I worshiped you from afar. I knew from the very moment I had imbibed the green pigment your exquisite peridot gemstone eyes do discharge, that I was in love. You were a kind, courteous and diligent boy who held pride in his self-deprecating sense of humor. You were popular, and highly glorified throughout high school, which always compensated my soul with a sense of reluctance whenever I felt impelled to talk to you for the first time. To the girls at school, you were perfection and all its constituents: The breadth of your shoulders spoke of how you possessed the valorous qualities of a soldier. Courage. Your impressive GPA exhibited the sagacious facet of your personality. Intelligence. Last but not least, the warmth of your smile was fully apt at liquefying the most resistant of solids. Charm and generosity.
To me you were much more than what everyone else always thought of you. I refused to call you my everything, simply because you were not a quantity that was meant to be described in its intrinsic nature. You were much more than quantity. Much more than words. To you however; I was not a word nor was I a quantity. I was invisible. I was nothing. Even with the lack of acknowledgement, it only made my love for you grow cumulatively stronger than before. I enjoyed watching you from the sidelines. Behind those crooked wire rimmed glasses, and innocent eyes that were constantly scintillating with passion and anticipation. Their ignition always came from the same source. The friction engendered from forlorn love.
Nothing but hopeless love.
I still remember that fateful mistake like its occurrence was fresh out of yesterday. My best friend Macy had been infuriatingly trying, and with very little success, to coax me into attending the most glamorous house party of the year after someone had anonymously slipped an invitation into my locker. At first I was stunned by the obscure discovery, but I disregarded all thoughts thinking it was another one of Macy's strategic attempts to get me enthusiastic about the event. After all, my ideal vision of the perfect Saturday night was to revel in the warmth and opulence of my own bed, whilst burying my nose in philosophy books about the judicious opinions and lives of the world’s greatest philosophers from Plato to John Dewey. Anything was better than spending my night jostling through animated crowds of inebriated teenagers, carousing and shouting drunken profanities over a sound system blaring overly produced music.
I had never taken interest in teenage festivities, but for you, I knew it wouldn’t be a challenge. I had assumed that a part of me accepted because it was the perfect opportunity to see you; the other half of me was feeling audacious enough to embark on the perilous path of adventure.
It was the first time I had worn a dress and went out in public without my glasses, but it shouldn’t matter because you never noticed. I had managed to bring my diary along with me to keep me occupied, even though Macy had strongly inveighed against the idea from the beginning. I watched you socialize with your significant group of friends, and observed with great wonderment at how you gracefully slow danced with the girl you were destined to ask to prom as I documented every precious moment with the delicate stroke of a pen. I saw how your eyes grew wide with excitement when your favorite song instantly poured through the speakers, warranting an uncontrollable smile to inch its way up your pristine complexion. Little did you know, we both indulged in the same type of music. Observing you in your own niche, made me feel nothing but content. I was completely enamored by your presence, and simply enchanted by your every action. Even if I was still as invisible as a wallflower.
It was only after a few weeks that I noticed my diary and its key were missing. It was evident that I had foolishly left them at the party. To my luck, I had remembered the locket. Unfortunately however, the news about the findings had managed to rapidly circulate around the school faster than wild fire, and in a matter of days, my secrets had alarmingly landed in the hands of some of the most pretentious, yet highly idolized students at our school. The truth was right at your fingertips, and you didn't even know it. Sooner or later, people began to recognize that the passages from my diary were all about you. It wasn't that hard to figure out. Sometimes I would meekly peer over at you from the side of my locker, as you would be cautiously flipping through the crisp pages of the diary, your face openly advertising a diverse collage of sincere emotions with each gentle turn.
I was never once worried about you finding out who I was. I always knew I would never be convicted of such things. How could I ever be labeled a suspect when in your eyes, I was barely even a person? As sad as it was to admit, I knew it was nothing but an unfortunate gift from reality itself. It was never characteristically strange of me to feel lonely. In fact, it was an emotion I had grown accustomed to.
After the numerous amounts of clues strewn before your eyes, I was surprised that you had not the slightest idea about my hidden identity. Your friends had easily forgotten about the book, but you were always a different story. You were fascinated. The deeper you perseveringly dug into the book, the more allured and undeniably obsessed you became. I always had an innate and unnatural alacrity to go up to you in the halls for the purpose of unveiling my true persona for the very first time. But I knew you wouldn't believe me. No one would. I decided that it was best if I remained silent under an indestructible façade of concealed emotions.
On the day of our graduation I debated on whether I should attend the ceremony to witness your angelic countenance floating down the aisle for the last time, or whether to salvage myself from the colossal amount of heartache that I would experience from all that I had left unspoken. I chose to go. I couldn’t help leaving without mentally wishing you goodbye.
At the time I had arrived late, but that wasn’t important considering you were in the midst of giving your vivacious valedictorian speech on behalf of all the cheerful and highly spirited graduates. When you were nominated to be valedictorian, no one had any doubts about your ability to execute such an honorable task. You always had the eloquence of speech, but best of all, you were lively and engaging. It was almost as if the title was specifically crafted for your personal victory.
I settled at the very back of the church, watching you deliver as your face glowed with nothing but achievement and self-approbation. I promised myself I wouldn’t cry, but every time my eyes cruised down your face, my heart became doused in nothing but grief. Almost certain, I knew I had made a grave mistake in coming, because all I saw when I adoringly gazed toward your direction was remorse. My heart was mourning over your loss when you were never even in my possession to begin with. I was in dire need of something to fill the void of emptiness instilled within me. Something other than my melancholic emotions which were successfully filling up my soul to the brim.But I couldn't do anything anymore. It was too late. We had already reached the end, and even a boost in confidence would have been considered nugatory. Like my love for you, I was hopeless. Lost and drowning in a whirlpool of despair.
A tear gradually cascaded down my lightly tinted cheeks, as my trembling frame turned around desperately in search for the nearest exit. All I wanted to do was run away. I wanted to run away from the pain. From the twisted emotions. The lethal curiosity of what could have been. I wanted to run away from your hauntingly enticing figure. But to everyone's shock, my actions had only prompted you to softly whisper my name through the microphone amongst the mounds of parents and graduates who were exorbitantly perplexed by your troubled expression and sudden pause.
"Amelia. Please...don't leave."
I froze, unable to move any further from the spastic jolts of shock that were ceaselessly being released throughout my body. You knew my name, yet even with such a discovery that would have normally instructed my heart to soar from pure elation, I didn't dare turn around. I didn't want you to meet my eyes for the first time, and have you absorb nothing but translucent drops of despondent emotions.
I could practically feel everyone’s penetrating stare piercing through my skin, accompanied by the faint sound of your footfalls as you slowly made your way towards my weak and mortified soul which was hanging on the cusp of collapse. I couldn’t stay. It would only make things worse. At that moment, I did what I wanted to do from the very beginning of my arrival. I ran out of the church. I didn’t care about the consequences. I didn’t care about the looks of sheer horror and bewilderment. I didn’t care about the raucous laughter, and the collective gasps of shock I had managed to procure from the audience. All I genuinely cared about was going home. But something stopped me both physically and mentally.
The temperamental skies had managed to emulate my dark emotions as it was pouring sheets of rain. Before I had even thought about stumbling down the flight of stairs in my mother’s vintage heels, I felt the weight of your body being pressed against my own. Encased in nothing but warmth and astonishment, you had slithered your arms around my waist in a protective, yet restrictive manner. I didn’t understand your actions at the time, but I never questioned them. I just allowed for my heart wrenching tears to vigorously glide down my cheeks, as they sloppily interconnected with the lucid droplets of rain.
You told me about how much you always secretly loved me as you cradled me in your arms. How you were stunned by how beautiful I looked when you saw me at the party adorning that red dress for the first time, and how it was you that had slipped the invitation in my locker. You told me about how much you admired my big brown eyes, and how every day you would furtively watch me from the windows at the library as I would be intensely engrossed in my philosophy books. Completely sucked out of reality. You told me about how much you endeavored to speak to me in the halls, and why you had masked your veritable emotions for so long, scared of your judgmental friends’ reactions. You told me you were sorry.
But what you never told me was how you found out that I was the owner of the diary. I didn't need an explanation, because arrested within the palm of your unstable hands, you held out the tiny locket that cluelessly fell out of the pocket of the only dress I owned once I had ungraciously fled from the church.
Your other hand hugged on to the key.
What I never told you on that bittersweet day as I was surrounded by nothing but walls of hopelessness and conflicting emotions, was that there always existed a brilliant ray of hope flickering within me, escorting me towards a certain idea.
The idea that you had always held ownership of the key to my heart.