The Person Who Makes My Days Brighter

CHAPTER 7: ROADS LESS TRAVELED

Edward and I are sitting in the bedroom of his apartment. He's lived in this neighbourhood, Sunningdale, about two years now he says. Like the rest of us that live here, he too is a student. It's the beginning of summer and it's quite a furnace, this place. The fan is oscillating, blowing air through the room but it isn't doing us much justice. Edward is a good friend of mine. I tell him a lot of things although he is hesitant to tell me most things. It's gotten to the point where he can just look at me and be able to tell that something isn't right with me. I like that about him. I appreciate it still because that means he's paying attention, and that's more than any friend can ask for these days.

So today is one of those days. I'm not my best self. A lot of things are running through my mind and I don't think I have any of it figured out yet. So how do I begin to talk about it? I don't—we just begin talking about everything else going on. I was beginning to come down with a cold so I suggested that he and I should take a walk to the chemist to get some medication and possibly clear my head, but I don't tell him that last bit. As we are walking passed the guard posted up by the gate Edward asked me if I was alright. I think to myself, 'there we go again.' I have a hard time lying to Edward. He has a tendency to see through my lies and always calls me out on my bullshit regardless of how it impacts me. So I choose not to lie this time and I tell him that something is bothering me. I also mention to him that I'm not sure that I want to talk about it just yet and he understands that. That's another thing about Edward that I appreciate, he's understanding.

So to take my mind off of the negatives Edward decides to talk. He is talking a lot more than usual and is telling me all kinds of things, things you wouldn't expect a guy like Edward to know but somehow he does. He seems to just know a lot of things that go on around us, the kind of things you wouldn't notice if you aren't paying attention, so I guess it was just him being Edward, paying attention.

He begins telling me a story. About a year ago he was late for one of his classes. He's the kind of guy that is late for a lot of things, so by the way he was walking in his sweatpants and sneakers with a baggy maroon hoodie over his uncombed hair, you could make out that the time he got into the class was the least of his concerns. Just out in front of his lecture theatre, he met his friend named David. Edward and David spent a year of high school together and lived in the same apartment. His friend David had just gotten out of class himself and was sitting on a bench with some of his friends. They exchanged greetings and Edward noticed one of David's friends. He says he can't remember exactly what it is she was wearing then, but it was probably blue jeans and low cut sneakers with it's laces she fastened up to the mid-range area of her legs, her boyish jet-black hairdo in curls. He gave his friend a smirk and nodded in direction of the girls and that was telling enough. He gets introduced and he shakes each of their hands and finds out the girl's name is Luna.

"What was so special about Luna?" I ask.

He says that looking at her, he already knew it in his heart that he was going to fall for her pretty hard and was having a harder time accepting it. It was probably her eyes in my opinion, I know he has a thing for pretty eyes and pretty faces. Also, I don't seem to get that or how that is possible—'knowing' but he says when it happens to me—I'll just know.

It took a while but when Luna started talking to him they wouldn't stop. He'd see her on campus every day and when they weren't talking in person they were exchanging text messages over the phone and when they weren't doing that, well—she was mostly on her way to his place to see him in person. He tells me about how she talked to him about everything, including her dysfunctional family and his too.

At the time though he says he wasn't in a good place. He had just gotten out of a relationship with someone he said he would love forever and was a recovering satyro. It was all moving too fast, he says, so he decided to tell her he isn't ready to be with her 'like that' and that had Luna fuming because his actions were contradictory.

"You kiss me and you act one way, you give me hope and now you just took all of that away."

"Don't stop now!" I'm curious about what happened next so I push him to go on. Edward and Luna are really getting at each other now. Luna is always talking about something, that he did with someone—because she heard otherwise. She doesn't trust him or his intentions anymore and that's because Edward gave her so many reasons not to do so. That was the first real disagreement they had.

Over time little disagreements soon turned into arguments and fights. Seemed to him like every week was an ego contest to see who could go how long without saying a word to the other. This would go on for days, weeks and even as long as a month and a half. Luna's friends weren't his biggest fan either, he recalls one of them mentioning to her that he didn't deserve her at all—and he took it upon himself to use those exact words to try end things with her in the name of 'not being good for her' because 'she deserved better' and you can only imagine how unpleasant it was for her to hear him say that, but even still she did not let up, she was not going to let him off the hook that easy. He once mentioned to her that most people he had cared about left, she was determined to prove him wrong.

"Honestly I can't tell you what it was about this girl, she just wouldn't give up on me—and I didn't think I was worth it," he says.

"I can only imagine. There really must've been something there huh," I say.

He tells me that there was something there. He had not opened up about himself to a lot of people and neither had she according to what he understood. So to find someone who got him the way she did was exactly what he needed at that particular time. The sad part is that we usually don't recognise things like that until it's too late. She asked him if he thought that having too many external opinions on their relationship had a part to play in what went wrong—he says he told her that as much as he would like to think so, he strongly believes that if anybody had an outstanding part to play it was either him or her; or fate certainly.

"So what's going on between you and Luna now?" I ask. He shoots me a look that retells the whole story he spent the last half an hour on this walk trying to explain to me. "We're trying to be friends now," he says.

"How's that going for you guys?"

It was not going great apparently because it was almost impossible to ignore the past. They had never really been friends so normal for them was a lot cosier than most platonic relationships. He says he sometimes says insensitive things. Not on purpose, but it's all part of making the adjustment from whatever they were. However, they still made it seem like they were together—and the drawn lines always got blurry or transparent. She told him that she hates to see him with other people, it's something she says she's been working on. She hates it, even more, when they talk about the past. Memory lane isn't her favourite street and it's littered with unsolved feelings and emotions. But feelings and emotions aren't always in our control no matter how in control we think we are, —and I understand that just as well as they both do. He tells me Luna is always saying that he knows she loves him and that he knows where she stands and that it's really up to him to make up his mind about what he wants. Edward says Luna makes him want to be a better person and that their friendship means a lot to him and he isn't ready to give up on them.

"I'm just riding the wave—going with the flow of things and not forcing or expecting anything grand."