Tonight

A woman sits in the corner, the hot lights and the gray smoke staining her face a blurred white. Her pallid eyes gaze steadily at a man sitting alone at a table under a flickering light.

The man with the dark eyes has not noticed anything out of the ordinary. He came in for a pitcher of beer. And maybe some company, he likes to tell himself as if he could actually stop thinking about her and wanting her long enough to wish for someone else. All he’s ever really done is come here after work, and collapse into a chair under the hard brightness and leather faces. No more letter-writing or pointless calls or unsent e-mails or wishes on the stars- nothing more. Just the liquid amber that drips sluggishly down his beard and falls like tears drops onto his stained collar.

He knocks back the rest of his glass and through dull habit begins to fill it again- until he hears what sounds like the rustle of fabric, a dress on pale, slender legs.

Pastel lips brush against his ear. “Let’s make it work tonight,” she whispers.

He touches his shoulder and holds a lock of yellow hair that was resting there. He stares in wonderment at it.

A hand seizes his and they rise and escape from the hazy neon lights.

They travel past the darkened cars and sit on the gravel where the street lights can barely reach.

Quiet.

“I thought you wouldn’t come back.”

The air is warm and lies heavily upon them.

“No kidding,” she breathes.

The man looks up, the stars are being suffocated by gray clouds. “What… Why did you come back?”

“…I missed you.”

“And I loved you.”

“Listen to me.” The woman holds the man’s face between her soft palms. She searches his eyes for a flicker of the old him, a sign of life in those dark eyes. “I love you. You have no idea how frightening that is to me. I ran away because I didn’t want to be tied down to something like love. Something I thought would never last. But… I came back because… Because without you…” She drops her hands and her eyes. “It’s like there’s nothing out there in this big, old world. Just hard eyes and sadness in every smile you care to seek… And… I was just hoping, wishing—“

“I love you.” The man lifts her chin gently with his fingertips. “Have for a long time. Never stopped. Believe me.”

“I… I do.”

The sides of his mouth lift softly. “Good…” He gently traces her bottom lip with his fingers.

“Is… Are we…”

“No. We won’t be the way we used to be.”

“Oh.”

“But you know I love you.”

“Yes.”

“Always?” he insists with his dark eyes.

“Yes,” the woman breathes. “…And you know I love you? Always?”

“Always,” the man murmurs and closes the distance between them.

And they meld together like two colliding stars in the clear night sky.



Maybe… Wishing on stars…

Is for everyone.

The children, the dreamers, and the lovers alike.

Those who still believe.