These Lovely Illusions - by Samuel Teoh

Heathcliff

The heat of bodies pressed against each other, the neon lights blinding our photoreceptors, the bass music pounding through the floor. Heathcliff thinks the appeal of a party is its blinding nature. He stands to the side, detached from the party. Silent, brooding, and observant like the character from Wuthering Heights who bears his namesake. 

We are here to be blinded by the lights, forget ourselves in the music, and lose ourselves in the crowd. He pulls out his phone and taps the keyboard furiously. That’s a good line.

The music ends, and the vibration of the floor stills, leaving the too-quiet emptiness in his legs. Heathcliff watches the staggered dancing, and some drunk teenagers open their eyes. He opens his phone again. “As death is to life and the end is to the beginning, the aftermath leaves us stranded.”

Heathcliff pauses and then types: “But is the finale what makes the journey valuable?”

A piano jazz riff replaces the pounding bass, and the mood in the room shifts from blazing yellow to nostalgic blue. Heathcliff’s eyes fall on a girl who sways in the middle of the crowd, rocking along to the swing of the music. Her eyes are closed, and her skin glows in the luminescent light. Her lips are curled upwards, and she has a slight smile.

Heathcliff’s heart stops.

Heathcliff’s heart stops. The music and the party noises fade into the background. He can no longer breathe – his brain no longer functions. 

His blood beats in his ears: ba-dum, ba-dum, ba-dum. 

He only thinks: “Is this love?”

His eyes trace the line of her body, the hollows of her cheeks, the smoothness of her porcelain skin—the waves of her golden hair glowing in the mellow lights, the curves of her perfect lips.

Her eyes open. She stares directly across the room at him.

His heart drops. It falls from the sky and into the earth, off the cliff, and plunges into the abyss. His gaze caught in her gaze, unable to look away, to stare only into the immense blue ocean of her eyes. 

She smiles.

The girl opens her eyes. Her eyes are blue and green like the ocean. Heathcliff watches her as she slowly dances to the piano, swinging and twirling. Her movements are graceful and smooth, weaving through the crowd. He doesn’t know how long he stays there, entranced, mesmerized, when the girl stops dancing.

She turns, and their eyes catch. Her eyes held the entire world and all his feelings in them.

Heathcliff writes those words on his heart to remember later so he can write them down on his phone. The words trace over his chest, written in dark red blood, burning into his flesh. He swallows as the girl walks closer.

Her legs sashay in step with the erratic beat of the piano. Her hips turn elegantly from side to side, like a model on a catwalk. She does not walk toward him – she floats through the air, under the lights, twirling like a ballerina.

She was filled with the magic of dance and music. She stops mere inches away from Heathcliff’s frozen body. She barely reaches over his shoulders, but in his eyes, she holds him in her hands. Her breath is soft on his cheek as she leans in to whisper in his ear, sending shivers down his spine: “Want to dance?”

“Want to dance?” she says.

The girl takes his hand. It is small, warm, and soft in his hands. Her hands feel like delicate silk, slipping like water through his fingers, pulling him into the crowd. They run along, slicing through the river, slipping through the moving masses—her prancing footsteps with his stumbling ones.

You’re beautiful, Heathcliff thinks, but doesn’t say. She turns around like she heard him and smiles, her perfect lips curving. She pushes close to him and places her hand on his chest, touching the words traced over his heart. The girl leans into him and they dance.

Her head rests against his chest, warm through the thin fabric of his shirt. The waves of her soft, golden hair tickle Heathcliff’s chin. He can smell strawberries and peaches and closes his eyes, relaxing.

She looks up at him, the lights casting shadows on her pale cheeks. “I’m Esme. What’s your name?”

“Heathcliff,” he says.

Esme

“Heathcliff,” he says.

Esme rakes her eyes across his sharp jaw, and her heart pounds brilliantly red in delight and excitement. She loves these color-splashed emotions: living life day by day, mystery after mystery, love without care. Her grandmother used to say that to be happy, you need to be free. To be free, one must live without judging anyone else’s thoughts.

His dark eyes stare at her, glimmering black and brooding. She slips her hand into his and pulls him through the crowd, twirling to the yellow jazz. She leans into his chest and breathes in his scent. Green and gray. Fresh and smoky. Grass and cigarettes? She doesn’t know what it is, but it smells good.

She tiptoes so that her mouth is close to his ear and whispers, “Dance with me.”

He smiles, and his entire face lights up with an unearthly purple glow, sending Esme’s heart staggering. Esme tangles her hand in his, and they sway to the piano so close that there is not an inch of space between them. Their cross-hatched shadows penciled on the floor blend until Esme cannot tell where he begins and she ends.

Esme brushes her fingers across the blank canvas in her mind, trying to paint this exhilarating feeling of love and joy. A splash of blue here. A sprinkle of yellow…

What is the color of Forever, Esme?

Forever? Golden.

Golden? I’m filled to the brim with gold, right now. 

She traces the curves of Heathcliff’s arms, marveling at the iron cords she feels under his shirt. Esme wonders if his heart is pumping brilliant red like hers. “What is the color of happiness, Heathcliff?”

He looks at her, and there is a yellow spark, a flash, a connection. “Black,” he says.

She laughs, tilting her face upward so that if she wants to kiss him, she needs only tiptoe and their lips will brush. 

Esme lies on the couch with her head on his lap, staring at the underside of his jaw as he plays with the ends of her golden hair. She draws a straight pencil line across the paper in her mind, shadowing the caves of his collarbone and tracing the muscles in his neck. 

“Wuthering Heights,” Esme says.

“That’s me, Heathcliff,” he sighs. “Dark and brooding, vengeful and unrequited love.”

She smiles and reaches up to touch his cheek with her hand. His skin is hot under her touch, burning red following her fingertips. “You seem to know a lot about love, Heathcliff.”

“‘Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same, ’” he says. “That was Catherine. She thinks that love is connection, it’s closeness, it’s similarity.”

Esme looks up at him as he looks down at her, their bright and dark eyes catching. Her burning heart falls into his burned one. Her pale hand is completely still in his.

‘Oh, God! It is unutterable! I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!” He says again, breaking away from her gaze and staring into the dancing crowd. “That was Heathcliff. He thinks that love is feeling, passion, and life.

“Living, to Heathcliff, is unbearable without Catherine. Life is impossible to live without love.” 

Esme sits up suddenly, shifting her legs so she leans into his side, her head resting on his shoulder. “Ask me,” she says. “Ask me what love is.”

“What is love, Esme?” Heathcliff asks, his voice low.

Esme stretches her leg across his lap, pushes him against the wall, and lowers her lips to meet his. His lips are warm against hers. His arms wrap around her body, bringing her closer to him. His hands are in her hair, pressing her mouth against his.

When they finally break apart, Esme smiles at his stunned expression. The piano begins its melancholy melody again, twinkling a nostalgic yellow. She leans in to whisper in his ear.

“This is love.”

Rome

Music is like love, his teacher once said. Music makes you feel alive.

With the music burning in Rome’s veins, singing through his heart, shivering down his spine, how can music be anything but love? He is everything in music, lost in the melodies of the piano, harmonies streaming from his fingers.

Music is like a river. Music flows from your heart.

Rome closes his eyes and dreams of living in a land of black notes and white pages. His fingers were on the wooden keys, hammer on the nail, and twinkling notes were twirling through the air. His feet are on the pedals, suppressing and emphasizing. When he closes his eyes, he is not a boy and his piano, but music together, entwined so tightly that no one can tell them apart from the melodies floating like smoke in the sky.

Music is like the sky. Music is everything.

In the corner of his vision, the silhouette of a girl stands, leaning against the window. A sliver of moonlight casts shadows across her face, highlighting the angles of her cheekbones and the curves of her lips. She doesn’t dance. She doesn’t close her eyes.

She’s staring at him.

Rome stutters on the piano, his finger catching on the edge of a key, before recovering and diving deeper into the music to cover up his stumble. Shit, Rome, get it together. He closes his eyes and tries to focus on the music.

Music is like… music is like a girl. Music is beautiful and ever elusive.

Beautiful girls are never good for him; they ask him out, and he can never say no. Giggly, flirting, shiny girls with plastic smiles and stick legs. They love his romantic persona and sexy character.

And they always dump him, in the end.

Rome finishes the piece, the piano trailing away, and the last note is the barest touch on his heart. He inhales to begin a new song when someone taps him, a soft glance on his shoulder.

It’s the girl.

She’s drop-dead gorgeous.

Blood rushes into his face. Heat threatens to render him unconscious, pounding through his head. Rome cannot breathe, think, or see anything but the girl and her eyes.

They pierce through him, soft and sharp, blue and green. Her mouth and lips are perfect, pressing together slightly, curving like the bright side of the moon. Her skin emits an angelic glow, brilliant and hazy. She is model-thin, model-beautiful, model-everything.

“Hello,” she says. She has an accent – a British lilt? An Australian tang? Rome swallows, but his throat is dry.

“Hi?” he croaks. He clears his throat. “Was there something you wanted?”

“I just thought,” the girl smiles shyly. Rome notices every moment of her lips, every strand that falls over her delicate eyes. “Your piano sounded beautiful.”

“Thanks,” Rome says. He almost says that’s what they all say, but stops himself. They never like it whenever he talks too much.

“Do you want to?” the girl leans closer, and Rome smells the minty scent of her perfume. 

Music is like love.

“Get a drink or something?”

Music makes you feel alive.

Juliet

All my heart is yours, sir: it belongs to you.. You ¹

“Do you want to get a drink or something?”

Juliet wonders if this is fate. She wonders if this is love at first sight. Her heart thumps with every shy glance the boy gives her, her body tingles with an itch to touch his arms, and her mind fills with thoughts of his hands in her hair. The boy blinks, the tips of his eyelashes touching his cheeks.

“Sure.” His voice is low.

She takes his hand in hers and pulls him gently into the crowd. They find a dark corner and lean against the wall, each holding a glass of something sweet and bitter. It burns Juliet’s throat as it goes down, gurgling in her stomach, sending sparkles of energy buzzing through her veins. She looks up at the boy, standing next to her, the darkness muddling his features, but Juliet can imagine his eyes thoughtful, his mouth curved, his lips parted.

Music pounds through the floor, bass rumbling through her legs. The crowd of teenagers moves in syncopated heaving, bumping to the rhythm. Juliet leans against the boy and shouts above the noise, “What’s your name?”

She could barely hear the boy above the music, but it sounded like he said, “Romeo.”

Romeo?

Her heart skips several beats, and a shiver dances down her spine. Is this fate? Juliet tangles her fingers into his hand, pulling him away from the crowd and up the stairway. A fabulous night breeze kisses Juliet’s cheek as she opens the door, and they enter the roof.

She turns to face him and smiles.

“I’m Juliet.”

Give me my Romeo; and, when he shall die, take him and cut him out in little stars…²

“Sometimes I lie here at night and think,” she says.

“What do you think about?” Romeo sits next to her. The stars are love notes on a dark canvas. They sing Juliet love songs about death and unrequited love, but she could never feel happier, more alive, more in love.

“I think about love.” Juliet sighs, blowing a trail of white mist towards the stars. “I look up at these twinkling lights and wonder if maybe…”

“Maybe what?”

She swallows and turns to face him. His dark eyes reflect the night sky and make her feel like she’s falling into them. “Maybe my Romeo is looking at the same stars I’ve fallen in love with.”

They stare at each other. “Is he?” she whispers.

“He is.”

Love

Heathcliff sits alone on the sofa in the back of the room. The places she touched are cold: his shoulder, chest, and lips. He draws a picture of this feeling of loneliness in words. The aftermath always leaves us stranded.

I should write that down. He pulls out his phone to tap the letters and save them for later. The words wrap tightly around his chest, bandaging the gaping hole that love left in his heart. But blood still leaks through and trickles from his eyes.

Across the room, Esme kisses another boy with a name she won’t remember tomorrow. Colors bloom from her lips, warmth crawling through her body. Colors of red and blue, black and white, and purple and green, burst and explode with every touch.

Esme paints the colors of Forever with her paintbrush. Her colors are bright and lovely. Her colors disappear quickly, so she needs to repaint them with the colors she earns from the next boy.

And the next. And the next.

On the roof, Juliet tells Romeo that she wants the night to last forever, but it won’t. She wants the night to be perfect and not end in a long-term relationship, arguments, and the inevitable breakup. She wants this to be a beautiful scene from a romance novel that she can return to when she’s fifty.

Romeo never tells Juliet his name is not Romeo. Would it ruin her perfect night? She doesn’t say she dumped him or rejected him, or anything else, but they all mean the same thing. Rome was dumped again by a gorgeous, shiny girl.

And each of them, perhaps in five minutes or thirty years, will hear “Love never dies.” 

They will laugh.

Love never dies? Ridiculous. Love dies every day and comes alive tomorrow.

---

About The Author

Samuel Teoh is a homeschooled high school sophomore living in Taiwan. He loves to drink bubble tea, listen to K-pop, and read/write stories in his free time.

---

Edited by Tori S.

Cover page by Jiaying C.