“Justin if you had to choose between your life now and true love what would you pick?”

“I don’t understand.”

“If you had to pick true love or the life that you are living now what would you pick?”

“I don’t know.”

“What if I gave you the chance to see what it would be like to have true love would you take it?”

“Just to try?”

“Yes.”

“Ok.”

It was a dirty small apartment that Justin and Kane shared.

It was enough for them though.

They lived down the street from South Street in Philadelphia on the fifth floor.

They didn’t go out much, but when they did they made it worth it.

Justin went out more often then Kane though.

He went down to the small CD store down the street where she worked to watch her.

He would buy things that he didn’t need to just look at her or just stand around in the store and watch her.

Her name was Vanessa and she was tall with long jet black hair and crystal blue eyes.

Justin thought she was an angel, but even angels fall sometimes.

Vanessa had a boyfriend, Jake, and by Justin’s standards he wasn’t good enough for her.

He hit her.

Justin wanted to kill him.

Vanessa worked at the cash registers in the store and would smile at Justin when he came into the store everyday.

She liked seeing a familiar face in the store beside her coworker Becky and her boss Gage.

Kane though Justin had an obsession problem and told him to seek help.

Justin just laughed.

No one could take away his angel.

One day Justin went to the store and she wasn’t there.

He left and came back the next day and she still wasn’t there.

He asked Becky where she was and Becky didn’t answer him.

He demanded to know where she was and Becky still didn’t answer.

He left the store again.

He came back the next day and sat on the counter saying he wasn’t going to leave until he saw Vanessa.

People came and went out of the store that day and he sat on the counter the whole day until it was closing time.

Gage told him he had to leave and he only sighed and nodded in reply.

That was when she finally came back into the store.

Her face was covered in a large bruise on the right side and she had a cut in her lip.

Justin could only imagine what the rest of her body looked like under the black pants and long sleeved black shirt.

Gage wanted to call the police, but she said no.

Becky wanted to go find him, but she said no.

Justin asked her if she wanted to sleep and she said yes.

Justin took her back to his small apartment a block from South Street on the fifth floor and let her sleep on the couch.

Kane could only shake his head when he saw her.

The next morning Justin woke up and she was gone.

He ran down to the store and found her standing behind the counter.

She said she needed the paycheck.

Justin offered to give her money.

She said no.

That’s when he cam into the store.

Vanessa’s eyes got wide and she could only stare.

Becky yelled for Gage and he came running out telling Jake to leave or he would call for the police.

Jake yelled at Vanessa to come home or else.

Justin said for him to leave her alone.

Jake only laughed and reached for her.

Justin lunged at him and pushed him through the front display window.

Gage called the police.

Vanessa started to cry.

Justin lived in a small apartment in Brooklyn.

It was enough for him and he could afford it.

Vanessa lived there with him.

The bruises had faded away and she was perfect again.

Justin worked in a small restaurant as a waiter.

Vanessa walked in a small clothing store.

It was a good enough life for both of them.

Vanessa sketched in her spare time.

Justin took pictures.

She had gotten him a professional photography camera for his birthday and he loved it.

All the pictures were of her.

He would paint her gold and take pictures of her lying on flower petals.

He would take pictures of her sketching.

He would take pictures of her smiling and those meant the most to him.

Vanessa said he should be a photographer.

He said he liked his life now.

His favorite picture was of her looking out the window above their bed staring at the full moon.

Her head was facing the moon and her face turned upwards.

She was naked, but you couldn’t see anything except her back, which for once in her life didn’t have any bruises on it.

The picture made Justin smile.

Justin wanted to take her picture, but she said no.

He asked why and she said no reason.

He said she looked upset.

She said no.

He wanted to know why he wouldn’t let him hold her.

She said she was sick.

He said she looked fine.

She showed him a mark on her calf.

He stared at it and said they would go to the doctors tomorrow.

That was her first legion.

Justin cried at night now when he held her while she slept.

Vanessa had AIDS.

They tested Justin, but he tested negative.

Vanessa was getting more legions as the days went on.

Justin took even more pictures of her now.

He drew the word life on her stomach and the word death on her back where he legions were.

He took a picture of her looking at her back in the mirror showing the words life on her stomach and death in the mirror with the legions on her back.

He cried when he saw it.

The pictures showed her getting sicker as the days went by.

They finally put her into the hospital two months later.

Justin went there everyday after his work and sat by her bed.

He kept taking pictures.

He told the doctors he couldn’t afford the bills.

They said not to worry about it.

The nurses didn’t like to look him in the eye when he asked about her.

Justin went to get frames for some of his pictures in the photography store.

He was holding up some of his pictures to try and see what frame they looked better in when a man walked up behind him.

He asked where he got the pictures.

Justin said he took them of his girlfriend.

The man asked if he had any prints to sell.

Justin said he never made any prints.

Justin never even had a show.

The man asked if he could see some more of his pictures some time.

Justin said maybe.

The man gave him a card and left the store.

Justin bought two frames and left the store.

He went back to the hospital and told Vanessa.

She could only listen and smile occasionally.

The doctors told him she wasn’t going to make it much longer.

Justin sat by her bed the rest of the night holding her hand and kissing it.

She smiled down at him and said she wasn’t afraid anymore.

Justin couldn’t stop the tears though when her heart finally gave up.

Justin slept alone in their bed the next night in their apartment and cried.

He cried for two weeks before he called the man who gave him his card.

The man asked to see more of his pictures.

The man said his name was Richard Pierce and he wanted to give Justin a chance to show off his works in a gallery.

Justin agreed and picked out his favorite pictures of her to put in the show.

He stood in a swarm of people when the show opened.

He didn’t feel like smiling at all.

He sat on a bench in the middle of it and looked at the floor.

A woman came up to him then.

She asked him whom the pictures were of.

He said his girlfriend Vanessa.

She asked where she was.

He said she died a month ago from AIDS.

The woman stared at him and started to cry.

She said her son was over there looking at them all and crying.

He had AIDS.

She asked where she could get prints on the pictures.

Justin said there were none.

She said she was willing to pay for copies of them for her son.

Justin asked which ones.

She said the one with the moon and the one with the mirror.

Justin nodded his head and told her to come back tomorrow.

The woman cam back to the show the next night with her son and Justin gave them the copies.

The son was around his age and told Justin they were beautiful.

Justin said thank you and said Vanessa was what made them beautiful.

People saw them get copies and stared to ask him for them too.

He said he couldn’t take any more orders because he had too many as it was.

Justin went home and stayed up all night making copies then called someone to make prints of all the pictures in the show.

Justin still lived in his small apartment in Brooklyn.

Their small apartment.

Justin’s pictures stared to get attention from the public then.

They were put in magazines and papers with reviews.

He didn’t like the idea of Vanessa being judged.

He didn’t read the reviews.

They asked for him to come on TV and do interviews.

He said no.

The American AIDS foundation asked him if they could use his pictures.

He said yes.

They asked if they could interview him for an article.

He said yes.

They asked him to speak at found raisers.

He said yes.

They asked him if they could show his photos at a benefit.

He said yes and they could use money from the prints for the foundation.

Justin would get letters from people telling him how much his pictures meant to them.

Justin would write back to every one of them.

He would still cry though every time he would see the pictures on his own.

Justin decided to print the pictures in a book and release it for a fundraiser for AIDS research.

He called his book Emotions.

It was a New York Times best seller.

Justin was put on the cover of Rolling Stone with his picture of Vanessa looking in the mirror blown up standing next to him.

It was titled “How the world finally spreads Emotions to others”.

It was his first public interview and his only.

He still lived in his small apartment in Brooklyn.

Justin sits up in his bed drenched in a cold sweat and looks over at Britney who is sleeping next to him.

He looks over at the glass balcony doors across the hotel room and stares at the full moon in the sky.

“If you had to pick true love or the life you live now which one would you pick?”

He stares at the moon and did the first thing that came to him.

He stared to cry.