Poolside Romance [Watty Awards 2011] COMPLETE

FINAL CHAPTER: A diary entry

This is the final chapter to Poolside Romance. Will you, in your comments, tell me what you thought about the story on the whole?

Chapter Nine

I woke up next day refreshed and rejuvenated. Before I did anything else, there was something very important I had to do.

I dragged the chair out and sat roughly on it. I pulled myself closer towards the table and opened my personal diary. No one has ever read it and no one ever will, for I’m not willing to show it to anyone yet.

‘Dear Diary…’ I began and then paused for a moment as I wondered how I should begin. There was just so much to say; so much to convey and in so few words. I pursed my lips determinedly and continued.

‘…the last one week has taught me so much more than the rest of my sixteen years have. Maybe I’m travelling down the road to, what do you call it- ah, self-discovery.  I-, who has never believed in love before or stopped to ever think about it, am now a victim of love at first sight.’

‘Andrew has shown me, in so many subtle ways that love; true love really does exist in this world.’

‘And choosing not to meet him again- the guy who stole my first kiss and still made it worthwhile- is possibly the biggest and most naïve mistake I have ever been misfortunate enough to make and I am probably going to regret it for as long as I live…’

I ran two of my fingers gently on my lower lip, remembering the way he had kissed me. For a second, a smile made its way to my lips but it vanished almost immediately for I realized that I would never be kissed by him again.

‘…If only I had given him my number on one of the numerous occasions he had hinted for it, if I had only given him a way to contact me again, I believe he could have shown me exactly what love really is. We could be the perfect couple that people always want to be, I am certain. I had my chance, but I let it go.’

‘I read it somewhere that love is not the spark between two people, but it is the emotion that remains in us when the first excitement has worn away. Does that mean I am in love? Because one week later, I still seem to feel strongly for him.’

‘I searched for him on Facebook, twitter and on orkut, but he is nowhere to be found. I don’t even have a picture to look at and remember him. As the days pass, he faces grows vaguer in my mind, but he my love for him only grows stronger.’

‘It seemed as if Andrew Gerrard had merely been a dream; a dream too good to last. And yet, he name is always at the tip of my tongue and his kiss always lingers on my lips. I just cannot help it, I can’t stop any of it; I can’t not think of him. His brown eyes haunt my dreams and his sparkling smile occupies my mind.’

I suddenly remembered the nickname I had given him- Mr. Brown Eyes. The same smirk threatened to brighten my mood but I didn’t deserve to smile in his memory.

I closed my pen and placed it back in my pouch. I drew a blue sketch pen out of it. Maybe I chose that color because blue was the color of water. Maybe it was because if it hadn't been for my love of water, I wouldn't have met him. Maybe it was totally random, I don’t know. I uncapped it and resumed writing, but with the blue sketch.

‘I’ll never be the same,

If we ever meet again.

Won’t let you get away,

If we ever meet again.’

I completed my diary entry by quoting those famous lines from one of my favorite songs, for no matter how cheesy they sounded, no matter how childish it made the whole page look, they aptly described how I was feeling and it conveyed my emotions perfectly.

I dropped the sketch, not on purpose but because my hands were shivering slightly and not because of the cold atmosphere. It rolled along the length of the table and fell down, only to roll further and underneath the bed. I spared it a glance but was in no mood to rise from the comfort of my wooden chair or to crawl under the bed to retrieve it.

I pushed my glasses a slightly upwards along my nose. My gaze lazily wandered towards the only window in my room. The window was huge and gave me a good view of the outside world.

It was raining outside.

A rainbow proudly spread across the light blue sky and the mild light of the warm sun created shadows along the buildings outside, making even the grey look cheerful.

As I sat there, looking at the new drops of water forming on the windowpane and the way it slid and slithered down the glistening glass; a lone tear escaped my eye and ran down my cheek, sending a tingle down my spine.

It fell with the slightest sound on the crisp paper of my diary and blotted Andrew’s name. I very carefully wiped the salty tear away from the book and rewrote the name, thus making it bolder.

I blinked my eyes several times for the tears to go away. I closed my eye and bent lower into the chair, rest my head on its back and dreamt of a love that would never be.