Nostalgia is Cruel.

Nostalgia Is Cruel.
Lee.

“I’ve never been that close,” he murmured. 
“Close?” she said. “What d’ya mean?”
“Like pages in a closed-book-kinda close. You know, the pages they lay on top and beneath, touching every part of each other: every kindhearted sentence, every bitter word is shared and felt. They know their story: from prologue to the meat in the middle and then the conclusion. I’ve never known a closeness like that.”
“Does anybody ever know someone like that?” she mocked, poking the nearly smoked fag-end in his direction. “Is anyone ever that easy to read? I mean, you, look at you; you live in an idealised nostalgia that never happened. You’ve watched too many films selling such a lie, and took too many books to bed that promise an ‘happy ever after,’ and where has that got ya?”
Her pragmatism didn’t match her face, her face didn’t match her heart, he thought.
“It’s gotten me this far. It’s got me here with you?“
“Nobody else would have me,” she spat, taking the last puff on the cigarette, “and nobody else could tolerate you. Your chase for perfection is tiring to be around. We’re the lowest common denomination is this kinda world. You should know that by now.”
She stubbed the cigarette butt into the ashtray she’d made and gifted him for his birthday. 
“I know,” he said. “It’s why I’m drawn to nostalgia. It’s why I read what I read. It’s why I drink and swallow every line from films selling their lies, selling their love, selling everything that I want which money can’t buy.”
“Money can buy a lot, ya know,” her pragmatism raised its green-eyed head again.
“True,” he said, nodding agreement. “It also buys what you want, but rarely what you need. That’s what I’ve found anyway.”
She lit another cigarette. She smoked like an house on fire and had since her early teens. 
“What do you want then,” she asked.
“Only perfection, that’s all,” he said, before downing the dregs of whiskey straight from the bottle.
“It’ll kill ya, that will.”
“The booze? Yeah I know.”
She blew hoops of smoke, a skill he’d never managed to master.
“No. Not the booze. Perfection. Your hunt for it, it’ll kill ya.”