"...And when one of them meets the other half—the actual half of himself—the pair are lost in an amazement of love and friendship and intimacy, and one will not be out of the other's sight, as I may say, even for a moment."

—Plato 

We collapsed together on rumpled sheets and stayed mostly still for the longest time. With my head on Julian's chest in that quiet room, I could actually hear his breathing begin to slow, returning to a normal rate. His heart lulled, as a big smile spread across his face, with his eyes still closed. My own heart would not cooperate in the same way, so I tried my best to mask my still-heavy breathing, by taking deliberately long—and hushed—intakes of air. 

"You are amazing," Julian finally spoke, turning toward me. He slowly opened his peace-filled eyes. 

Julian was looking for me to say something, anything, but I could not make the words come out. 

"I mean, you are absolutely incredible. I have never experienced anything likethat before." Julian pieced the words together slowly, thoughtfully. He brushed the bangs back out of my eyes, gliding a finger along my cheekbone. "I'm not just saying that, Brooke."

Still, I had no words. I looked into his burning brown eyes and searched hopelessly for the best way to tell him exactly what I was feeling. But how could I? How could I have explained, in simple terms, what it felt like to be offered the world, when I did not deserve it?

"You... had fun, right? I mean, was I really that bad?" he asked, nervously chuckling. "I don't mean to disappoint. I—" 

"Julian," I interjected. "This has been the best night of my life. I'm sorry, I'm still just taking everything in."

There was a deep curiosity in the luster of his beautiful eyes, as he stared intently. 

"I think you can understand how this would be overwhelming for someone like me." Once the words had left my mouth, I pulled in my bottom lip.

"Someone like you?" Julian asked, amused. He shifted, in an effort to secure his arm around my shoulder.

"Yeah, I mean, someone like me... getting to spend this time with someone like you," I managed to say. 

"Brooke, I'm just like you," Julian said, his voice gentle and serious. "I'm not better than anybody."

"But you are," I said. 

"What you see out there..." He paused, and looked to the edge of the bed, away from our bodies, beyond our toes. "It's all just a projection of what others want me to be. I'm just a regular guy."

"A regular guy, huh?" I smirked at his choice of words.

"A regular guy," he repeated, returning his vision to my face, with a soft smile of his own. "Nothing special here. In fact, I envy you in a lot of ways."

"Envy me? I don't know about that," I said. 

Julian appeared pensive, and lost within his own thoughts. All the while, his stare remained on me. 

I wondered what he was thinking. I wondered what he was really seeing. The seconds were agony, as I was forced to guess.

"I... guess I should probably go," I nervously muttered.

As much as I wanted to stay exactly like this, for the rest of my life, I started to move. I imagined that he was done with me. I should have been getting dressed, and back to Laina, before I overstayed my welcome. 

I knew he was too much of a gentleman to kick me out after everything, so I wanted to make it easier on him. I stirred, willing my muscles to move a little quicker. 

"Wait, Brooke." Julian held my forearm, pulling me gently back onto his chest. "Can you stay with me for just a few minutes longer?"

I looked at him, confounded. 

"Please?" he asked, with just a hint of urgency in his voice. "You can't imagine how lonely these rooms can feel late at night."

"I can, actually," I started. "Of course, I'll stay a while with you." 

Julian pulled the covers over us, as the air conditioner kicked on. "Good, because I wasn't going to let you go, anyway," he joked. 

How I wished he was serious.

"Where is your next show?" I asked. I hadn't even left the room yet, and already, I felt as though I missed him. 

"Los Angeles. Then Vegas. But after that, we get to go to Florida," Julian said, with a light in his peculiar eyes. 

"You'll love Florida," I stated matter-of-factly. In that moment, I was reminded of how much I missed my home state. 

"Yeah, I'm sure I will." There was a strange and perceptible affection in his voice, as his pupils moved around my features. "But I think this is my new favorite place in the states."

I felt the blood returning to my face. A million little butterflies were set loose in my stomach.

Julian was looking at me, not saying a word. He was not simply looking at me just to look, but rather, he was seeing me. I noticed him studying my face, as his pupils moved around my features. He was taking the time to look at me, inside me, and not through me.

For the briefest moment, I got a sense of what it would have felt like to be important. Worthy. Special.

Nobody had ever looked at me the way that Julian was, and I was nearly positive that nobody ever would again. 

Several more seconds passed like this, and I was growing a bit uncomfortable by the attention, so I broke the silence with a laugh. "Why are you staring like that?" 

"I'm just thinking," Julian finally said. Softly, apologetically. He shook his head and looked down at the sheets. 

"Hey, if you need to use the restroom or get a drink or anything, you are more than welcome," he offered, changing the subject. "You can even grab a warm shower, if you feel like it. There are tons of fresh towels that you can use. I mean, make yourself comfortable."

I already was. And how could I have wasted a single precious second away from him? I wanted each one to absorb into my consciousness. Too much time was slipping away. 

Silent moments. Rough hands. Loud eyes.

"Say something," he whispered.

"I feel like I can't make sense of anything right now," I replied, just as softly, on shortened breath. "I just know... I won't ever forget this."

Him. I would never forget him.

Julian's gaze was unfaltering. He looked, as if there was anything left to see. Gingerly, he took my hand into his, and I let my arm fall slack. I felt the curves and grooves of his skin, as he started to play with my fingers. 

He stroked the length of each one, moving from right to left—and from joint to nail-bed—then back again. He moved tenderly, needing to touch each fingertip, as if he might have noticed a difference between them.

He moved downward. I allowed him to guide my hand, however he wished. So gently, he began tracing shapes into my palm, and several of them were hearts. I felt something similar to what the beginning of falling in love might have felt like. 

I shook the idea from my head, before it could plant roots there.

He moved downward again, caressing my skin in slow motion. I was so relaxed that I barely even noticed.

"May I ask you something?" he whispered.

I merely nodded. 

"What happened here?" He timidly brushed along my wrist, moving up to my forearm. Julian's fingers trailed down clean, raised lines of healed skin.

"Oh, uh." I stumbled over my words. "Yeah, just a little accident." 

He was not buying it. And I could not quell the rampant concern in his eyes. 

"Yeah, so," I blathered on. "What time is it, anyway?"

There was a change in Julian's face, and it worried me. I only caught it a moment before he looked back, at the alarm clock docking station by his side of the bed. 

"3:56 a.m." Julian said, his voice still a little uneasy. 

"Aren't you tired?" I asked, desperate to lead the topic somewhere new. 

"No, are you?" Julian asked. 

"No, I don't need much sleep," I explained. 

"Then neither do I," he added. 

The discomfort settled somewhat, as Julian grinned at me, and I felt at peace again. 

"This might sound very strange to you," he said. "But I feel like I've known you for quite a long time."

"Yeah." I furtively wet my lips, in mock concentration. "Yeah, I feel like I recognize you from somewhere, too... Somewhere..."

"You're getting to know the real Julian," he replied seriously. "I don't know what it is about you, Brooke, but I feel so comfortable. Like I can just be myself." 

He trailed the back of his index finger along my upper arm.

"It's as if I don't have to hide," he added. 

He didn't. Not with me. 

"I just have this strong feeling," Julian said, quieter. "I hope I'm not wrong about you."

His face fell. It was in that moment I realized just how lonely Julian must have been. 

My heart ached as I envisioned his life—constantly on the move and surrounded by people, yet totally alone all the same. Although he was already widely loved, he felt it was for the wrong reasons. Julian always had to worry about who he could trust, and I bonded with him quietly in this way, understanding at least a little bit.

"I know it doesn't mean much coming from someone that you just met last night," I said, "but you can trust me."

There was a promise in my voice. At his recognition of this, Julian reached for my hand again.

"Somehow, I think you're right."

There was a beautiful pressure to his hand, as it gently squeezed mine. And I would've loved to keep appreciating how the spaces between his fingers allowed just enough room for mine to slip through them. Two light knocks on the hotel door, however, jolted both of us.

"You stay here," Julian said, while getting up to put his sweatpants back on. He walked, backwards, out the bedroom of the suite and towards the front door. 

I used these spare moments alone to get dressed again, myself. Haphazardly, I ran my fingers through my hair, as a makeshift comb. 

I heard the door shut in the suite and Julian reappeared in the doorway of the bedroom, holding my cell phone in his hand. 

"Nick—my, uh, security—says someone's been phoning you like mad," Julian said. "I guess your mobile's been vibrating in his pocket this whole time. He didn't want to interrupt, but he wanted to make sure there wasn't some type of emergency or something." 

Julian handed me the phone. 

Sixty-two missed calls, and I imagined all from Laina. I was so selfish to have left her stranded in a dark, empty parking lot overnight. Guilt started to consume me. Although I knew in my heart how rare this opportunity was, and how much I would kick myself for ending it early, I had to get back to my friend. This perfect, crazy, unbelievable night had to end at some point, and I felt that my time was up.

"Is everything okay?" Julian asked, with genuine concern. 

I guessed that my face had conveyed more emotion than I originally suspected. 

"I think so. I just really have to get back to my friend," I explained. "She's been waiting for me this whole time. I need to make sure she's alright."

I wanted to tell him I would stay for as long as he wanted me there, if he would just ask me to. 

I wanted him to need me, as much as I was starting to believe I needed him. 

I wanted to touch him, and although we just had the most incredible sex of my life, I felt like Julian was off limits again—our clothes serving as a symbolic barrier of who he was and who I was. 

I was nothing. He was something too treasured, too prized, for my hands to feel. Simply too valuable for me to touch. And suddenly, he was a stranger again.

Just as my thoughts were about to destroy my bliss, Julian walked up to me. He wrapped his arms around me tightly, while kissing my forehead. "Okay, Brooke."

His grip tightened, infinitesimally. 

"I'm so glad you came tonight," he added, in a whisper so low, it almost felt like he was speaking only to himself.

I concentrated with all of my power, forcing myself to create a memory of this so vivid that I would remember it until the final day of my life. His scent. How the softness of his lips contrasted his rough fingers on my skin. How his arms seemed to envelop me completely, and force out the rest of the world. The burning of his warm chest against mine. The soft cadence of his breath, as he sighed and inhaled. 

Don't let go, don't let go, don't let go, I thought.

He let go.

"Hey, before you go, will you help me with something?" Julian asked. 

"Yeah, of course," I said. "What do you need?"

"I've misplaced my mobile," he said. "I know it's here somewhere. Could you phone me, so it'll ring and I can find it?"

I pulled up my recent calls and quickly skipped through all of Laina's. Julian looked on, interested. I found his number from several hours earlier, when he had called to invite me over.

"You didn't save my number in your contacts?" Julian asked, smiling. 

"I didn't think you would want me to," I chimed back. 

"Well, I trust you. Add me, just don't use my real name as your contact. I never use real names for any of mine," Julian explained. "Just in case." 

"But, you asked me to put myself in your contacts, and I used my real first name," I said.

"Yeah, but I've changed it," Julian replied, while looking by the bed for the source of the vibrating sounds.

"To what?" I asked.

Julian reached down by the bed, finding his lost phone, and held it up to show me the screen. "Memorable."

1. "A Sky Full of Stars" (cover) by Boyce Avenue

2. "Heart Out" by The 1975

3. "Stay With Me" (cover) by Boyce Avenue

4. "What Makes You Beautiful / One Thing / Gotta Be You" (cover/mashup) by Anthem Lights

5. "22" by Gavin James (Thank you, )

6. "Use Somebody" (cover) by Boyce Avenue