Love and Loss.

Eighteen.

"They're...beautiful."

Her eyes were glassy, as they stared in awe at the darkened, navy blue sky, lit up with millions of bright, shining stars.

"Yep." Just like you.

They were on the rooftop again, their go-to, when the cruel world gets too much.

Where they could fool around and be themselves.

Where the pain was overwhelming.

Because he remembers, when they were thirteen.

They'd just become friends.

They found this place, and swore that it'll be theirs forever.

They hooked pinkies, the childish way of promising.

And it stayed theirs.

But when they turned fifteen, it was no longer a place of solace.

It was just a place of pain and reminders of all the things he can't have.

He can't have her.

He can't love her.

He can't kiss her.

"Why haven't we been up here at night?! It's...so.."

Her words died at her lips, as she gazed in wonder at the sky.

His heart ached.

The way she looked at the sky, he wished that it'd be the way she looked at him.

She was so beautiful.

He could watch the skies, the sunsets, the stars, the amazing pieces of artwork by Van Gogh or Picasso, and yet...

She would be the most beautiful thing of them all.

She shifts, and all a sudden, her head was in his lap.

No.

He refuses to have hope.

She treated him like a brother, someone to protect her when she was vulnerable.

"I hope you don't mind. It's easier to watch the stars this way."

He does mind.

He minds it in millions of ways.

But he doesn't say.

"I don't mind."

Lies, again.

How many lies has he told her?

Even after 3 years, of seeing her love other boys over and over and over again, and yet, he doesn't find any girl that can replace her.

He looks down, and his heart lurched again.

Loving her, that was one of the worst and best things he'd ever done.

Now, her head in his lap, it seemed too sensual, too...couply.

Too...lovey.

Like a taunting cat toy by the Universe, saying, you can't have her.

Her eyelashes, long, illuminated by the moon's soft glow, her face, highlighted by the gentle twinkling of the stars.

Her raven black hair, in tangles.

She still looked so amazing.

Never had he ever loved someone so much, that he falls with every single flaw they come with.

But she doesn't love him back.

He can only hope and wish and pray.

But those things don't come true.

Miracles just...don't...happen.

So he listens, to her gentle breathing, and closes his eyes.

He tries to commit the feeling of her, pressed against his thighs, to memory.

Because he knows, that this?

This will never happen again.