"Perfect." She whispered happily, grinning at the mirror. Breathless thoughts. Perfect career, perfect boyfriend, perfect life. At last.
        "Rory, dear, are you coming? Our reservations are at six," an impatient male voice called from the living room.
        Aurora Kyla took in a deep, anxious breath. Tonight was the night. She took one last glance at her reflection, and smiled inside and out. She looked better than she had in a long time. Her long, wavy, caramel colored hair was loose and soft around her face, and her violet eyes were sparkling with anticipation of the night to come.
        "Coming," she whispered. Yes, tonight was definitely the night she had been waiting for all her life.
                                               
                                                ******

        "Oh my god...Nick, it's gorgeous," she breathed as they walked into Cloud 9, the newest, and most popular restaurant in Los Angeles. It featured a domed glass roof, which stretched down to the floor, with a view of the sky and city lights below. They seemed to shimmer against the velvet darkness of the sky even more each time she looked at them. "How did you manage to score reservations?"
        "Well," he smirked, "It's not exactly hard once you mention your girlfriend is a the infamous Aurora Kyla."
        "Infamous?" Aurora laughed, "How so?"
        "Shh..that's our little secret, dear," he said, winking, "but telling them your girlfriend is THE model of the moment sure doesn't make them say no."
        "NICK!" she replied, abashed. "I'm your girlfriend, not your free pass to anything your little heart desires." Sarcasm laced her sugar sweet tone. She could remember all too well staring at "THE model of the moment" in teenage tears.
        "Well, you do have your perks." He laughed again. She stared at his face in the candle-lit room, as taken with him as the first time she saw him. The light emphasized his deep green eyes and handsome features. She sighed happily. Who would have thought that a guy like this could ever be mine?
        "Excuse me, sir," a snobbish sounding waiter interrupted, "Your table is this way."
        Aurora exchanged amused glances with Nick as the waiter led them to their table. Gee, the waiter sure seems nice, she laughed inside. But her laughter was quickly extinguished when she saw Nick looking away with a deep, worried expression on his face. Something was not right.
        She gave him a look that asked "What's wrong?" He avoided her glance and turned away, pretending to study the intricate lacing of the table top next to him. Her nervous excitement quickly evaporated as she realized that the man she loved was in emotional pain.
        They sat down at the perfect table for two, right against the wall, where the sparkling city lights shone up at them from below.
        "Nick, what is troubling you so much?"
        He looked down.
        "Nothing," he replied, still staring down at the table top.
        "Nick, please, I can tell when something is wrong...please, tell me," she pleaded, "Please."
        He glanced up, his eyes connecting with Aurora's.
        "I guess there's no use hiding it from you, Rory," he sighed. "There is something wrong. But can we please get into it after dinner? Let's just enjoy the night."
        "Right," she replied nervously. Now her heart was racing overtime with anxiety. What could possibly be wrong? Don't say that,she thought, you'll ruin it. Tonight is perfect, no worries.Tonight you will become the next Mrs. Nicholas Montgomery.
       
        Dinner seemed to go by at the slowest pace possible. She laughed and talked with Nick, connecting through conversation as they always did, but the fact that there was something wrong with Nick loomed at the back of her mind like a dark cloud approaching. As she finished off her wine, she looked up and realized he was reaching for her free hand. This is it.
        "Aurora, I need to tell you what is on my mind."
        Her gaze searched his face, but he was looking down at the table again.
        "I need to tell you, that first of all, I'm in love with you, but you probably knew that already."
        But do you love me?
        "You personality, your face, your charisma...I love everything about you." He paused.
        "But when I went home last year, I went only for one reason. My heart belongs to a girl 3,000 miles away, back home, in New York," he finally met her gaze, which was now hazy with tears. "I have loved Sharon for as long as I can remember. We grew up together. Do you remember the night I met you? It was in that club downtown. I had just had a huge fight with Shar and was about to get drunk to drown my worries...oh god, Rory, I was so depressed. Then I saw you. You were laughing, dancing and singing some sort of song...you looked like an angel. You were my angel."
        She remembered it vividly.
        "I couldn't help but walk up to you," he continued, "and you were just as perfect as I had imagined. At first, I only intended for it to be a fling, because I knew Sharon and I would eventually get back together. But you were so addictive...everything about you made me stay with you. I am in love with you, Aurora, but I do not love you. I love Sharon."
        Bitter tears started trickling down Aurora's face.
        " Being around you has been one of the most exhilarating experiences of my life, and I want you to remember that." He was done.
                                                **********
        The next week passed in a haze, each day bleeding into the next for Aurora. She didn't leave the house, didn't answer the phone, didn't do anything but sit and think about her moments with Nick. She'd gone back to wearing her thick, black rimmed glasses instead of contacts because she didn't care what anyone else thought of her. Everything she saw or thought reminded her of him.
        A knock on the door at 2:30 am surprised Aurora, although she was already awake. She forced herself to get off of the couch and open the door.
        "WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?!"
        "EVIE!!" Aurora sobbed, embraced in her best friend's hug.
        "I mean, you don't call, you don't return my messages, what happened? Is Nick the dick treating you badly?" Eve raised an eyebrow.
        She looked at Aurora, who was about to burst into tears again.
        "Oh my gosh...Rora, was that the wrong thing to say? I caught the earliest flight down here I could, I was worried sick...what happened?"
        She explained it all again, in painful detail.
        "So he's been cheating on his long time girlfriend for a YEAR with you? A YEAR?! Rora...rora, I'm so sorry..."
        "It's ok," Aurora whispered, "I think I'm almost past the crying stage. Now I just feel numb."
        "I understand," Eve said, "it's going to be ok." She embraced her friend once again, who crumbled in her arms.

Eve could only stay for a few days. She needed to get back to her job back home, but she made Aurora promise to call every night and report how she was doing.
        "I'll miss you, Rora." The door closing echoed in the empty apartment, and Aurora was alone once again. However, Eve's visit made her decide that she needed to do more with her life than sit and wallow in her misery all day, so she grabbed a bottle of red wine and a copy of her favorite play, Romeo and Juliet, and headed out onto the balcony to read. The night sky and the twinkling lights below made her remember her night with Nick, but she pushed it back into her mind, trying to erase it. 21 and heartbroken. She smiled a bittersweet smile, sipped her cool wine, and opened the book up to her favorite scene, where Romeo sees Juliet on the balcony.
"Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven,
Having some business, do entreat her eyes
To twinkle in their spheres till they return."
she read. Nick had always said her eyes were like diamonds.
"O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?
Deny thy father and refuse thy name;
Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love...."

Where is my Romeo? she wondered. I've waited all my life for him. I lost 300 pounds, grew 7 inches, and suddenly Romeo just takes notice? That is not my Romeo. My Romeo will not care that I was in Vouge last week or that I was voted least popular in high school. I am Juliet, forever stuck on a balcony spouting poems and dreaming of love I cannot have.
She set the book down, not noticing or caring that it fell onto the balcony of the apartment below her. She lay back in the hammock she kept outside but rarely used, and watched the stars, which was fairly hard to do because of the city lights, but she could see them. They were always there, watching, sparkling down on her with their silver gaze. As she started to drift off to sleep, she noticed one rocket across the the sky.

Make a wish.

I wish that I could be anywhere but here. I wish for a romeo. she thought, smiling a sad smile to herself because she knew she would wake up just as alone, tired and cold as she was now.