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kriszethI feel... well I don't know, I've been finsishing more stories tna in the last couple years, so...
Well, this is the edited "The meaning of a smile", hope you enjoy it...
If you read it ofcourse.
The meaning of a smile
Well, this is the edited "The meaning of a smile", hope you enjoy it...
If you read it ofcourse.
The meaning of a smile
Names, in your opinion, are overrated.
In your mind, you refer to the people you're acquainted with as 'them' or, if you need to single out a person, 'one of them'; even though out loud is Lannie or Hope or Caleb or whomever the case may be.
They're all just words in the end. The same words you say or hear or write and the ones you do not care for; the same way none of them has ever cared for the only name that has a meaning to you.
So it is with disinterest and fake attention you hear what all of them has to say about you...
You really dislike this kind of confrontation or maybe you just dislike the way the teacher makes you confront them. You have nothing to say about them, to them; so you just repeat what they've said to you.
... be it good or bad, because in the end nothing anyone of them say will change who you are not.
Maybe that's why when one of them admits to like that you're a hypocrite, you smile and answer that what you like about him is that he's an arrogant bastard. But what surprises you is that you're being honest and you really like him.
You remember how once upon a time that was what you wanted to be: a hypocrite. After all, that's your reason to smile and be polite and nice and all of those things that don't feel like a part of the real you... not that you know who the real you is.
He laughs then, leaving you with a tingling sensation in your stomach you attribute to an old crush –obsession- that you thought had vanished. But is still there and he doesn't know and you won't tell him, because you don't want him to love you –even if you crave for his nearness-, no matter how ludicrous and impossible the notion of it may be –might be, could be.
You refuse to have any kind of deep or real relationship, convinced that you only need the person whose name you write everywhere and whisper in your most longing moments... which translates into every other minute.
When all is said and done, a part of you still wish for him to stay and talk to you, that this conversation won't ever end; to have his attention so he could tell you something, anything else about yourself that you have already forgotten –purposefully.
But between the two of you nothing ever lasts. He's much too independent and you're much too dependent and then he's gone. You feel like frowning and pouting, but that doesn't become you.
Some of them come for you, so you smile and nod and laugh in all the right moments while you are thinking of him, of the way you've noticed how sometimes he glances at you with curiosity and amusement or both.
This time around your feeble attempt at normality is called by them and for the first time you confide your musings. You tell them that somehow he attracts you and how the way he sometimes looks at you makes you feel exposed, as if he could see through you and they seem thrilled by it. You blink surprised and smile again, joking about it to make them laugh.
Even so, the interaction leaves you feeling lonely and self-conscious about what he has told you mere minutes prior. The smile doesn't diminish nor increase, it's just there, but you can't feel it. You realize you've never felt it to begin with.
"What are you smiling for?" he asks, startling you while he takes a seat by your side.
You don't have an answer, but it's OK, because he doesn't seem to care for one. He's already engaged in annoying one of them; the one he loves to get mad because it's easy and that one makes it easier.
He's a jerk. He's sarcastic and cold and cruel in a morbid kind of way that makes him funny; maybe that's why you have returned the individuality your mind has robbed. He's not one of them, but he's not one of your own and you can't get him. You don't even want to.
Still, you watch him while he's talking about stupid things and interesting things. He's not handsome, not by a long shot, but his character is more than attractive and he shouldn't have this kind of effect in you, you try to remind yourself.
Your eyes are dragged to his moving lips –you've always had an unhealthy habit of staring at people's lips-, but you don't know what they're saying, don't even think you could understand what they're talking about.
You just smile and nod and laugh in all the right moments, but you don't feel. You've forgotten how, because it makes bearable the transition of solitude to loneliness. It's easier this way, you've thought, even when you know is all bullshit.
It's then when you begin to wonder. You wonder how it would be like to kiss him. If he's all lips and tongue and teeth and raw, wild masculine heat –as once he claimed a kiss should be- that could melt the frostbite which has encased you thanks to an absence you've tried to fill with a name, of all things. If it would erase the emptiness, the need and you should have forgotten already, but you don't want to. Not yet, at least.
The next thing you know, you had bid them farewell and are already on your way home, looking outside the window car when the question pops into your mind.
What are you smiling for?
"For nothing", you finally answer, whispering to nobody.
In a way, that's wrong; because you weren't smiling.
Not at all.
Not really.
Never really.
In your mind, you refer to the people you're acquainted with as 'them' or, if you need to single out a person, 'one of them'; even though out loud is Lannie or Hope or Caleb or whomever the case may be.
They're all just words in the end. The same words you say or hear or write and the ones you do not care for; the same way none of them has ever cared for the only name that has a meaning to you.
So it is with disinterest and fake attention you hear what all of them has to say about you...
You really dislike this kind of confrontation or maybe you just dislike the way the teacher makes you confront them. You have nothing to say about them, to them; so you just repeat what they've said to you.
... be it good or bad, because in the end nothing anyone of them say will change who you are not.
Maybe that's why when one of them admits to like that you're a hypocrite, you smile and answer that what you like about him is that he's an arrogant bastard. But what surprises you is that you're being honest and you really like him.
You remember how once upon a time that was what you wanted to be: a hypocrite. After all, that's your reason to smile and be polite and nice and all of those things that don't feel like a part of the real you... not that you know who the real you is.
He laughs then, leaving you with a tingling sensation in your stomach you attribute to an old crush –obsession- that you thought had vanished. But is still there and he doesn't know and you won't tell him, because you don't want him to love you –even if you crave for his nearness-, no matter how ludicrous and impossible the notion of it may be –might be, could be.
You refuse to have any kind of deep or real relationship, convinced that you only need the person whose name you write everywhere and whisper in your most longing moments... which translates into every other minute.
When all is said and done, a part of you still wish for him to stay and talk to you, that this conversation won't ever end; to have his attention so he could tell you something, anything else about yourself that you have already forgotten –purposefully.
But between the two of you nothing ever lasts. He's much too independent and you're much too dependent and then he's gone. You feel like frowning and pouting, but that doesn't become you.
Some of them come for you, so you smile and nod and laugh in all the right moments while you are thinking of him, of the way you've noticed how sometimes he glances at you with curiosity and amusement or both.
This time around your feeble attempt at normality is called by them and for the first time you confide your musings. You tell them that somehow he attracts you and how the way he sometimes looks at you makes you feel exposed, as if he could see through you and they seem thrilled by it. You blink surprised and smile again, joking about it to make them laugh.
Even so, the interaction leaves you feeling lonely and self-conscious about what he has told you mere minutes prior. The smile doesn't diminish nor increase, it's just there, but you can't feel it. You realize you've never felt it to begin with.
"What are you smiling for?" he asks, startling you while he takes a seat by your side.
You don't have an answer, but it's OK, because he doesn't seem to care for one. He's already engaged in annoying one of them; the one he loves to get mad because it's easy and that one makes it easier.
He's a jerk. He's sarcastic and cold and cruel in a morbid kind of way that makes him funny; maybe that's why you have returned the individuality your mind has robbed. He's not one of them, but he's not one of your own and you can't get him. You don't even want to.
Still, you watch him while he's talking about stupid things and interesting things. He's not handsome, not by a long shot, but his character is more than attractive and he shouldn't have this kind of effect in you, you try to remind yourself.
Your eyes are dragged to his moving lips –you've always had an unhealthy habit of staring at people's lips-, but you don't know what they're saying, don't even think you could understand what they're talking about.
You just smile and nod and laugh in all the right moments, but you don't feel. You've forgotten how, because it makes bearable the transition of solitude to loneliness. It's easier this way, you've thought, even when you know is all bullshit.
It's then when you begin to wonder. You wonder how it would be like to kiss him. If he's all lips and tongue and teeth and raw, wild masculine heat –as once he claimed a kiss should be- that could melt the frostbite which has encased you thanks to an absence you've tried to fill with a name, of all things. If it would erase the emptiness, the need and you should have forgotten already, but you don't want to. Not yet, at least.
The next thing you know, you had bid them farewell and are already on your way home, looking outside the window car when the question pops into your mind.
What are you smiling for?
"For nothing", you finally answer, whispering to nobody.
In a way, that's wrong; because you weren't smiling.
Not at all.
Not really.
Never really.
His name, in your opinion, is one of the more unpleasant you've ever heard.
Well, not really, but that's only your opinion and maybe it is biased by past experiences –not pretty ones at that-. Then again all opinions are biased, so you don't even bother with that train of thought.
You're sure he has told you about the great and significant meaning his name has, but you don't care to remember. You're not even sure you really paid attention when he told you.
In your mind and also out-loud, you call him as you feel like; such as jerk, idiot, asshole, and ass or, when you're in a very good mood, Sphinx.
Not because he has something in common with the figure that is his namesake, but because you can't envision him like the fallen angel he claims he was and will never be again. Or maybe it's just because you think it suits him, whatever.
It's much too early by his standards when you call him at five to seven in the morning, when your classes are almost to start and the teacher walks inside the classroom looking weirdly at you, but leaves the door open to let you in when you finish, because you're not one to make phone calls and it must be important or urgent –whatever makes him have confidence in you.
Usually, you spend a lot of time with your cellular in hand, debating if you absolutely need to call him or if it's just loneliness, in which case you throw your phone inside your bag to not tempt your weakness.
You're nervous and desperate and in the edge of a breakdown that was long in coming, the tears blurring your sight when he sounds almost glad to hear your broken voice.
"I need a hug"
And ironically he also needs one, not exactly from you, but you also didn't have many other choices. That person is not there to give it to you after all, because if he were, you wouldn't even need to ask.
He agrees to meet you, to even go to your house when he knows he's not liked, nor welcomed in there.
To be honest, you don't care as long as is not one of those times when he stands you up and whatever your family throws at him is revenge for it.
But the sheer, raw necessity is something out of your control now –if it ever was-, so you take whatever you can, even if it's from him. He's not that person and you are sure as hell not the person he will be with, but if after long years of acquaintance a make-believe is all the two of you have left, then it should be fine for a moment.
When he arrives is like seeing him after a long, long time –which is kind of stupid, because you met with him three days prior, when you had decided he couldn't be one of your own anymore... if he ever was.
It's as if you can finally remember what he looks like, even when you know you're going to forget it once he goes back to wherever he's come from –you don't know anymore and maybe he doesn't either.
And in between truths drowned in silence and lies long forgotten, you finally tell him what's been bothering you. The things you didn't want him to know because they were yours and nobody else business; because you didn't want to worry him, didn't want to be a burden.
Because you shouldn't be weak and fragile and inevitably you cry, but the tears doesn't set you free as every body seems to think they should. They're not the scapegoat you wished for them to be, but a sign of something you dread.
He stares at you. There's no awkwardness to his posture that would spell neither annoyance nor concern. As if he is accustomed to see the chagrin, the painful grief of a life you don't know what to do with. As if he doesn't even care...
Then he tells you to laugh and you do it, because your brother is coming this way and it'd be troublesome if he finds you crying.
You thank God that is night and that he doesn't care about what is it that hides behind your too long bangs, reminding yourself that this is why you don't like hair cuts.
He claims the knowledge of you doing that kind of thing even when you're dying inside and you think it's unfair, because he shouldn't know you that well; shouldn't be able to tell who you really are when you know nothing about yourself.
But you're the one at fault for that, or maybe it was the naiveté of your old self, the part of you who gave him the means to see through a sorrowful soul. When you believed about pure and honest friendship and absolute trust in someone you just knew was going to betray you.
You find yourself retelling how easy and meaningless you've found the smiles you give them to be, how the ones you share with him somehow hurt and are difficult to pull out; how you wonder if they sound as hollow as you feel them.
And, as the masochist you know him for, he answers that even if they hurt, he loves to see them in your face because, of all things, he thinks you are sexy and did anybody ever tell you that?
You are positive you're blushing, but then is night time and your doorstep is not the most lighted of places, but just to make sure he doesn't notice it you hide your face in the hollow of his neck, greatly disappointed in your boldness because you were aiming for his lips.
So you do the next best thing you think of.
"I want a kiss"
Apparently, that is funny because he dares to laugh. He hasn't even given you a hug and methodically he asks why you'd want one -as if you knew.
You don't have an answer, you just can feel and want and need with him, from him.
When he says something really stupid just to tell its OK, you kiss him and here's his answer even if he doesn't understand it. You kiss him because he feels lonely and you are lonelier.
But it's been so long, much too long and it's somewhat disappointing that you are the one kissing him when you wanted him to kiss you –to teach you how to kiss him. In addition he feels loved by one kiss you deem faulty, even though the adrenaline is rushing by yours ears and your heart beats erratically.
He was too gentle, parting slowly and with a gaze so damn warn you want to rip his eyes out so you can stop wondering about his feelings if you tell him how unsatisfactory is to kiss him. He's hurt you that much, but you have forgiven him even if you don't remember for exactly what. There's only the scars now, you have forgotten everything else.
The smile hurts so fucking much now that you wonder if you've begun to bleed, if he can see it. He only smiles back and you tell him you don't want to make a boyfriend out of him.
You already have someone to love, someone who loves you back, but you crave for this kind of contact and ask if he can give it to you even when you don't have the right to.
He calls you crazy whilst he laughs, but you already knew that you were. Normality is something you don't care for.
It's the insanity, after all, what keeps you afloat in an ocean of myriads you've drowned with old tears and ancient feelings and hopeful –hopeless- dreams.
Well, not really, but that's only your opinion and maybe it is biased by past experiences –not pretty ones at that-. Then again all opinions are biased, so you don't even bother with that train of thought.
You're sure he has told you about the great and significant meaning his name has, but you don't care to remember. You're not even sure you really paid attention when he told you.
In your mind and also out-loud, you call him as you feel like; such as jerk, idiot, asshole, and ass or, when you're in a very good mood, Sphinx.
Not because he has something in common with the figure that is his namesake, but because you can't envision him like the fallen angel he claims he was and will never be again. Or maybe it's just because you think it suits him, whatever.
It's much too early by his standards when you call him at five to seven in the morning, when your classes are almost to start and the teacher walks inside the classroom looking weirdly at you, but leaves the door open to let you in when you finish, because you're not one to make phone calls and it must be important or urgent –whatever makes him have confidence in you.
Usually, you spend a lot of time with your cellular in hand, debating if you absolutely need to call him or if it's just loneliness, in which case you throw your phone inside your bag to not tempt your weakness.
You're nervous and desperate and in the edge of a breakdown that was long in coming, the tears blurring your sight when he sounds almost glad to hear your broken voice.
"I need a hug"
And ironically he also needs one, not exactly from you, but you also didn't have many other choices. That person is not there to give it to you after all, because if he were, you wouldn't even need to ask.
He agrees to meet you, to even go to your house when he knows he's not liked, nor welcomed in there.
To be honest, you don't care as long as is not one of those times when he stands you up and whatever your family throws at him is revenge for it.
But the sheer, raw necessity is something out of your control now –if it ever was-, so you take whatever you can, even if it's from him. He's not that person and you are sure as hell not the person he will be with, but if after long years of acquaintance a make-believe is all the two of you have left, then it should be fine for a moment.
When he arrives is like seeing him after a long, long time –which is kind of stupid, because you met with him three days prior, when you had decided he couldn't be one of your own anymore... if he ever was.
It's as if you can finally remember what he looks like, even when you know you're going to forget it once he goes back to wherever he's come from –you don't know anymore and maybe he doesn't either.
And in between truths drowned in silence and lies long forgotten, you finally tell him what's been bothering you. The things you didn't want him to know because they were yours and nobody else business; because you didn't want to worry him, didn't want to be a burden.
Because you shouldn't be weak and fragile and inevitably you cry, but the tears doesn't set you free as every body seems to think they should. They're not the scapegoat you wished for them to be, but a sign of something you dread.
He stares at you. There's no awkwardness to his posture that would spell neither annoyance nor concern. As if he is accustomed to see the chagrin, the painful grief of a life you don't know what to do with. As if he doesn't even care...
Then he tells you to laugh and you do it, because your brother is coming this way and it'd be troublesome if he finds you crying.
You thank God that is night and that he doesn't care about what is it that hides behind your too long bangs, reminding yourself that this is why you don't like hair cuts.
He claims the knowledge of you doing that kind of thing even when you're dying inside and you think it's unfair, because he shouldn't know you that well; shouldn't be able to tell who you really are when you know nothing about yourself.
But you're the one at fault for that, or maybe it was the naiveté of your old self, the part of you who gave him the means to see through a sorrowful soul. When you believed about pure and honest friendship and absolute trust in someone you just knew was going to betray you.
You find yourself retelling how easy and meaningless you've found the smiles you give them to be, how the ones you share with him somehow hurt and are difficult to pull out; how you wonder if they sound as hollow as you feel them.
And, as the masochist you know him for, he answers that even if they hurt, he loves to see them in your face because, of all things, he thinks you are sexy and did anybody ever tell you that?
You are positive you're blushing, but then is night time and your doorstep is not the most lighted of places, but just to make sure he doesn't notice it you hide your face in the hollow of his neck, greatly disappointed in your boldness because you were aiming for his lips.
So you do the next best thing you think of.
"I want a kiss"
Apparently, that is funny because he dares to laugh. He hasn't even given you a hug and methodically he asks why you'd want one -as if you knew.
You don't have an answer, you just can feel and want and need with him, from him.
When he says something really stupid just to tell its OK, you kiss him and here's his answer even if he doesn't understand it. You kiss him because he feels lonely and you are lonelier.
But it's been so long, much too long and it's somewhat disappointing that you are the one kissing him when you wanted him to kiss you –to teach you how to kiss him. In addition he feels loved by one kiss you deem faulty, even though the adrenaline is rushing by yours ears and your heart beats erratically.
He was too gentle, parting slowly and with a gaze so damn warn you want to rip his eyes out so you can stop wondering about his feelings if you tell him how unsatisfactory is to kiss him. He's hurt you that much, but you have forgiven him even if you don't remember for exactly what. There's only the scars now, you have forgotten everything else.
The smile hurts so fucking much now that you wonder if you've begun to bleed, if he can see it. He only smiles back and you tell him you don't want to make a boyfriend out of him.
You already have someone to love, someone who loves you back, but you crave for this kind of contact and ask if he can give it to you even when you don't have the right to.
He calls you crazy whilst he laughs, but you already knew that you were. Normality is something you don't care for.
It's the insanity, after all, what keeps you afloat in an ocean of myriads you've drowned with old tears and ancient feelings and hopeful –hopeless- dreams.
Her name, in your opinion, is very common.
Then again, she's a common kind of girl, but that's what's makes her so special to you and it really suits her. It has a nice ring to it and you wonder what the meaning of it may be.
It must have a deep meaning because names like that usually do. She's the kind of person that'll surprise with things like that.
It's one of those days when nothing seems wrong but you and you think you're sad, maybe because you should, but you're not sure anymore.
All the feelings and emotions, the sentiments battling inside you have become iddle thoughts within your mind, something for your brain to process.
You wonder if that's what is like the so called numbness. The one people experience when feeling nothing. Or it might be you don't care anymore for what it is you really feel –if you really feel anymore.
It's been three short years since the two of you graduated from high school and you wonder where the time has gone, how is it that the days feel like an eternity when the years pass through your fingers like teardrops, leaving only and impression.
You wonder if all that's left of you is only that, an impression of what you were.
It's the first time you decide to call her just for the sake of it and notice that you've been talking a lot more in the last three weeks than in the past three years.
When you tell her so, you hear the wonderment in her voice with a warm feeling and it's with her that you remember what the meaning of friendship is, how you don't have anything to prove and everything to say... but still, you don't have the words to say it.
That's why there are always silences between the two for you, but she doesn't seem to mind. She knows that when it becomes too much, she's happy to fill them, chatting your ears off and you wonder, if she was any other girl, would you still listen? Would you still call her?
She's like holy water and tastes strongly like dreams, big fat dreams brimming with incoherencies that are all there is to it, all that really matter.
She's lovely little things and gorgeous giant things with a happily ever after that she threw in there somewhere. All that she'll ever be cooking on a fire so bright and warm and big that'll burn you to purification if you stand too close to it.
You never liked hot things, but you love being with her.
You must taste like nightmares and disappointment and then you wonder why she's still by your side, but you're afraid to ask, fearing she'll leave you behind as most of them have done.
You're shame and doubt, a weakness wrapped up in memories that doesn't match reality. But... what is real? You've never understood the line that separates it from fiction, illusion, madness...
You wonder if you're mad.
But then, you're only a heartbroken girl faking strength, too afraid to hurt and taint someone like her. You wonder if she'd be sad to know how your heart first broke when that person never came, the way it broke again when you were too afraid to go out into the world looking for him...
You've come to understand there's not enough glue in anyone's hands to bind up together the broken pieces that are you now and, really, you don't want to put her to it.
You let everything pass you by seemingly without a care, telling yourself everything is going to be OK, even when everything around you crumbles to rubble.
She's tried so hard already to be a grown up, to be mature, it would be a shame to drag her shininess into the darkness.
You're not sure you can bear the regret if you do so, but if you cry -head buried into something, wishing to asphyxiate-, you know the one you'll call out for it's that person.
Even so, you should know that someone who doesn't try to change, doesn't have the right to feel regretful.
You have experience with it; nothing's going to drown that. No tears, no blood, not even if you begin to drink. Nothing will ever do anything to hold back the encroaching dark you've ended welcoming.
You think that if it ever dissipates, you'll miss the nightmares somehow.
When the two of you go out somewhere to catch up and really, just to pass some quality time together you can't help but feel animated by her presence and, ironically, wanting to smile.
Lately all of your smiles are a vague flicker across your mouth, but by her side your mouth just runs away before you can stop it, as if a smile could saunter across your lips without true invitation and squat there for years.
Looking at her, you wonder just how long the two of you will have before she leaves you. You wonder how long it will take her to understand you're not good for her, for anybody really...
Just how will you bear it when she goes away?
You stare far off into the distance and all you want to see is that person.
There's a long silence that she tries to fill up to the brim so that it spills over. Classes, classmates, the boy she likes but how it never downs on him, because he's already obsessed with other girl and No, I didn't lapse in the word I used, he really IS obsessed with her.
Inevitably, she asks of you.
"So, what's been going on in you life?"
There's another long quiet, but it's filled up with the sound of your thinking as she sits across you, waiting for an answer you're not sure you can bring yourself to tell.
"Nothing"
And the answer is accompanied by a smile, but it's not one she's accustomed to see in you –with just the right amount of bitterness and complacence, because you let nothing to pass in your life and everything seems meaningless.
You can almost taste her sadness and so, you decide a shopping trip is due even when you hate to do so, but you need a backpack; you even let her decide what color it will be.
Sometimes you think how you'd love to live in a city where nobody knows you or where you come from, but then, the city you live on is small and almost everyone knows your parents and to be honest, you love where you live. You just dislike the people that live in it knowing things you don't want to answer for.
"How's your father's health?", asks the woman in the counter with compassion in her eyes.
"He's fine, thank you", you answer with a cold smile and colder words.
She's beside you, eyes confused and wondering and you don't want to look at her, don't want to see the hurt, the disappointment, the betrayal of her gaze.
This is something you didn't want to tell her, not because you didn't confide in her, but because you didn't want her to worry about you.
"How's the transplant going?"
It seems the woman doesn't understand your unwillingness though and you sigh inwardly, trying to answer vaguely and with the right amount of calamity. It's what people like that woman are looking for after all and you think how right you were in wanting to avoid that store with her accompanying you, but you weren't going to pay twice over for a backpack when the only difference it has with the one you were carrying was where you bought it from.
You wonder what she may think about you know, if she hates you for not telling her, if you've hurt her the same way some of them have hurt you and now you hate yourself, but when you look at her, she's not looking at you anymore.
There's not a trace on her expression of what she's heard, but enchantment.
"It's so pretty", she murmurs, looking ahead of you.
And indeed it is, you agree when seeing what has fascinated her and so you buy it for her, maybe because you feel guilty for not telling her or because her birthday was just some days ago.
You've never been really generous when giving gifts, but you don't mind spending money on her.
Her eyes are large and surprised and she looks so darn cute, you want to ruffle her hair or take a photo or maybe both. She smiles and when the two you emerge from the store, there's no inquiry about what she had heard which makes you grateful.
You still don't know what to say, but she looks happy chatting your ears off, a smile in both of your faces. It may be then that you understood what the saying 'Friendship is certainly the finest balm for the pangs of disappointed love' truly meant.
You've been somehow defeated in a game you didn't know you were playing with her. In there, you're nameless and bleeding, a mess only wondering when that person will finally be with you, but she's here and for now, that's enough.
She knows, after all, the meaning of a smile.
Then again, she's a common kind of girl, but that's what's makes her so special to you and it really suits her. It has a nice ring to it and you wonder what the meaning of it may be.
It must have a deep meaning because names like that usually do. She's the kind of person that'll surprise with things like that.
It's one of those days when nothing seems wrong but you and you think you're sad, maybe because you should, but you're not sure anymore.
All the feelings and emotions, the sentiments battling inside you have become iddle thoughts within your mind, something for your brain to process.
You wonder if that's what is like the so called numbness. The one people experience when feeling nothing. Or it might be you don't care anymore for what it is you really feel –if you really feel anymore.
It's been three short years since the two of you graduated from high school and you wonder where the time has gone, how is it that the days feel like an eternity when the years pass through your fingers like teardrops, leaving only and impression.
You wonder if all that's left of you is only that, an impression of what you were.
It's the first time you decide to call her just for the sake of it and notice that you've been talking a lot more in the last three weeks than in the past three years.
When you tell her so, you hear the wonderment in her voice with a warm feeling and it's with her that you remember what the meaning of friendship is, how you don't have anything to prove and everything to say... but still, you don't have the words to say it.
That's why there are always silences between the two for you, but she doesn't seem to mind. She knows that when it becomes too much, she's happy to fill them, chatting your ears off and you wonder, if she was any other girl, would you still listen? Would you still call her?
She's like holy water and tastes strongly like dreams, big fat dreams brimming with incoherencies that are all there is to it, all that really matter.
She's lovely little things and gorgeous giant things with a happily ever after that she threw in there somewhere. All that she'll ever be cooking on a fire so bright and warm and big that'll burn you to purification if you stand too close to it.
You never liked hot things, but you love being with her.
You must taste like nightmares and disappointment and then you wonder why she's still by your side, but you're afraid to ask, fearing she'll leave you behind as most of them have done.
You're shame and doubt, a weakness wrapped up in memories that doesn't match reality. But... what is real? You've never understood the line that separates it from fiction, illusion, madness...
You wonder if you're mad.
But then, you're only a heartbroken girl faking strength, too afraid to hurt and taint someone like her. You wonder if she'd be sad to know how your heart first broke when that person never came, the way it broke again when you were too afraid to go out into the world looking for him...
You've come to understand there's not enough glue in anyone's hands to bind up together the broken pieces that are you now and, really, you don't want to put her to it.
You let everything pass you by seemingly without a care, telling yourself everything is going to be OK, even when everything around you crumbles to rubble.
She's tried so hard already to be a grown up, to be mature, it would be a shame to drag her shininess into the darkness.
You're not sure you can bear the regret if you do so, but if you cry -head buried into something, wishing to asphyxiate-, you know the one you'll call out for it's that person.
Even so, you should know that someone who doesn't try to change, doesn't have the right to feel regretful.
You have experience with it; nothing's going to drown that. No tears, no blood, not even if you begin to drink. Nothing will ever do anything to hold back the encroaching dark you've ended welcoming.
You think that if it ever dissipates, you'll miss the nightmares somehow.
When the two of you go out somewhere to catch up and really, just to pass some quality time together you can't help but feel animated by her presence and, ironically, wanting to smile.
Lately all of your smiles are a vague flicker across your mouth, but by her side your mouth just runs away before you can stop it, as if a smile could saunter across your lips without true invitation and squat there for years.
Looking at her, you wonder just how long the two of you will have before she leaves you. You wonder how long it will take her to understand you're not good for her, for anybody really...
Just how will you bear it when she goes away?
You stare far off into the distance and all you want to see is that person.
There's a long silence that she tries to fill up to the brim so that it spills over. Classes, classmates, the boy she likes but how it never downs on him, because he's already obsessed with other girl and No, I didn't lapse in the word I used, he really IS obsessed with her.
Inevitably, she asks of you.
"So, what's been going on in you life?"
There's another long quiet, but it's filled up with the sound of your thinking as she sits across you, waiting for an answer you're not sure you can bring yourself to tell.
"Nothing"
And the answer is accompanied by a smile, but it's not one she's accustomed to see in you –with just the right amount of bitterness and complacence, because you let nothing to pass in your life and everything seems meaningless.
You can almost taste her sadness and so, you decide a shopping trip is due even when you hate to do so, but you need a backpack; you even let her decide what color it will be.
Sometimes you think how you'd love to live in a city where nobody knows you or where you come from, but then, the city you live on is small and almost everyone knows your parents and to be honest, you love where you live. You just dislike the people that live in it knowing things you don't want to answer for.
"How's your father's health?", asks the woman in the counter with compassion in her eyes.
"He's fine, thank you", you answer with a cold smile and colder words.
She's beside you, eyes confused and wondering and you don't want to look at her, don't want to see the hurt, the disappointment, the betrayal of her gaze.
This is something you didn't want to tell her, not because you didn't confide in her, but because you didn't want her to worry about you.
"How's the transplant going?"
It seems the woman doesn't understand your unwillingness though and you sigh inwardly, trying to answer vaguely and with the right amount of calamity. It's what people like that woman are looking for after all and you think how right you were in wanting to avoid that store with her accompanying you, but you weren't going to pay twice over for a backpack when the only difference it has with the one you were carrying was where you bought it from.
You wonder what she may think about you know, if she hates you for not telling her, if you've hurt her the same way some of them have hurt you and now you hate yourself, but when you look at her, she's not looking at you anymore.
There's not a trace on her expression of what she's heard, but enchantment.
"It's so pretty", she murmurs, looking ahead of you.
And indeed it is, you agree when seeing what has fascinated her and so you buy it for her, maybe because you feel guilty for not telling her or because her birthday was just some days ago.
You've never been really generous when giving gifts, but you don't mind spending money on her.
Her eyes are large and surprised and she looks so darn cute, you want to ruffle her hair or take a photo or maybe both. She smiles and when the two you emerge from the store, there's no inquiry about what she had heard which makes you grateful.
You still don't know what to say, but she looks happy chatting your ears off, a smile in both of your faces. It may be then that you understood what the saying 'Friendship is certainly the finest balm for the pangs of disappointed love' truly meant.
You've been somehow defeated in a game you didn't know you were playing with her. In there, you're nameless and bleeding, a mess only wondering when that person will finally be with you, but she's here and for now, that's enough.
She knows, after all, the meaning of a smile.
