Puzzle Pieces
Let me make something clear before I begin.
Real life's nasty. It's cruel. It doesn't care about happy endings and the way things should be and the hero who is supposed to get the girl – or, in this particular case, the boy.
In real life, people die. Fights are lost. Hearts are broken. And the hero doesn't always get the boy.
Because this is a real story, the hero doesn't get the boy. It's the poorly written side character who gets the boy. And it's the hero who gets his heart broken.
This story starts on a rainy Friday in late August. At first glance, it doesn't seem like a very special Friday. But it's the day the hero, Cas, and the boy, Dean, he would live happily ever after with – if this was an imaginary story – first cross paths.
The hero and the boy grow closer over the years, and they change each other. It's what you'd call character development, I guess. They were very much alike when they first met, both with a head full of ideas and sparkling eyes and contagious laughter, but years later, they fit together like two puzzle pieces.
They like the same food. They laugh about the same jokes. They listen to the same music. They read the same books. They have the same friends.
But it's the little differences that make them… special.
It's the fact that while the hero likes English, the boy likes math. It's the fact that while the hero watches action movies, the boy watches comedies. It's the fact that while the hero prefers popcorn, the boy prefers nachos.
They are friends, best of friends. And if this was a fairytale, they would eventually get together and live happily ever after.
But it isn't. And so, again on a rainy Friday, but this time in March, real life starts kicking in.
It's the day the boy meets the side character, Lisa. The side character who would grow to be the one to be responsible for breaking the hero's heart. Plot twist, you'd call it.
Those two, they don't fit together. They like some of the same things, but they fight about far more things. They fight about which pizza to get. They fight about which city to go to. They fight about basically everything.
But because this is real life, and because circumstances and pressure and ten thousand other things besides fate play a role too, they ignore it. They try anyway.
They slam against each other, try to make it fit, and by doing so, they break all the puzzle pieces.
And when the boy finally realizes that he's meant to be with the hero, it's too late. Their puzzle pieces don't fit together anymore.
So the boy stays with the side character. He stays with her because it might've seemed wrong before, but they made it fit, and now it's the right thing to do. He stays with her because this is real life, and there's no such thing as fate or meant to be.
And so this story doesn't end with two princes living happily after.
It ends with a hero endlessly wondering where he went wrong.