A fairy tale no more.
It all started out during a one summer night of the last scent of May. I was thirteen year old then and still very naive, out cold and childish girl in her basket lying free from any thoughts of infatuation, obsession, fascination or what they call it.
There I was, sitting at a corner while all around me was not so young and not so old people but just average to describe my parents and aunties along a party. At the moment while all that enveloped me was a feeling of out of place, came a guy nearly 14 or 15 year old suddenly caressed my vision. He was so strange but not cool, attacking but not attracting. He was in red polo and jeans, standing in the corner and was seemed to be bored also. Okay, he was cute, but totally it was not a love at first sight like anybody else would commonly do. Not even a drop of little attraction did splash to me but there was something strange from that moment that I kept wandering like a cloud every time I am reminded of it.
Not until when the bliss of summer was over and the glance of class was finally dawning to busy and hassles, I saw him again. And now, not in red polo but in white polo and khaki pants, not standing bored in a corner but babbling loud in the middle, not in a party, but in a class. Yes, we became classmates.
And so the wandering marks a breath of finality but only I thought, he was not the average type of guy whom I will eventually like. He was far-flung from what I thought to be as mysterious, sensible, classic and humble guy behind. In fact, he was really loud, and his noise often annoys me. He got many stories in his closet that he never tends to keep but rather tell. He got many ideas in his mind that’s indeed a zip zapping amazing but instantly blasting it out and not preserving. He was a frank guy but never been really funk at all. It was hard to accept for me but there is a one thing about him that I admire most, he never look sad.
Though it had been etched to my mind that he was really annoying and nonsense I never notice that his ways as being fun and kind slowly lay all things aside. I got to knew him slowly and found that he could be oh so rational and sensible when you hang him in deep and serious conversation. We then often go to lunch together getting used to his jokes though I find it a little corny sometimes. My days ended up with echoes of his three time told stories and well-worn tricks. And my nights rest with a smile slowly creeping upon my face remembering the day that had been with him.
And as all this things passed out of my consciousness, it was late than I realize that he was a guy I’m slowly missing. No, not his being serious when I drape him to conversation, not his being sensible that drench me to being idealistic, instead his being fun, corny, noisy and all the rarity that would exactly define how he became annoying to me like the first time. When he became nice and kind to me, it didn’t change a bit of how he looks irritating to me but me being there on his side and listening taught me to accept it and lay it to my heart because that were the threads that makes him.
It may sound so young and puppy love but whatever it will be like, I am reluctant to say that I fell in love for the very first time. Not with his hair, styled with gel, his neat glaring appearance nor with his captivating eyes, but his behavior that I found so contrary to mine. He is completely far from my ideal but he tame my heart closer and tighter than I ever imagine.
I kept myself quite about what I felt for him but each time he sits beside me and talks to me seems like throwing me above the clouds and I wanted to scream to happiness. I remained quite because I thought things are better left untold, but not until the creeping November really scared me, when he knew all about what I felt.
And since that moment, days did not dash with innocent cloudburst like it did before. But he was a good guy, he never let me shiver to shame, and he approached me and gave me a piece of poem that he wrote before he knew all about my feelings. There he left a message ‘I wish it wont be the last’, referring to all the days that we shared with bliss. So I remained unstirred about what happened, letting it all flow, for the sake of friendship that unfolded.
We became the best of friends, until February trudge with the most poignant moment of my existence. He asked me to be his girl. I was certain of what I felt for him but I was not certain to take him because I am aware of how my parents will react. I absolutely don’t know what to do. But I breathe with what my heart screams, I followed my heart and took him. But behind, I swore myself to be responsible for whatever decision I made and so was he.
It was a secret relationship. Not anyone of my friends did know about us. No dating, no touching, seeing each other around the four cornered room and knowing that we already have each other was enough. We talk for a while during lunch but not too much and all that we wanted to say to each other was written on a shared diary. He writes on it secretly then gives it to me and when I have my reply on it, I then give it back to him.
That is how it goes until our junior years. We were not classmates anymore and the relationship was known around the campus. We were happy though something had changed about how we are to each other except to clashes of our ideas, adjustments to our times, principles that we stand in our little arguments.
He loved me and I cannot deny it but I became so weak. A dawning of attraction unfolded with me and another guy whom I called rainbow even until now. I became tired of quarrels and stories and excuses, that I suddenly found myself at peace with someone who was certainly my ideal. This guy was opposite to him, classic, gentle, brilliant. He was hurt knowing all this but he remain by my side and never breathed a word of how he was angry but only how it was too painful for him. I regretted about it all but the other guy didn’t stop me from showering his love by sending me an acrostic poems of my name. I could not even count how many oblivions and serendipity fell down between us.
But I did not let it because someone is waiting for me behind, someone who was there all along. Rainbow let me believed that there are really people whom we call our soul mate but as well as it taught me that it doesn’t mean that when we found them they will be the one whom we will love. I chose someone so opposite to who I am, the one who doesn’t give me peace, doesn’t always agree to me, doesn’t always follow to what I say, doesn’t always knew his right, but then again one who always comforts me, one who always makes me laugh, who would always makes me talk, and one who would always makes me worry. I chose the guy I met the first time in the last scent of May.
Ironic as it was but it was too late for me to realize all those things. The world collided and bang! He broke up with me.
It was a faltering sound of June when he became tired and needed space for us to realize things. He was bothered about the other guy whose anticipating for a time to come that I will be free again. He thought that I need somebody else not him and that I don’t love him anymore. It really splash to me like a cold water.
I tried to make it up to him because I know it was my fault but then a part of me screams to let him go because he became a man far from the strong guy that I thought. He was weak to hold on for us. He was weak to fight his love for me. It was so unbearable that I had my sleepless nights and tears stained pillow. Both love and anger was crusted unto my heart. I still both love and hate him. I’m certainly breathing at lost.
Never did a day pass that I didn’t think of him. But I knew that I don’t have to waste my time grieving instead I have to learn, move and grow. I treated the pain like a sand paper, the harder and rougher I shall be scrubbed to pain, the smoother and better I shall become.
Finally, I had moved on. His memories may be faded but it never really gone at all. I lived my senior year apart from the echoes of his deafening nag, three time told stories, corny jokes and long arguments. I walked home without a dawn of his smile that oozes me and crunch of his laugh that makes me laugh too. Harder as it really had become, but I still missed him.
I thought the tune of February would flood me from emptiness but I was wrong. It gave me another twist of both joy and pride. He came back again to me on the same day he courted me during our second year. He said that he waited until that day to face me. It took him great courage to stand in my front and ask forgiveness for what he have done because he knew how much I am hurt when he gave up on us.
I felt how he feels sorry about it. He could not look straight to me but his shuddering voice and his hand written letter told me it was true. He apologized and revealed to me a thing I never thought I could still hear my whole life. He silently loves me all this while.
I have forgiven but I never did tell that I felt the same because the wound was still fresh instead, I chose to keep that I too, was feeling the same. I still love him and I am certain of that but I’m also certain that if it is us, it will be us. I knew that if he really was meant for me, fate would bring me to him. There and then, the choice will be mine to keep him or to lose him.
We both graduated in secondary, and untold about each other’s plan to college. Really it was a life physically apart from his shadow but attached mentally to his radiance. Summer passed and I have not seen or heard about him. Time and distance still did not change a thing.
Until one drizzly July morning showered me a surprise. I was entering inside my classroom for the very first day in college, and there he was, sitting in a corner not loud but quiet. I could not forget the frame of that very moment as how it struck me and turned my world to a halt.
And as we met again,
We build another bridge of chance. #
Note: One year had passed, and we were now on our second year college with parents both aware of our relationship for the truth and sincerity we showed to each other.
