The Boy on the Bridge

by Sam Mariano

“I always loved you, and if one loves any one, one loves the whole person, just as they are and not as one would like them to be.” -Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

“Then I’ll just hang out with you, anyway. I’ll tell anyone who side eyes you for your bad fashion sense that you’re an alien who only recently arrived on our planet,” he promises.

“Wasn’t it your buddy Tolstoy that said ‘Nothing is so necessary for a young man as the company of intelligent women’?”

“I’m too hot to stalk someone. When I do it, it’s called courting,” he tells me.

Love is a serious mental disease. -Plato

“Your boyfriend is well on his way to being my favorite customer,” he informs me. “As a boyfriend, I’m not sure if he’s really great or really terrible, but as a customer, he gets five stars.” I crack a smile. “He’s not my boyfriend.” “Well, my flower shop is very appreciative of your relationship, whatever it is.”

“My nightmares are usually about losing you. I'm okay once I realize you're here.” -Peeta (You’ve made me quote my fictional nemesis. Good job.)

He is Satan, and now I realize I am much more comfortable with the devil I know.” She gestures around the foyer. “Hence my presence here in Hell.”

“She told me that a relationship is like a bank account. The more you invest, the more you’ll get out of it over time, and I like that. But she also told me you can’t afford to make too many big withdrawals.”