Look before you leap. The grass is always greener on the other side. The pot calling the kettle black. I repeted cliché phrases like this to myself, letting the words run over and over through my head. I thought them until they felt like I was holding a warm, threadbare blanket, filling my head, trying to tune out the cackling thunder and neon bolts of lightning. The water of the river surrounding my house crashed against the walls. My glass house creaked in the ferocious wind. Now, there are some benefits to having a house made almost completely by glass; when the sun come streaming in on a summer day, I love it. But, on nights when I am completely alone, with only the inky darkness of night and whispering of trees, I can’t imagine why I ever thought that buying a house, in the middle of nowhere Iceland, made out of gla ss, surrounded by a moat, would ever be a good idea. At the time, I thought it would be romantic and cool. I could tell people that I lived in a glass house, not that I ever saw anyone to tell…
I scooted closer to corner of my leather couch and grabbed the TV remote off the table with un-necessary force, causing the table to jerk forward a few inches. Hannah Montana. Click, my television screen went black and made a deep tapping noise as I changed the channel. Rock of Love. Click; I changed the channel again, wondering who watched this junk. America's Best Dance Crew. Click, again I changed the station, staring blankly at the screen, trying to tune out the pounding of the rain on the windows. The fat raindrops punched the walls, like someone was trying to force their way into my house. I turned the TV up louder, covering up the thunder and lightening sound with the tinny voices of the people on the TV. I changed the channel for what seemed like the 567 time, remembering now why I never watched TV. I loud click echoed through the house. The screen flickered and then shut off, the glowing dimmed until I couldn't see the bobbing head of Heidi Klum any longer. “Great”, no power”, I thought. Outside the branches of a tree danced in the wind, whipping around thetrunk as the leaves fluttered off, dissipearing into the black hole of night. Crack. I swivled my head around, searching for the source of the noise. There was no power, so it couldn't be coming from the TV. Once more, the rain kicked at the windows. This time though, it didn't sound like the innocent sound of the raindrops. Somewhere else in the house a window crashed. The shards of glass, leaped onto the floor, reverberated through my body. “It's nothing Keely,” I comforted myself, just as my mother had during the tornadoes when I was younger, “the force of the wind broke the window. Not important, you can fix it tomorrow.”
Screech. The noise came from the left side of the house. Something, someone, walked acrosss the glass from the broken window, pulling the jagged pieces of glass on the polished wood floor. It's boot sharply crushed a few pieces. Outside a chime rang. The thin fishing wire came untied and the beautiful carved wood and pipes flew away, into the night, being pulled by the force of the wind.
Don't cry over spilled milk. Don't count your chickens before they hatch. It's like a pot calling the kettle black. Once again familiar phrases ran through my head, like a train going at full force. This time though, it didn't work. I felt the ebony of night closing in on me. The black soficated me. I could feel it creeping throughout my body.


“I don't know Lila,” Xander whispered back, “I thought I really liked her, but, I just don't know. I thought there would be something with me and her, but not anymore. Maybe what I was looking for has been here all along.”

I laughed, trying to ease up the moment and make it less like a High School Musical movie.

“Yeah, maybe.” I struggled to find something to say, that would let him know how I had felt all day too, but I didn't need to. As my brain sorted through things to say, Xander leaned in and kissed me.