"Why aren't you laughing?" She asked beside me.
"What do you mean?"
"I just told you that I'm applying as a corporate analyst, why aren't you laughing?"
She elaborated, a sad smile on her face.
"Because it's not a laughing matter," I answered in a serious tone.
She let out a fake laugh that couldn't hide her pain.
"It is, especially that I spent most of our childhood days bragging about how I'm going to be a doctor and save all the lives I could."
She looked at the night-time sky, and somehow I knew that she just doesn't want me to see the pain in her eyes, so I just looked at the sky, too, and started to trace the moon with my finger.
"Did you try?" I asked, voice so low that I'm not even sure she heard.
"Yes," she answered, choosing not to explain further.
"Then that's all that matters. You'll be fine."
She looked at me, eyebrows curled as if she couldn't believe what she just heard.
"That's it?"
She didn't even try to hide the confusion in her voice.
"You're not going to say that I shouldn't give up, that I should keep trying, and all that stuff?"
I chuckled at the look on her face. "No."
"Why?"
Then I looked back at the sky, this time focusing on the stars and the empty spaces between them.
"Because we're not kids anymore," I started, meaning every word with all my heart.
"Now I know that we can't get what we want just because we want them. Not even if we work so hard for them, because I learned that some things just don't work out no matter how hard we try. Not everyone is cut out for their dreams. And to live your life trying to chase something that's not meant for you is the easiest way to be unhappy."
Then she was silent for a while.
"Have you given up on a dream, too?"
I let out a sad smile, then I answered, "More times than I can count."
She rested her head on my shoulder, an old technique of hers so I won't see her crying.
Her voice always gives her out, anyway.
"How can you do it?" She asked, voice cracking mid-sentence.
"I look at the stars."
Then, with her head still on my shoulder, she looked at the stars, too.
"How does that help?" She asked curiously.
"Well, you can laugh at this," I started, somehow embarrassed at what I was about to share.
"But I believe that there are multiple universes out there, and that we all have a version of ourselves in each one of them. I look at the stars at night and imagine that each of them is another universe with a different version of me. And whenever I have to give up on a dream, I always look at the stars, kind of wondering which one of them has the version of me who gets to make that dream come true.
I don't know, I guess it's a silly thought, but it just becomes easier for me to accept that something's not meant for me when I look at it that way. That maybe in another universe, in another life somewhere out there, the dream I'm about to give up here is my reality. And I can live with that."
Then she was totally silent for a long time.
"Now, go on, you can laugh at it," I snickered, suddenly shy.
"No, I won't," she answered, still looking at the stars. "That's beautiful".
"Really?" I asked, still unsure.
"Really."
Artwork: wifi313
// from my self-published book, For All Things Beautiful.
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