slowly walking backwards, her footsteps are soundless and deafening at the same time.
"Goodbye." She whispers sadly.
And then she's running, as fast as her legs will take her, down the hill and away from him. There she goes, a dream weaver, a falling star, forever uncatchable.
He closes his eyes, imagining her to just be another student in the hallway of his schools, just another friend of Stella's. Just another girl. His throat feels dry and he thinks he can hear a faint lullaby sung by the wind. It reminds him of hopeless dreamers letting go.
"Watch your step." He murmurs to no one in particular, closing his eyes, and letting the moist air take the words away with the wind, with the loss.
—
she walks away, colors fade to gray
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A/N: Maybe you can explain this to me because I have no clue what it is. Inspired by Latika's Theme off of Slumdog Soundtrack and Black Keys by JB at 3 in the morning. Don't ask, really don't. Insomnia makes you delusional and lacking of a cohesive storylines, apparantly. It's unbetated, because I felt bad jamming my beta with a bunch of crap I wrote.