8.02.2008 • Saturday, August 02, 2008
This Boy liked this Girl, and she liked him, too. He was everything she had ever dreamed of and made her smile like no one else could. It took him a while to see through his first impressions, but he was soon head over heals: smitten one hundred percent.
But she had scars that no one could see, not even him. She had been hurt, she had hurt herself, and she had built walls around herself. She was scared of how much he liked her, because she couldn't see why. And above all, she was just too young. She told him she couldn't be with him. It was hard, but sometimes the love hurts more than lonliness.
He was devastated. She gave no explanation, and gave him the cold shoulder afterwards. His heart broke every time she averted her eyes when crossed in the hall, every time she avoided a social occasion because she knew he would be there, every time his notes went unanswered and apparently disregarded. He tried to read in between the lines, but she gave him nothing to start with. Soon, he accepted the fact that she just didn't love him how he loved her, but as much as that tore him apart, he vowed to never give up on her.
She seemed to be unaffected. She thought he wanted an easy explanation, and she didnt have one. And after all, it was, in part, another guy that she left him for. But the other guy she held in her mind didn't exist in the real world, and after a long, painful time, she realized that she had been lying to herself.
She told the boy, and showed him some of the scars, but by that time he was attatched to someone else, though he did not love her. She only told the boy so that he wouldn't hate her for hurting him, but for him, hating her was impossible. After several months, though still in a relationship with someone else, the boy told the girl that he still had feelings for her, strong feelings. She was in shock. Her entire body was shaking and she was at a loss for words. Then, as if a wave of reality swept over her, she remembered his other girl, oblivious, with a jolt of compassion. She remembered the other boy, the one who'd lied, and willed herself to believe that if her boy would lie to his other girl, he'd lie to her too.
For a year, she dismissed his professions of undying love as a poker player's cards: a means to an end. She questioned his motives, hated and loved his perserverence, and pushed him continually away, while at the same time, keeping him close enough to have the reassurance that he, if no one else, loved her. They would fight huge, terrible fights and she would say awful, cruel, hurtful things, in part because she is a passionate person, horribly opinionated, ridiculously independent and stubborn, and far too good with words. But in part because she thought that if she could just make him hate her, he could finally live life as a free man, and as much as she didn't want him to love anyone else, deep within herself she wanted him to be happy. Even if it was with someone else, and even if it killed her.
Finally, she hurt him enough. He left her alone. And she realized that the less he needed her, the more she wanted him. They agreed to meet and talk, just to be friends, nothing more. And as they talked, he about his family and hunting and she about work and her sisters, she saw his eyes, really saw them, and they were the brightest of all colors. And as the hours passed, the rain pounded against the side of the coffee house and thunder shook the walls. She remembered how she used to smile, and caught herself starting to again as he rambled on.
And that's where she is today. Maybe not in the same coffee shop, but wanting to tell him that his voice was the soundtrack to her summer, that she would never love another. Wanting to hear him say she's unlike any other. To feel the rain beating in their face and take the pain, hand in hand. Wanting to dance to the sound of thunder. To be thunder.