Her eyes. They were pools of galaxies, blues and greens swirling and bleeding into milky pools of stars. They were the first thing I noticed about her. Most guys would never admit something like that. Most guys, especially the ones I’d become so accustomed to hanging around with, always noticed the shell of a girl, the outer surface careful strokes of makeup and push up bras created. But I wasn’t oneof those guys. Ever since we first made eye contact at that bookstore, we were connected. Sure, it had been an accidental meeting, but it was ours none the same. I wanted to tell her everything about myself, but I had to wait until she was ready and had the time. Then, finally, she took the plunge into my world.

I watched as she read my story, the words spilling from the pages and pouring into her mind. I couldn’t believe someone like her had picked me up. Still, through the thick, black web of words, I could see the broken look in those starry eyes of hers. Something hit me hard when I saw those eyes. I wanted to reach out to her and dry the tears that leaked out of them. I wished I could’ve wrapped her in my arms and shield her from reality. But it was impossible.

We lived in two different worlds, fact and fiction. I was trapped in the cream colored pages that some bored author had dreamed up one restless night. The black words imprinted on these pages hung above me and my world like angry storm clouds. Through the spaces between them, I could still see her. I saw her smile, heard her laugh, and felt her heartbeat, pulsating in rhythm to my own. She cried at some points in my story and laughed at others. It felt like she was rooting for me almost, like she wanted me to succeed. We battled sometimes, when I would make a mistake or a decision she didn’t agree with.

I couldn’t control these decisions, though. My author, my tormentor, made me. She wanted me to stay away from the girl. She wanted me to keep my place as the fictional boy-next-door, the one who never got the girl.

But I refused. I couldn’t give up on her. I’d been acting out the script my author had written for me my entire life, never following my own path. I couldn’t leave the girl who’d put her faith in me. So I stayed. Through it all, the late nights and early morning hours, she would awaken me as I told my story to her. She brought me places, mainly to her school or a coffeehouse. I would blush as she brought me up to her friends and recounted th e details of my life, like we were actually together, like she was proud of me. She’d introduce me to whoever she knew, to everyone. And for those glorious moments, she was mine and I was hers. We were infinite in those moments. She was on my mind constantly, and I could only pray I was on hers. Little snapshots of our endless midnights and daydreaming began accumulating into the story of us. Our story was fed by broken dreams and lost hopes, but we were working as best as we could to reach our infinity.

Then the infinity ended.

She finished my story. I thought once it ended, she wouldn’t leave me. She’d stay, maybe hear it again. I waited for it, the darkness bleeding in through the words above me. I’d wait for the light to flood my world again, to see her galaxy eyes teasing my own. The familiar face I’d spent so many hours memorizing began leaving my memory as I clung to as many little things as I could carry. I drowned myself in her memory, clawing at the pages I was trapped in. She was my oxygen; without her I would suffocate. Sure, I had everything I wanted, but nothing I needed. I’d trade everything, the friends who only liked me when we were performing, the girl who only kissed me when sunlight poured in through the words, and the baseball career I’d established here for her.

But soon, the dust layering on top of the covers spilled on top of me. I watched the particles dance in the air, mingling together before moving inside of my throat. I coughed for hours, choking on her galaxy eyes and pulsating heart. She was all I could see, all I could think about, all I could feel, and all I‘d ever wanted. But the dust clogged my heart, concealing my love for her. This couldn’t be happening, I kept telling myself. She’ll come back for you.

As I breathed in the musty air of broken hope and lost dreams one fateful day, sunlight flooded my world, making me squint. With a pounding heart, I looked up and saw galaxies. It was the girl. She carefully pursed her lips together and blew the layers of dust off of me. I felt clean, refreshed, my heart flooded with life again. The girl’s lips curved into a smile, the stars and moons in her eyes waking up from their slumber.

“I missed you,” her voice whispered, the words fluttering like the wings of a butterfly. I drank them in, feeling them pouring into my veins and flooding my core. I let them pull me in as I prepared to tell her my story all over again.