Lessons On Love

14: Heartbeats Or Footsteps

            “Like things I suck at?” I asked just to confirm.

            “Sure. Whatever goes.”

            I tilted my head and thought about it. “I can’t swim,” I said slowly. “I’m impulsive and can’t control my temper. I can’t bake. Um… I can cook pretty well, but I only know how to make five things. I can’t sew. I can’t knit. And I hate doing housework so my dad does everything.”

            “Really? I love going to the beach.” He turned to me and smirked once he placed the cookie batter inside the oven where they were going to sit for the next 15 to 20 minutes. “Though I’m not sure if I like it because I like swimming or because I like picking up girls.” I gave him a hopeless sort of look and he laughed it off as he continued. “I also know my way around the kitchen and surprisingly, I can sew and knit really well, but you’d have to see it to believe it. I don’t hate chores, but I don’t like them either except vacuuming. It’s the only time I can sing without people telling me their ears are bleeding. How about things you’re good at? You know, besides the acting and stuff.”

            I shrugged since there wasn’t much that I was bad at if I put a decent amount of effort in it. “I have a really good memory,” I said.

            “I don’t even remember what I ate for breakfast,” he mumbled.

            “I’m a perfectionist.”

            “I’m a procrastinate…ist.”

            “That’s not even a word,” I grumbled.

            “Well being a perfectionist isn’t really a great quality either.”

            I just moved on instead of having another pointless argument with him. “Um… what else? Oh. I used to play the piano. I was pretty good at it while my interests lasted.”

            His eyes lit up. “Really? I used to play the piano too!”

            “You’re really in touch with your feminine side,” I told him.  

            “It’s not feminine,” he retorted. “My dad coaxed me into taking lessons when I was four because he promised me it would help me pick up chicks at birthday parties.”

            I couldn’t even believe my ears. “You were slutty even at that age?” He rolled his eyes at my remark. “Well, are you any good at it?”

            “What? Playing the piano? Well, I don’t want to brag, but I’m like the reincarnation of Mozart or Butch.”

            “Bach,” I corrected. “I don’t even know how you got Butch. And you’re lying.”

            “You got me. I sucked at it.” He laughed after. “But it’s cool though.”

            “What is?”

            “That we complete each other.” The corner of his mouth lifted into a bashful, boyish grin. “It’s like I’m the white keys and you’re the black.” And I’ve criticized just enough chick flicks to know this is usually where the girl is supposed to hear those heavy footsteps stomping across her heart, but I don’t hear anything, and I don’t feel anything. And when the honesty of the moment settled over me, I turned away from him and looked toward our dirty bowls and spoons soaking in the sink.

            “Do you think everything I’m doing right now is futile?” I asked.

            “What do you mean?”

            “This whole trying to fall for you thing. Do you think it’s all just a waste of time?” The question must have surprised him because Marshall couldn’t seem to react to me, and could only stare at me with steady silence. “Remember how we first met and you told me what the first rule to love was? That I can’t pick who I like?” I took a deep breath before letting it all out and sinking my hands into the warm water of soap and dishes. “Maybe you were right all along. Maybe I’ve just been stubborn and–”

            “And what?” He interrupted me by touching his fingers to my collarbone and then dragging it up my neck, pulling my chin towards him as he pulled me close and towered over me. “Do you want to know what the second rule to falling in love is Camila?” He asked, and when he does, his eyes pierced into me with such aggressiveness, such intensity, that I find it hard to breathe. It’s like he’s a completely different person, his gaze a tsunami of blue and green that seems to drown me 3000 metre deep in water, to a world where time sits still and the only thing I can hear is my own heart beating in the background.

            “Lesson number two,” he began, and he’s so close that I can feel his breath pressing against my lips, “is that everything happens for a reason. I know I said you can’t pick who you fall for, and I still stand by that, but maybe that’s not the case between us. Maybe everything that’s happened that’s brought you where you are, to this moment, standing right here, is because you were meant to fall in love with me.” And in that moment, when Marshall’s strings of enchantment seem to paralyze my body and numb my thoughts, it was almost impossible not to believe him.