Nightlife

Her mind slipped away as the music pulled her in letting her heart take lead. She couldn’t stop listening to that song. It’s melody had drew her in, but it was one specific night that had given it meaning. And then she realized, how so much happens when the sun goes down. How a love story can unfold when the world sleeps. How her love story had many nights to tell the tale.

She remembered the first night when it all began, when her heart skipped a beat. When she couldn’t take her eyes off him the entire night. Telling herself to look away, but being unable to do so without sneaking glances. Feeling her cheeks run hot. Remembering all those nights filled with laughter and friends ... but every time she hid her heart. Every time she tried and tried to hold back how she truly felt. But the night that she couldn’t resist those feelings, was the night she knew she fell for him. When they stood below the vast starry sky. Words spoken only to be known between them. Feeling as if the world had melted around them with everything suddenly disappearing, even the cold had ceased to chill her in that moment. Feeling like it had been the two of them against the world. Despite her knowing, that even in that moment she couldn’t have him. Her heart had still yearned for him.

But, then so many nights came and went that he wasn’t there anymore. She compelled herself to forget them, to give up those feelings. She remembered that night he came back, but she didn’t even know how he felt. She felt like that night was it, her only chance to tell him how she felt ... but she missed it. She had accepted it and moved on to more nights without him.

She was wrong. Her night did come to take her leap of faith and this one night made up for every single one without him. She had felt the butterflies in her stomach leading up to the moment she saw him. Her mind had gone over it a thousand times, wishing and hoping to even get the slightest hint he felt as she did. It was the night she knew he was the one she had been waiting for.

She'd lay there, staring up at the ceiling, the air stood still. The melody faded in again, and the lyrics began. She relived that night, how the bright lights from outside spilled onto the white sheets of the bed. How his lips felt against her skin and his head against her shoulder. How those lyrics just fit. She hummed softly, eyes closed, wishing he was right there beside her listening. She could still smell his cologne on her hoodie as she pulled it closer to her. What she couldn’t say was how the very last verse felt even realer than before. All she could think of is how perfect it had been, how she had fallen all over again. Fallen even harder knowing he had wanted her before, and even more so then.

She smiled, feeling the blood rush to her cheeks as the song started over again for the millionth time. She smiled knowing everything night before that moment had been telling her to wait. They were only the prologue to her story, and that night ... that night was the first of many chapters. She finally knew why all those nights never quite worked. Because it was all leading up to something far better. There wouldn’t be any more empty nights. And that was the best thing she could have waited for.