Looking At the Stars by Ulysses Hill (17, California)

The forest is still and quiet as if nature itself has stopped to reverently admire the sky. The stars shine brighter than I have ever seen them. As I sit staring, they seem to gain color. Brilliant blues, reds, and oranges overtaking the lustrous whites. I am nothing: a wisp that will fade and die quickly. While they, those wondrous lustrous lights, will continue on and on. Burning and flaring. Shrinking and condensing. Moving and changing until eventually, they fade. All will fade until, eventually, there will be only peace. An uneasy calm washes over me at the thought. Tears well in my eyes but I push them back. I am tired, so tired.​

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 The world is cruel, and I am cruel. My life has been hard but that is no excuse. I just lost my job, but that’s not why I’m tired. I was tired long before I ever got that job. I was tired when I was sixteen on that blacktop, when Josephine came up to me. Josephine was kind, if not a little self-obsessed. While we never talked much, we had always gotten along well enough. She was popular, pretty, and as I would find out later, had had a crush on me for years. She asked me to the winter formal, right there on the blacktop. The image as the glint of courage in her eyes faded; replaced by tears as she ran off, still sends an ache of guilt through my heart. 

I didn't have a suit to wear. Hell, I wasn't sure if I would have food to eat that night. It was the look of defiance in her eyes. As if there was nothing braver than asking a boy to the winter formal. How stupid could someone be? Something in me just… snapped. I can’t even remember what I said to her, just that I wanted my words to hurt her. Not sting or annoy, but to genuinely slash at her. I wanted her to feel the pain, hunger, and exhaustion I felt: more pain than any child had right. 

I was jealous… and so angry. Jealous that the most pressing thing on her mind was the winter formal. And angry that I had to worry about so much more. Angry that even while I was playing basketball, at the back of my mind was the gnawing question of whether the lights would be on or not. Angry at my mom for not making enough money to pay the bills, and angry at my dad for having left. Then I was ashamed as the pounding of her feet on the pavement clashed with the sound of her sobs. Tears were rolling down my face as well. An annoying reaction to anger, that despite all the years, I still haven't managed to outgrow. I began to notice the people staring at me. Their faces, painted with horror and sympathy. Sympathy that only served to infuriate me even more. So, without a word, I walked away.

 That anger had almost destroyed me. It did destroy more than a few relationships. It wasn’t the only culprit though. My stupid decisions did more than their fair share. In my defense I was tired, and I always hurt people when I’m tired. Even when I mean well.

 I was tired when I was with Alice. That entire relationship was a mess. We were always fighting, breaking up, and making up. That one particular New Year’s Eve, we were broken up. Alice was going to visit her family out in Connecticut and had invited me to join. I had told her no. I’m not sure why. Maybe I knew she was too good for me and was embarrassed. Maybe even then I knew our relationship was doomed. Perhaps it was just as I told her, and I really just wasn’t in the mood to see anyone. It doesn’t matter. I was at the local bar, a dumpy college town bar like any other, jazzed up for New Year. I was on my second drink when I saw Vanessa. Her mouth in the sneer which she called a smile. She was talking to one of her “friends”.  She had been Alice’s best friend at the time. I have no idea why, except for the fact they had known each other forever. Vanessa had always liked me. She was always making advances, touching me, and getting so close to me that the smell of her expensive perfume would burn my nostrils. The one time I had told Alice I didn’t like Vanessa it had led to a massive fight, so I never mentioned it again. She knew though, I had never made an effort to hide my disdain, something that probably only made Vanessa like me more. 

Vanessa walked up to me at the bar. Any other night I would have blown her off, but that night I decided to entertain her. I did not tell her off or shrug away from her touch. I just sat there, letting her touch cloud my mind and my drink silence my heart, until she asked if I wanted to get out of there. I would like to say it was a mistake, but I knew what I was doing. I knew Alice was due home early the next morning; due to come back to the apartment that she and Vanessa shared. I knew that Vanessa was supposed to pick her up from the airport, and if she wasn’t there, Alice would just take a cab home assuming Vanessa had just partied too hard and passed out the night before. I knew that when Alice got home she would look in Vanessa's room, and I knew that when she saw me there, she would be released from the snare that neither of us had the strength to break. So, I said, “Yeah, let’s head to your place.” She smiled, and so it happened. Exactly as I predicted it would. Exactly as I knew it would. It was the wee hours of the morning when she came in, the only light in the room cast in from the streetlamp outside the window.  I had laid awake all night. When she opened the door only half her face was visible, the rest, a clouded mystery. Half was all that I needed to watch the emotions flash on her face. Disgust, betrayal, sadness, and then solemn resolution, each emotion morphing into the next like images in a flipbook.  She shed a tear as she shut the door. I had shed a tear too. 

A similar tear trickles down my face now. Have I only caused pain? Is that what I shall be remembered for? No, I will not be remembered. People don't remember those they hate; they merely begrudgingly muddle through the times when circumstance or chance calls upon their mind to recollect them. That is my fate: to be an unwanted thought. A nuisance, managing to persist beyond my years. 

No, I will not let that be my fate. Georgina will not let that be my fate. I don't deserve her. I have never deserved her from that very first moment, we met at that cafe two years ago. She had been working as a waitress there. At first, I tried to keep the conversation to a minimum: my drink order, a please, a thank you. She wouldn’t let that stand though. She started asking me random questions every day. Favorite color? Paris or London? The ability to fly or the ability to turn invisible? Pineapple on pizza, yes or no? That last one is what broke me. For the next three days, we had a heated debate. On that third day when we finally called a truce, she had asked me out. I said “Yes.” I knew that she was too good for me, but I would have given anything to keep talking to her. We had our date that next Friday, by which time I had come to the decision that I must get her to break it off. So, I decided to tell her the story of my relationship with Alice. I stared solemnly at my drink as I recounted the story, afraid that if I looked up I might lose my nerve or worse have to see the disgust in her eyes. When I finished my story there was a long pause. With apprehension, I began to raise my gaze from my drink. As I gazed into her eyes, I didn’t see disgust, or sympathy but rather compassion. She gazed back at me in turn before saying “You really aren’t good at this dating thing huh? We’ll try to change that.”

I have changed. At least I hope I have changed. She makes me want to change, to become a better person. Yet I must wonder if I have truly changed or if I am just pretending to keep her. I know one thing though, I promised myself I would never hurt her, and I will keep that promise till the day I die. I pull the ring out of my pocket and open the box. The princess cut diamond catches the moonlight and sparkles like the stars up above. May our marriage be as steadfast as those stars. Checking my watch, I see that it is seven-thirty. I should get going. I don't want to be late.