April 11, 2018

Jonah was stretched out on his bed in his hotel room, arms crossed over his chest and eyes closed. Though his body was exhausted from the Boston show, his mind was moving.

Modern society had an infatuation with being in love that he knew wasn't realistic. Of course, anyone could look at the movies, books, t.v. shows, etc. that glorified cliché love and line it up to reality and observe that most—if not all— of it's aspects didn't occur in such sunshiny, flawless ways. The relationships that began from accidentally texting the wrong number, becoming best friends the next day, or with a girl crying helplessly in a public place when a young guy rushed to her aid, staying by her side every moment after that, or with one of the two moving to a new school and making eye contact with the person they'd be in love with the next day were the ones that didn't make any logical sense to him at all. Life—in nearly all situations—simply didn't play out that way.

Life, instead, was full of people.

Some would be his family, and they would stick by his side as long as they lived. Others would be his best friends, and they would be closer to him than anyone else. Still others would be acquaintances, those he could carry on a conversation with easily in the moment of being together. Finally, there would be those who would remain strangers to him. The people he smiled at in malls and stores and on the street, those he held doors for at restaurants who thanked him as they passed, those he may have exchanged a few words with in a brief display of friendliness.

The last category was where the majority of people he saw over the course of his lifetime would fall into place. He was acutely aware that almost everyone he ever came in contact with would remain strangers to him. Sure, he may learn their name or where they were from, but he would never know them. He would never know their quirky personality traits, their range of pickiness about food, their likes, dislikes, family backstory. And he had come to terms with it because that was just the way it was.

When he met Eliska in that coffee shop in Chicago, he expected their encounter to end in the same manner because he knew the truth: she would fall into the last category.

That's why he didn't dwell on meeting her after she left the building the first time they spoke. That's why he walked away to the bus when he and the boys left the city behind, continuing their tour. That's why he told himself that he was never going to see her again, because that was just the way life happened.

But then she went to Atlanta.

She showed up in front of him in the meet and greet line, sporting that half smile, and he couldn't deny that he hadn't thought about her since the last time he saw her.

She should have remained a stranger to him, but as he laid in his dark hotel room in Boston, he realized that in a life full of people, he wanted her to be more than someone in the last category.

So he sat up. Even though he knew he shouldn't, even though he was risking some kind of backlash from the fans, he sat up and he fumbled around in the dim light for his phone.

He searched her first and last name, and sure enough, she was already following him on Instagram.

He raised his head, eyes straying to the window that was overlooking a street of the city, getting lost in the daze of streetlights and passing vehicles.

Then he sighed softly, making up his mind.