The Concept of Perfection

Chapter Twenty Three- What It All Was

Chapter Twenty Three- What It All Was

            I didn’t know how my mother would react to the news, but I had to tell her anyway. I thought she would freak out or simply be mad at me. My mother would probably be that kind of person. But she did not. She did not freak out.

            After telling her that I found a boyfriend, she was happy. No, wait. She was ecstatic. And yet she ended up sobbing into the phone. She was speaking incoherently as she sobbed, and though it was really hard to understand, I picked out a few words here and there, like me, finally moving on, or something for the better. And something about Blue Cove being the right thing after all.

            When she’d said that, or more like sobbed that out, I found myself stopping absently and thinking of the words. Blue Cove was the right thing after all. I thought about them because, in the end, they were true.

            I ended the call when she calmed down. I already told her about Dad and Nate, two guys in my life.

            “Was that Rebecca?” Aunt Isby came in from the front door. She hung her keys and took off her shoes off on the doorway.

            “Uhh, yeah,” I replied.

            She nodded. “What’d she say?”

            I didn’t really explain much, but I told her what we talked about. She nodded and understood this. And then I realized how tired she looked. She was beautiful, yes, always, but there was something quite missing. I just wasn’t sure what it was.

            “Are you okay?” I asked her.

            She looked at me for a second and I could tell that something really was wrong. She had dark rings around her eyes and she looked more exhausted than she ever did. But then she answered, “Fine. Just fine.”

            And when she left, I knew she wasn’t exactly in the mood for my nosy attitude so I just let her leave, wondering, behind her, what was so different.

I scarce believe my love to be so pure
 As I had thought it was,
Because it doth endure
Vicissitude and season, as the grass;
Me thinks I lied all winter, when I swore
My love was infinite, if spring make it more.

           

John Donne’s Love Growth. I wish I wrote these words for you.

Still wishing,

Vince, That Basketball Player

 

            I smiled. It was the seventh letter. Each was just as beautiful as another. All those seven letters I read. Four have been poems, and two were songs, one was a real letter, where he said things like one day, another person in the future would do the same thing he did, writing poems of other famous authors. But the poems would not be Shakespeare’s or Auden’s. He said they’d be mine.

            I wiped some tears away. I wasn’t even sad. It was more like a fleeting feeling. Like thinking that there could have been something more, but we did not have the chance. Something like that. But I didn’t regret not having that chance. Yes, at first, I did. But little by little, I learned about some things. I was still learning.