c'est la vie
/ˌsā lä ˈvē/
exclamation
that's life; such is life.

• • •

Such is life; and it is everything and nothing at all.

In the practical sense, it is nothing: just a pair of sandals and a puddle; a soaked dress and a smile — and a memory of being seven instead of seventeen, when they didn't know the suburbs were where life went by while everyone talked but no one said anything (and he wishes the rain would last forever).

...

The suburbs are the place where people go to escape the cities and the drama that comes with them, only to realize their mistake six years too late when they have a brand-new marriage that was only new eight years ago, and a baby that is five years too old from what they remember. Because then they realize that the neighbors they've had for those past six years aren't going to change, and they can't decide whether that's a good thing or bad thing (because they moved to the suburbs to escape the city).

Because now Avery Thurston down the street has a pregnant daughter that no one is supposed to say anything about (but everyone does), and Brendan Donahue showed up to fifth period drunk, and someone should have said something (but no one said anything at all), and the set of twins on the Fair street play ground are no longer two — (they're five) — even though everyone forgets that they aren't anymore (and nobody mentions it, even when everybody thinks it). Because c'est la vie; such is life; and it is too short.

And it is nothing without her.

But such is life — but he couldn't know why — because at that moment it is nothing and everything all at once.

But in the practical sense, it is nothing: just a pair of sandals and a puddle; a soaked dress and a smile — and a memory of being seven instead of seventeen.

And the rain kept falling, she still kept laughing (and her hair kept getting wetter and wetter, but she didn't seem to care at all, even though she had spent a half an hour getting it just right), and Evan just kept staring at Julie, because she didn't seem to care about that, either.

It was black sandals and brick sidewalks filled with muddy water, and a black dress that was lucky it wasn't see-through, but would be skin-tight all the same (and probably ruined now).  And Evan remembered when Julie was seven instead of seventeen, with pink boots instead of black, and a bright yellow dress with a tear at the bottom from trying to climb a tree.

They were going to be late, (but no one seemed to care very much), because their clothes were already ruined, and Julie hadn't laughed so much since Evan had tripped on the staircase an hour ago (which wasn't very long at all, but it still seemed like something worth mentioning, because it was Julie).

Evan felt a tug on his hand, and the stop lights on the empty road were red (like the lip stick that Julie had wrinkled her nose at earlier that day, but put it on all the same for some reason Evan couldn't quite explain). The sky was the same color as Julie's dress, but they couldn't see the stars because it was raining, so they pretended that the flashing lights and empty streets around them were a quiet galaxy only big enough for the two of them.

And then Julie was twirling, and grabbing at Evan's hands in the dark, wet night full of too many stars and none at all — and there was no music but their laughter, because that was good enough to go with the staccato of the rain beating down on them.

"Dance with me?"

Evan found he couldn't say no — because her hair was plastered to her forehead, and her make-up was smudged and ruined and her dress was sopping wet and no doubt uncomfortable — but her smile was the only thing that couldn't have been faked like the lip stick she didn't like or the nice dress she had pulled from the back of her closet — (and the rain couldn't wipe the gleam in her eyes or the brilliance of her smile away, anyway) — and Evan couldn't say no.

(Not that he ever would — because it was Julie, after all).

Because the rain was real, and so was the girl in front of him with ruined make-up, ruined clothes, ruined hair. But the rain was so real that it couldn't have wiped away her real laugh or her real smile or the real gleam in her eyes if it tried. Because none of those things were from the bottom drawer of her desk, or the back of her closet, or from the useless time spent trying to change something that didn't need changing in the first place with a curling iron and meticulous hands that almost seemed like they belonged to someone else when he watched her disappear into someone somebody else told her to be.

Julie didn't look like she cared that the Somebody who made her be someone else with red lipstick and silk dresses and curled hair would be frowning down at her in the rain, (because Evan was laughing right along with her toothy grin like he would be able to ward off that Somebody who made her smile with lips filled with lipstick she didn't like, or fret with a curling iron that she didn't want to use, or pull out a silk, black dress that she didn't want to wear).

They were late (but nobody cared) — because Nobody was better than Somebody to them — and instead of meeting Somebody in ten minutes like they were supposed to, they decided to dance with Nobody in the rain that left them real and laughing.

And it was everything and nothing at all, and Evan couldn't know why.

And in the practical sense, it was nothing except a girl in the rain and a boy who had only one thought while he listened to the music of her laugh and pretended that the empty street that they were dancing on was a galaxy of only them as the flashes of a traffic light replaced the stars overhead. As they splashed in the puddles like they did when they were seven instead of seventeen, on a painfully normal summer night like everything else about the suburbs they had watched life go by in.

And it really was everything, because for him, it would be nothing without her — (but then it was nothing at all, because she would never know.)

So they danced with Nobody in the rain like they were seven instead of seventeen, in the suburbs where everyone knew everything but nobody said anything worthwhile, where life passed by but nobody felt like it, in the dark where the rain wiped Somebody away and left them both raw and real.

And where Evan held Julie like he wasn't wishing she was really his to hold.

But oh, c'est la vie.

Such is life.