Alexander Dyer was a mystery even to his closest friends and even more to his childhood best friend Sebastian. He doesn’t disclose too many things about himself but liked to pretend that he was an open book for all to interpret. In truth, he was quite secretive and secluded in his own world which was why he enjoyed the Maison.

To Alex, it was a place of refuge out of the reach of his hovering mother and absent father. When he decided to tag along for the third time with Sebastian, he simply reasoned he was there to support his best friend. If he were to be honest he was there to relax. Time at the Maison was time for himself.

Coincidentally, at the Maison, he met someone from a faraway dream.

Alex didn’t ask much of people. He couldn’t and wouldn’t expect from them as he wished they would give him the same freedom. Expectations led to a bunch of disappointments that he could frankly do without. But complications, those were different entirely. He liked the complicated and often made things complicated when they weren’t.

That’s what Georgiana Mendoza was for Alex.

A game.

To Alex’s disappointment, Georgie backed down too easily— much easier than what Sebastian had told him.

There was nothing fun about silence.

So, he tried to pick on her over and over again until he saw her cry. After that, he thought, expectations started to seep into the game of complications. He expected her to back down. He expected her to break— to fall apart. But when she didn’t, Alex thought it was no fun. It's no fun to listen to silence and Georgiana was 'silence'.

She spoke. She spoke about a lot of different things. She asked questions. She pondered both in quiet and out loud. She sought out answers to questions in her head. She told stories about life not her own. She was all words but somehow, to Alex, there was nothing to listen to. Nothing about her was the truth.

In a way, Alex was 'silence' too.

He was all talk, laughter, and jokes. Nothing about him was true. Not even to his best friend Sebastian.

Which wasn’t all too surprising.

Sebastian was filled with stories of a girl in his dreams, dreams he’d been having since their preteens. Alex was filled with stories of a girl too. Except, they manifested after Sebastian’s first painting of the girl in the dreams.

For the first time in his life, Alex had fallen for a girl who didn’t exist and a girl his best friend cherished. Alex didn’t like expectations. He didn’t like that the girl was expected to be Sebastian’s girl. He didn’t like the thrumming in his head whenever he saw paintings of her. He didn’t like the fast beating of his heart when his dreams led him to her.

He didn’t like that he recognized her first.

He expected her to be incredibly beautiful. Out of this world beautiful. He’d wanted time to stop, for a cliché dramatic first meeting. He wanted her to see him and only him. He wanted her.

But expectations lead to disappointments and that was what Georgiana was to him.

She was a silent disappointment.

And Sebastian was a naive fool who kept a pessimistic friend by his side.

Alexander Dyer liked the kitchen as much as Sebastian did but not for coffee. He liked to rummage in the kitchen to get lost in his thoughts. He liked to make food, food that he could pour all his frustrations to and then eat. He would eat his frustrations because he couldn’t fight them.

Today, he would be making a sandwich.

The bread was his life. In between were everything that disappointed him like the very first time he met Georgiana and the disappointment he felt having to leave the Maison before she could figure out who they were… if she even was the girl from the dreams.

If she wasn’t, he’d be disappointed about that too.

It wasn’t okay that she was and it was wrong in every way if she wasn’t.

Alex doesn’t understand it himself. It’s like ordering a beef burger but getting tofu instead. The tofu wasn’t what he expected but it was good. It was tasty. He was disappointed having not received the beef but appreciated the tofu he’d received.

It was complicated, though not by his creation.

He didn’t like that.

So, he would go ahead and squish all the things he hadn’t expected or disliked into a sandwich. He’ll eat it and wonder why he’d fallen for a figment of his friend’s imagination.

After all, Georgiana hadn’t once pondered about Sebastian. Not once had she looked at them with curiosity. She didn’t like them. She despised Alex. She dodged them as best she could.

Sebastian chased. Alex followed.

He’ll add that to the sandwich too.