Alyssa

16

Manic Pixie Dream Boy
The sun rose and everything fell. Everything in Alex’s life seemed to fall away. Her hope, meaning, and dreams. She grabbed a pair of headphones from her desk and blasted Glowing Fairies, an underground indie band that may or may not actually exist. Closing her eyes, she thought of how no one seemed to understand her. Not even her Boring Disposable Boyfriend…or ex-boyfriend as of an hour ago.
Charles, her Boring Disposable Boyfriend, had met her at her favorite, small coffee shop. He’d, of course, only ordered plain water, while she sipped from her black, eerily complex coffee. Charles was always too simple, too ordinary for Alex. Whenever she spouted some complicated literature analysis, he just stared blankly at her and nodded, even though she knew he didn’t understand her complex thoughts. He was, after all, a boy, and boys were too stupid to understand intelligent conversation.
So she broke up with him. Charles had looked upset, but Alex felt free. She was finally free from her suffocating relationship.
“You’re just too…boring for me,” she explained to him.
“What do you mean?” he asked her.
“Charles, you don’t even know who the Glowing Fairies are and the literature you read is tasteless…if it can even be called literature,” she said.
He’d left and Alex felt no remorse. She downed her burning hot coffee, which scorched her throat and left.
The sun had set, eclipsing the world in utter darkness. She had not realized that while she sat in the coffee shop, hours had gone by. As she drove away she began to feel it: a creeping sadness taking over. The streetlights in her neighborhood illuminated the street. The darkness surrounded the street lights and the light they illuminated. Alex thought that it completely represented her feelings. She thought it was beautiful…in a sad way. As sadness, she thought, is beautiful.
Then she saw a tall, shadowy figure running across the lawn, straight towards her car. Eileen locked her doors instantly and jumped when he pressed his face against the passenger side window. She sighed when she noticed it was her neighbor, Tom. His blonde hair was messy and his cheeks were flushed.
When she rolled down the window, he folded his arms against the door. “What are you doing at this hour?” he inquired.
“Driving home,” she muttered.
He raised an eyebrow. Reaching inside, he unlocked the door and jumped into the passenger seat. Alex began to protest, but he shushed her. “Just drive,” he told her. Alex gave him a questioning look, but he gestured forward. She still didn’t move. When Tom reached across, as if to grab the steering wheel, she pushed his arms away and drove forward.
He looked anxious. Tom wore a thick sweater that she knew he probably made himself out of llama hair. His beat up Converse were covered in Sharpie doodles, as were his jeans. He was crazy and eccentric and made Alex both confused and curious. He was new and exciting and, well, the complete opposite of Charles, her Boring Disposable Ex-Boyfriend. Charles was always clean and wore nice polo shirts and khakis. Like most boys, Charles did not understand Alex. Tom was different. Tom was not like other boys.
She didn’t stop driving until they pulled up into a grass field that faced a dark lake. The moon was reflected in its surface. Just like the streetlights, the lake was also sadly beautiful. Tom jumped out of the car and raced towards the sad, beautiful lake.
“What are you doing?” Alex called to him. He just waved his arms, gesturing for her to follow him.
She laughed to herself and jogged towards him. He stood at the edge of the water, his shoes off. Stretching his arms towards the sky, he looked at her. “It’s so calm. The water. The world. Right now, at night.”
Alex nodded.
“It’s so rare to find a place this…quiet. In the world.”
Alex nodded, who somehow understood his nonsense. His crazy, beautiful nonsense. She took his hand and stared out at the lake.
Tom pulled away and ran into the water, clothes still on. Alex laughed. “Are you crazy?”
“A little. Come in the water!” he yelled. Alex crossed her arms and shook her head. “Come on! You have to live a little!”
Alex considered this. He was right. In order to actually live you had to jump into a lake fully-clothed at night. She couldn’t believe what she was about to do. And then she ran and jumped into the lake.
Tom smiled as she surfaced, his blue eyes shining in the moonlight. His eyes, like the streetlights and the lake, were sadly beautiful. They showed sadness. And beauty. At that moment, Alex realized that Tom understood her. Not like her other boyfriends or other boys. Even though she’d barely spoken to him and she barely knew him, he understood her. They barely said anything, but Alex felt like Tom understood her in a crazy, sad, beautiful way.
“I was thinking. About what you said,” she began. “The world is never quiet, except when people sleep or there’s no life or something. Like you’re in the middle of nowhere.” Tom nodded. “Maybe when all life dies on Earth, the world will finally be quiet.” She shook her head and look down self-consciously. “I don’t know. It’s stupid.”
Tom smiled. “Maybe.” Alex thought that he was sadly beautiful.
They each stood there in the water, talking about the complexity of quietness in the world. They shared theories about quietness and the world and how complex humans were and how complex life was and how complex quietness was.
Eventually, they left. Alex dropped Tom off and drove back home. Her clothes clung to her uncomfortably. She felt changed. She was changed. She truly lived. Tom literally showed her to live.
When she got home, she stopped to ponder life. Maybe she had to do crazy stuff every once in a while. Maybe she had to jump into a lake fully-clothed sometimes. Alex stared at the door handle and slowly turned the knob.