Romance Isn't Dead, Just Different

She was asleep. But that was nothing new. She always slept, always building universes, stories, people, making kisses and forging daggers, blood red wine in her dreams. My little dreamer, he had always called her. Always, always writing.  

That didn’t matter, though. He was dead. “What a shame,” she whispered to herself a few hours ago. “He will be missed by many, by much. Isn’t that right?” she had scratched her cat’s head, the silky fur rippling under her fingers. 

Long, like a pianist’s, he had said. Narrow, a hand of fire and insecurities. She liked that description, found it online. She used it in a short story, the one about the dancing girl. She had always wished she could dance, but never had the time to learn. She sighed in her sleep, and turned onto her side.  

The cat let out a frustrated chirp, and leapt off the bed onto the wide windowsill. Eerie glow from the street lights lit up her fur, and she warbled loudly. “Hush up, Angel, my sweet.” The woman groaned, throwing a pale arm over her head. The calico cat burbled louder, scratching at the window. “Angel, you know the landlady hates it when you do that. Stop it.”  

Angel just stared at her, amber eyes unblinking, and turned back to his vigil by the window.  

That’s when the woman heard it. The tapping, the clink of something hitting the window. She sighed again and, wrapping the thick covers around her slim shoulders, swung her legs over the edge of the bed. Her toes curled a bit as she touched the cold hardwood floors, and she glided over to the window. Toe to heel, toe to heel, she sang in her head. Her late grandmother had taught her that. 

That is how princesses walk, she had said in her satiny, saccharine voice, placing a tiara on the girl’s head. Maybe you’ll be one, someday, my sweet Selene. Sella doubted that with all her heart. She was too... human to be a princess.  

No offense to the princesses in her head and in the real world, but her skin was paper-thin, and chipped nails and dark circles would never fit into their world. Besides, what princes besides the ones in her head desired her, with all her shifting eyes and restless feet, strange scars and the dreaminess she wore around her like a shield?  

He was a prince among men, her mind sighed. “I know,” she whispered back to it. She stepped over a pile of old books, the spines cracked and peeling. She loved her books. The smell, the feel, the look, the stories. Beautiful, beautiful. All good, all helping her know more.  

When she reached the window sill, she opened it, but spent a few minutes looking at the stars and moon instead of whatever was tapping at her window. “Waxing gibbous,” she whispered. “Good for love and intention spells.” Sella’s sister, Eireann, had ingrained the best spells for the phases of the moon into her from a young age.  

Sella stroked Angel, enjoying the winter breeze on her tired eyes. “So many have influenced me, sweet,” she whispered. “I don’t know which parts of me are me, and not someone else.” Angel warbled, and paced on the edge. His tail swished, tickling the underside of her chin, and she laughed a bit.  

She pushed her window up higher, and stepped out onto the roof. Angel slipped out with her, stepping on the sheet still inside the room. Sella smiled and tilted her head back, eyes closed, soaking up the drops of glassy moonlight and the frosty air. She loved the cold. It was her drug.  

Her father had always told her to avoid medicating herself in any and all ways. Shopping, drugs, eating, sleeping, staying online- it's a bad idea, tiger. Emotions are there to be felt, feel them. It was good advice.  

Doesn’t stop you from ignoring it. Her mind grumbled. “I don’t ignore it. I just love things. There’s nothing wrong with that. A mother wouldn’t be accused of loving her children too much, would she?” Sella’s mind was quiet. It was hard to have an argument against yourself. Shame. That would be fun, a good pastime while she waited for more sleep.  

A pebble hit her in the ribs, and she let out a hiss of pain. Leaning out of the edge- she had been in that position so many times, it came like breathing to her- she peered onto the deserted street, looking for the thrower of the rock. She rubbed the sharp twinge of pain, and glared at the shadowy figure on the street. 

“Why did you throw rocks at my window?” She called to the stranger. He pulled back his hood, and she gasped a bit. 

It was him. Her muse, her best friend, the yang to her yin. “Mind if I come up?” he called. He always had a pleasant voice, like the gravel and silk of a blues singer. She nodded in abstract shock, and slipped back into the apartment.  

Buzzing him in, Sella heard the soft thumps of his boots in the hallway as he walked towards her apartment. She hoped it wasn’t too much of a mess, but honestly, she didn’t care at all. He’d seen her sick, he’d seen her sleeping. There wasn’t much she could do about it, anyways. She shimmied into old jeans- undies are good to avoid, even if whoever it was had seen you naked before- and opened the door a second before he knocked. 

“What...what are you, um, doing he... here, Grey?” Sella said, face flushing. He held up his phone, a single text illuminating the screen. He’s dead. He’s really, truly dead. Pulling a chocolate bar out of his hoodie pocket, he grinned tiredly. “I thought you might want some support.” 

She smiled sadly. “Al, uh, always.”  

A few minutes later, they were sitting on the roof, legs dangling over the edge, gnawing on the half- frozen chocolate and listening to Smashing Pumpkins through earbuds. “Who’d you have to kill off this time, Sel? The billionaire? The medieval peasant in love with the princess? The edgy boy? Or was it the guy that liked the dancer’s “fire” hands?” She rolled her eyes, but held back tears when she thought of him.  

Geez, Grey, you can’t even remember his name, Sella wrote on the yellow, lined notebook. And yeah, it was the fire hand guy. Alec. He was so nice, perfect for her. But she was way too attached, and it was borderline toxic from her side. He had to go. Grey waited for her to finish writing. Looking at the notepad, he side-hugged her.  

“I’m sorry you had to kill him, Sel. How did he go?” She sighed, and scribbled frantically. Hit and run. Shot clean through the head. Painless. “Oh, no. At least he wasn’t hurt. You give him a good funeral?” She nodded and bit her lip, tears coming to the surface. “Everyone cried, I assume?”  

Everyone except for a few of his college buddies that thought they were too manly to cry. Ugh. Sella scribbled. “Jerks.” Grey said. She nodded. 

They sat like that for a while, her head on his shoulder, his arm around her waist.  

He was based off you, Sella wrote hesitantly. “I know,” Grey said. “There are things you just know, yeah? Like sugar’s tasty, some people are sadder than others. Some people can only talk in fluid sentences while writing or to animals.” 

Sella blushed. 

“But these are facts. And they’re okay, just like all of your male characters are based off me.” 

Sella blushed harder. 

“Alec had my eyes, my smiles, my morals. I know because you described them to me the exact same way they were described in the story. Peasant- what, Destrin? Had my soul, same reason. You described it. Billionaire had my desires, what I want. I described them to you that way. And edgy boy has my taste in music, and he has my habits. Same reasons.” 

Sella stared at the notepad.  

“Selene.” 

She looked up guiltily.  

“I don’t care, sweet pea. I’m in love with you too. It doesn’t matter.”  

Her lip trembled. I'm gay.