It was one of those nights. A night when the light breeze of fall intercepted with the warmth of a fading summer. One of the nights when you wore a coat not because it was essential, but because the warmth made you feel protected. When you sat around with friends watching the sun go down and realizing yet another day had gone. And it was on a night like this that Harmony realized she had fallen in love.

Harmony never liked to think she was anything but ordinary. Although beautiful in her own right, Harmony wasn’t the type of girl that got a second glance, if she even got a first one at that. But that didn’t bother Harmony. She was happy just being herself and enjoying it. Although shy, Harmony was known to let loose when she was with her close knit group of friends. However, even with them she was not able to be exactly who she wanted to be.

Harmony had dreams. Big dreams. Not the kind of dreams that take you away from where you grew up to big houses and shiny jewelry. No. Harmony’s dreams included finding true love and keeping it. What she wanted was to be engulfed in bliss for the entirety of her life. To go to sleep and wake up being wanted and needed. So far the dream had yet to come true. But it had to start somewhere.

That night was one of many she had spent thinking. She always did that. Whether she wanted to or not, Harmony would blink and realize she was far away from everyone else staring up at the sky. That night was no different. Turning back towards the brightly lit patio, Harmony realized that she was not alone.

“I think you picked the best place to be at this party,” he said smiling down at her.

Harmony gripped her nearly empty glass and tried to smile back. He turned and nodded his head towards the sky. Harmony stood there, watching him watch the sky before averting her own eyes towards the night.

“You never really notice stars anymore,” he said.

Harmony nodded in agreement. She could tell he was looking at her. Trying to avoid the uncomfortable feeling and slight flush she knew was coming Harmony spoke.

“I sometimes wonder if someone else is looking at the exact same star as I am. I know that sounds cliché, but what if it’s true? Someone, somewhere else, is doing exactly the same thing as me, maybe even thinking the same thing, and I have no clue who they are.”

“Why does it have to be cliché?”

“You just said it: no one notices stars anymore. I do because I have nothing better to do. Most people don’t slink away from a party to look at stars.”

“Then I guess we’re not most people then, are we?”

Harmony won’t admit she fell for his charm or dashing good looks. It wasn’t even his sense of humor that did it. It was his eyes. And the way he smiled. And the way the two managed to connect when he let out a heartfelt laugh. The kind where you can see true happiness written on every part of your face. That is what sucked her in. That and the fact that he could simply stand with her for an hour and somehow make her smile without saying anything

It was hard for her to understand at first. What would he see in her? She knew she was smart, or rather, intelligent. She knew she was kind, and understanding, and all the qualities that people say “good people” have. But she wasn’t outstanding. She would even go so far as to say she was forgettable. She was just plain ole Harmony.

When she was little Harmony imagined love as this thing that makes all your pain and sadness disappear. Growing older she had changed her point of view. What Harmony looked for in love was a feeling of warmth, a feeling of comfort, and most importantly, the feeling of being so nervous and excited you can hardly hear what you are thinking. But if that had been the case Harmony would have been in love with many other things, hot chocolate being one of them. That night she realized there was more to love that just feeling it. It was about being. Being in that moment. Allowing yourself to just be.

“No one’s ever really asked me what I think about. They just-I don’t know, don’t.”

“Well I’m asking now,” he smirked.

“It all depends. Sometimes I think about my day, or the future, or what to have for dinner tomorrow.”

“And tonight? What were you thinking about?”

“Before you invited yourself to my thinking party,” Harmony played, “I was thinking that this is probably the last place I expected myself to be.”

“Why’s that?”

As Harmony gathered her thoughts she realized he was no longer staring up at the sky but was learning against a fence post staring at her. “Look around. This isn’t the kind of place a girl like me finds herself.”

“Well you’re here. So you must belong here.”

While Harmony will tell you she never pictured her love life as a fairy tale, she is lying to both you and herself. All Harmony ever wanted was a man to come and sweep her off her feet. To make her the center of the story. To show all those evil step-mothers and creatures of the forest that she was deserving of something better. She didn’t want to let herself think that because after all, she was just Harmony: ordinary girl from an ordinary town in the middle of an ordinary state. But deep down, somewhere deep down, Harmony knew it could happen. And on that night it felt like that little dream was pulling itself out of the “ordinary.”

“You aren’t like anyone else. You do know that, right?”

Harmony sighed, “Unfortunately.” He laughed. Standing in silence he spoke again.

“How does it feel knowing you can truly be yourself and no one cares who that is?”

Harmony had bid him goodnight when her friends came looking for her. She pushed them towards the house when they started making kissing sounds and shouting drunken slurs. She had nervously given him her phone number, knowing that he would never call. But that didn’t stop her from smiling the whole way home. Or the next day. It wasn’t until she pulled her magazine from her mailbox the following week and saw a picture of him that it hit her. There he was, huddled with his friends at the party, dressed as Prince Charming. And then her phone rang.