How to Fall in Love ✔

How to Fall in Love (51)

This assurance stayed with me until the only people left under the tent sat on mono-block chairs in front of the grass under which lay my mother's casket were Leonardo and I.

We were two feet from the grass—my mother's grave—and we were sat next to each other, both paying no attention to anything but the grave. By this time it was already five in the afternoon, and rain started to trickle down the tent sheltering us, making me hear the pitter-patter and the drizzle of the grass uncovered by the tent becoming wet. I gave it no heed and continued to stare down, thinking of the last time I was here, visiting my father's grave, and a green umbrella appearing out of the sky to shelter me.

Soon the sky became more furious, dark clouds relentless in precipitating water, that very same water pouring down on the tent until it shook both Leonardo and me, shattering the dream-like trance we were stuck in. We looked at each other, startled by the noise. I cleared my throat, visibly sniffled, and asked, "Are you okay?"

It was a stupid question, and so, so generic, that it was one which made some people roll their eyes upon being asked it. But sometimes, no matter how unoriginal the question was, it spoke to the heart, the words acting like some tether that pulled the soul of the recipient back to life.

Leonardo shook his head, his lips curling up in a small smile that didn't reach his eyes. It was devastating to look at.

I nodded, understanding very well what he was feeling. "Me too."

He tried to chuckle, but it came out like a strangled noise piercing my ears. "Are you hungry? Do you want something to eat?"

"I'll get it," I answered, standing up and getting the umbrella one of the attenders left under her mono-block chair.

He stood up. "No, sit down and let me take care of it."

"Leonardo," I started, my tone swimming in the waters of warning, "I'll get it."

Ever Perpetual was a relatively average-sized cemetery, housing over a hundred dead people in varying shelters—some inside a small, self-fixed house, others in tombs on the ground, and of course the rest buried within the earth. The houses and tombs were situated in a different area of the cemetery—the other side of the road. The buried caskets took up most of the space of the side we were on. What separates the two areas was the road which was wide enough for there to be two lanes.

With this information it would be customary that I would know if a car suddenly geared itself inside the cemetery and parked on the road even with the heavy rain falling in thick sheets. That was why when I turned around to get food for Leonardo and me, I saw that there was a slick blue car that just parked on the street, with the driver getting out of it, an umbrella above his head, and going to the backseat, opening the door.

My heart skipped a beat when the man that emerged from the backseat was wearing an American tux, its black and white formality overriding my proper blouse and Leonardo's white shirt collar. The man shook his head at the driver when the latter tried to hand the umbrella to the former. Instead, the man took out an umbrella of his own, popped it open, and patted the driver on the back before turning to approach the tent, his eyes locked on me.

Those cyan-grey irises were a colour that would forever and a day be distinctive to me—I might look at the same colour somewhere on a top, a notebook, or even a cell phone, but I would always remember it to be the eyes of the man I loved.