It's More Than You Deserve
The Poet Dante
Chapter 1
Sometimes a lie is all you ever have to cling to. Nothing ever seems to make sense or fit together when you try to make them right. Our rights as human beings are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness right? No one ever told me that that meant that you could try to live how you wanted to but it never quite would work out that way, you could only be as liberal as they told you to be and you could pursue happiness all you like, but it would rarely give itself up.
Oh, put on your make believe face, my paramount companion of twelve years would insist before we left our apartment on the lower east end of New York. It was cold out in the middle of October, yet Michael, the previously referred paramount companion, insisted on wearing his frilly long-sleeve button-down and suspenders from the show he finished earlier that year. Michael did theatre, but he liked to call it "lying with a point." His tall hefty frame dwarfed mine as we ambled down the street with no intent, exchanging intimate jokes. I shuddered as the icy wind blew through my dark tresses that whipped against Michael's chest. In an act of chivalry he embraced me to spread his generous warmth.
We passed by the heat of a coffee shop in the heart of the city and stopped in. After ordering we sat at a table out on the street to admire the lights of the upper east side of the city.
"Your eyes twinkle in the light of all the people's lives." Michael almost recited to me.
Giggling I shrugged it off. Sometimes I feel bad because he was always trying to cheer me up. Spewing compliments as if his life depended on it. Saying things like, "You look wonderful tonight," even though we both knew I looked horrible. Just as he was continuing my eyes caught sight of a brooding raven-haired beauty sweeping past me into the coffee shop. Nodding as if I were listening to Michael I was left in a daze. A few minutes following he caught on.
"Monroe? Are you listening to me?"
Just as those words past, the raven-haired guy came blowing through the door and was approaching. As soon as he reached Michael he briefly smiled before the moment when his skull met the pavement.