Hold Me While You Wait

37|hold me while you wait

hold me while you wait

t w e l v e  m o n t h s  l a t e r

No matter how much everything proved to remain the same, it all became excessively different in time.

"But earthlier happy is the rose distill'd, than that which withering on the virgin thorn grows, lives and dies in single blessedness. Can anybody tell me where this quote is from?" Professor Will asked, the words sparking an immediate remembrance in the intricate mind of the curly haired girl.

And just like that, the time from which she first heard those words came up to her again, though she didn't say anything.

"A midsummer night's dream," a student had answered in the front, and Elis slid further down into her seat, slightly tapping the end of her pencil against her book in passing seconds. But she couldn't ignore the feelings risen from hearing those words. They were guilty of so much memories, causing her to be telepathically transported back to a year ago. Back to when she met a person time fought so hard to erase, although it couldn't quite succeed.

It was a good memory, but disinclination was what she had been, what they both had been, that the world might just as well become a state of wanted propensity, that which laced itself with aversion and dislike. Because that was what the passing of time made her feel, repugnance to what has resulted from the best love she's ever experienced. The only love she's ever experienced, and Elis would give anything in order to live the reality of a year ago again.

"Great! So what can you tell me about these words? Which ideas does Shakespeare explore through talking about the 'rose distill'd' and the 'virgin thorn?' What comes to your mind?" Professor Will continued, and even though Elis thought so wholly of the quote, she couldn't bring herself to saying anything that would remind her of a year ago again.

And so time was elusive, that instead of what has always been meant by time bringing with heal, it made it the more difficult for her to comprehend. But at the end of the day, it started to become clear that her focus in grief had changed. So was that what made time somewhat reliable? That in experiencing another loss, it would put away the first one?

"Ms Collins," Professor Will called, craning his neck to look at Elis seated in the far back of the class. "Care to share your opinion of what you understand about these words?"

Elis sighed, acknowledging the feeling of fully succumbing herself to those overflowing memories of a year ago, now that she had to, because everything about those words made her feel something a little more than numbness.

"It's like a comparison of some sorts," the curly haired girl began, taking a deep breath as everyone's eyes focussed on her.

"He talks about how people who can restrain their passions and stay virgins forever are holy. But although a virgin priestess might be rewarded in heaven, a married woman is happier on Earth. Because she is like a rose who is picked and made into a beautiful perfume, while a priestess just withers away on the stem."

Professor Will was astonished. And later, much later on, when continuous classes turned into small spaced apartments and kitchen counters, Elis had dinner with her parents. And then she went to bed, barley uttering out a word. That was the curly haired girl's routine. Each day of autumn, winter and spring consisted of the same routine.

But her first year of college was over. And summer was suddenly upon her.

Elis couldn't bear with the thought that it had been a year since arriving in the lake house, and that it had been a year since she found her. They've never spoken since, except for one time, in just as many months, that Elis woke up to a call from Gray.