"And there's no more lies
And the darkness is light
And nobody cries
there's only butterflies" - Pocketful of Sunshine by Natasha Bedingfield
I merrily walked home, humming that special tune out of a Natasha Bedingfield song. I don't know how he could do such a thing to me, just by smiling and squeezing my hand. I was flying on cloud nine with hardly any reason why. I realized this, how I was way too overjoyed for the inconsequential meeting we'd just had. But something in me just said, "Who cares?" And so for the rest of the day, I was set on being happy for the sake of being happy. Because when the sun decides to shine, the clouds just aren't as noticeable.
I came into my apartment, let Lappie down safely on the couch and settled into the big, rotating chair in front of my desk. I pulled back the drawer, revealing my keyboard. As my hands ran over the keys I was almost positive that was how Beethoven must have felt. Finally at home in a world full of people, all worries and stress about the future fade into the background until it's just you, and your instrument. I skimmed my fingertips on the F and J keys, feeling the tiny bumps as I settled my hands into place. My eyelids closed together as one sentence formed into my mind. I typed it quickly and then slid my eyes open. Before me was the start of what I hoped would be my new novel.
I read it over and over again, adding a word and then deleting it seconds later. Because if the first sentence sucks, then all people are going to do is put the book down and move on. I was convinced of this. Everyone knows that the beginning of any story has to hook the readers like a fish to bait, reeling them in before they even have a sense of what has happened. And after staring at that one sentence for nearly ten minutes, I started the second.
And so I weaved and I strung my instrument, playing out my beautiful concerto. Before I knew it, I had a prologue.
I continued like this for some time, every once in awhile cracking my hands when they became stiff. I was finally getting back on the horse as they would say, and I accredited my cure for writers block to Elliot. Maybe all I needed after all was a change of mood. I had been rather somber lately.
I took a small break after a few hours and debated on going for a smoothie run to Le Petit when my computer started to buzz. Curiously, I meandered from the kitchen over to it. I smiled brightly, Bria was calling me over video chat. It's always the other way around. "You're the one with the open schedule, you call me." Bria would say. And I did, very often. When Bria called me, it either meant she had incredibly good news or she wanted me to tell her something juicy. And based off of our previous discussion, I would have bet a year's salary on the latter.
With the click of a few buttons Bria's smiling face filled the screen. She was in her apartment, the brightly colored fuchsia walls behind her. Her apartment was far more colorful than mine, like a unicorn had puked in it. It suited her quite well, being the colorful person she is. I checked the clock on the screen, confirming that it was odd for to be home so early. I spotted an an array of clothes spread out on her bed, matching zebra suitcases beside them. As I peered behind her shoulder, Bria moved to block my view, suspiciously smiling all the while.
"Heeeeyyyy," I dragged out, furrowing as I looked back at her plastic smile. "What's with the-" I started, quickly being cut off by Bria.
"Forget about me." she insisted, talking quickly and not even letting me get a word in. "What happened with Elliot today?" And just when I was about to demand she explain to me why she was in her apartment at four in the afternoon, she wiggled her eyebrows playfully and said "Come on, you know you wanna tell me...."
Bria is the only one that seems to understand how to bring out the middle schooler in me. I blushed, tugging at my long hair as I tucked part of it back behind my ear.
"It was really great, actually." I gushed, gaze turning to the floor as Bria's girlish squeal egged me on. "You've barely even told me about Elliot." she whined, "You have to tell me everything!"
I giggled. Bria was making bouncing movements then, like a child who has just discovered Pixie Sticks. "Why are you so excited about this?" I questioned, chuckling as I watched her fidget on the monitor.
"Because! This is exciting! He could be your first boyfriend! I've been waiting years for this moment."
Of course she had, being the matchmaker she is. I could understand that Bria was concerned about my extreme shyness, but pestering me would only make it worse. The more she pushed, the harder I would fight back. I would keep most of my crushes to myself as a last resort so I wouldn't have to talk about them. So what was so different about Elliot? Everything. Everything was different about Elliot.
I did what she asked, describing everything about our meeting, from the way he looked at me to what kind of coffee he ordered. I couldn't hardly look at Bria while I talked, I was beyond uncomfortable already. I stared at my fingers as they twiddled with each other, my face equivalent to a ripe tomato. When I was finished, I only had one question left for Bria.
"Honestly B, am I seeing things, or does he actually like me? I don't know what to think!" I exclaimed before waiting and watching her thought process.
Bria, while she may be extremely childish, and prying, not to mention attention seeking, can read people like I can read books. She saw me my freshman year of high school, saw the way all the other girls laughed at my wide glasses and total lack of curves, and she saw a friend in me. Bria painstakingly worked on me, and underneath that hard outer shell, was the best friend she knew I could be. I trusted Bria's analysis of most people. Sure, she had been wrong about a few, but also deadly accurate on others. I watched closely as she thought over her analysis of Eliot, features like that of a student solving the hardest math problem ever encountered by man.
"I think he is exactly the kind of guy for you, but also that hand holding doesn't mean that he likes you." My heart sunk to the depths of the ocean and I swallowed the lump that rose in my throat. "But, he just might, anyway." she concluded, sly smile growing as my whole body exploded from the inside.
"Really?" I asked, still insure. The last thing I wanted was false hope.
"You're a pretty girl, Addy. And he's not stupid enough to pass this opportunity up."
I couldn't have been more overjoyed. Things in my life might have finally been taking a positive turn. I was startled by her comment. I figured that as my best friend, she was required to call me pretty. But there was a ring of honestly in her words, something I could believe in. I wouldn't say I had low self-esteem, I just had an excess amount of humility.
She added "He's a grown up, Ad. But that doesn't give you license to be one, too."
I had been classed as childish my whole life, the phrase 'grow up' was something I had come accustomed to hearing. And I didn't plan on listening any time soon.
"Oh my God!" Bria exclaimed, breaking my train of thought. She looked quite alarmed. "I'm late, I am so late," she continued mumbling to herself as she started away from her computer and was scrambling around in her room.
"See you soon, Addy." she said before disconnecting. I frowned, she had barely said goodbye and was acting quite strangely. I decided to shrug it off. Whatever was going on, I would know soon enough. Bria might keep secrets for a few days, but eventually she would just spill it to me. Just like clockwork. As every fellow procrastinator knows, once you've started it's hard to stop. And when I took a break to talk to Bria, I'd opened Pandora's box. My focus was thrown out the window and my interest in inconsequential things spiked like a heart monitor during an attack.
The Internet is a dangerous space full of toils and snares, distracting billboards, and lot's of shiny things. Unluckily for me, shiny things are my weakness. Websites that seemed previously pointless became as interesting as a season finale of my favorite television show. I was in deep and my entire story was forgotten. That is, until I checked my email for the umpteenth time. I had new one from my dad, and I felt the corners of my lips smile as the thoughts of all those tabs faded away. We had only been communicating over email for too long, and I had the strongest urge just to see and hear him. I responded quickly and started to dial up his video chat, my body shaking with apprehension.
When he finally popped up on the scream, I had to giggle. All I could see of him was about ¼ of his face, as he was leaned in so close to the camera. I love him to death, I really do, but he might as well be water for how well him and technology mix. When I first moved out to New York, he'd called me a minimum of six times just to be sure he was using his email correctly. It took him days to reply because that's just how often he would check it. The way he responded to video chat was inevitable and quite comical, nonetheless.
"Can you see me?" he asked, his big blue eye staring right at me so closely I could see his eyelashes.
"Well, I can see your eye!" I giggled, "You don't have to be so close, dad."
"Oh, sorry." he said as he moved backward and I could finally see his whole face.
There was something timeless about the way my dad looked, his hair was still balding and almost completely shiny on top, yet his brown hair showed no signs of gray yet. He was unbelievably tan from the agricultural work he used to do outside before he started the hardware store in our small town. In some ways, I hated how busy it made him. But, I also knew that he needed to be busy sometimes. His face was scruffy from not shaving in a few days and subtle wrinkles were beginning to settle into his face. He was wearing his collared shirt from work with the small 'Maddox Hardware' logo sewn into it.
"Better?" he asked and I nodded back, biting my lip as I smiled.
My dad was the only consistent man in my life, all of my grandparents passed either before I was born or before I could talk. I knew he would stand by me through whatever and I pity the first boy who ever breaks my heart, because my dad will not hesitate to load his shotgun. I'm his only little girl, after all. When the rest of the world walked out, we had each other.
"How have you been?" he asked, adjusting himself in his seat. Behind him I could see our old living room, even I could tell he hadn't dusted in awhile.
"Fine." I replied. For some reason, if I ever unloaded my problems onto my dad, I felt overbearing. Only if he prompted me I would tell him, which he usually did.
"Are you, honey?" he asked, just as I had predicted.
I took a deep breath, deciding how to word my speech to not make it sound as bad. "I still have a pretty bad case of writer's block, but my new editor is helping me with it." I assured him when his face started to scrunch up with worry.
"Oh yeah, how is the new editor? Is he nice?" I chuckled a bit. It sounded as if I was a little first-grader coming home from school and he'd asked me if my classmates were nice. Something about it was funny.
"Yes, dad he is very nice. Young, too." I concluded, emphasizing the word 'very'. I didn't think too much of it, but my dad did.
"He'd not too nice is he? How young?" he rushed out, once again making me giggle and twirl around once in my office chair. Because while I'd never once brought home a boy in my entire life, he treated every single one like a threat. He often overreacted like he just had, I just found the entire situation hilarious.
"Fresh out of college." I said as my dad dawned a disapproving look, as I knew he would. "Don't worry, he's more than qualified."
"But I do worry about you." he told me, his tone taking on a softer effect to it that hardly ever found its way into our conversations, anymore. I stopped twisting and turning on my chair as I had been, furrowing as I looked at my dad. His demeanor had changed completely, from protective mother bear to worried parent.
"Why?" I asked him, genuinely curious.
"You're all alone now in New York. You still haven't made any friends. It's not good to be so alone in a big city." I had to stop myself from rolling my eyes at his comment.
Sure, when I first moved to New York I reacted the same way a kitten does when it first sees its reflection, jumping from fright and running away. But soon I'd come accustomed to it, like stepping into a swimming pool. I was fine how I was, in the shallow end where everything is nice and warm and you can still touch the bottom. What my dad was asking me to do is step farther, jump off the deep end, establish myself. And I didn't want to. I was happy in the shallow, close the exit. People in the deep end stay too long. The New York deep end was not somewhere I wanted to go, ever.
"Dad, I've been living here for three years now. I haven't had any trouble at all." I tried to convince him, presenting the facts. What I didn't mention was that the reason that I never had trouble was because the farthest distance I traveled at night, was home from Le Petit. I'm not exactly what you would call a 'Dora the Explorer' type of person.
"That doesn't mean you're not going to!" he protested. "I'm just saying, honey. Be careful." He looked at me sincerely, and even through the computer screen I could feel his gaze burning into me as I avoided looking at him. He worries too much.
"I'm always careful, dad." I gave him a reassuring smile, hoping he'd drop it. I hated how much he worried about me.
He smiled with pride, as if he knew everything would be okay in the world, "I know." He told me, deep voice cool and soothing. I had the strangest urging to see him in person, then. To feel his warm arms enclose around me and for my nose to be filled with the familiar scent of the cologne he had worn since I could remember. I missed the way his chin would brush my face when he hugged me, the rough hairs of his shaved face scratching mine in the process. I felt my chest sting, like something was slowly stabbing me. I missed my dad, so much.
But I bit back my emotions and smiled for him, it was better if he thought everything was all right this way. "I should probably get back to work. Love you, dad!" I exclaimed, adding joy to my voice as I waved at him through the camera.
"Bye, honey!" he said back, waving awkwardly to me.
I gave him another large smile, flashing all of my straight, white teeth before turning it off. Partially because I did have to get back to work, but largely attributed to the fact that I'm not sure he knows how.
I began typing again, my fingers flying over the keys at lightening fast speed. My eyes flickered around the screen as I watched the words I had spoken to myself in my head be brought to life. Tomorrow I would bring this story to Elliot, a new-world love story set in my own made-up place. One where the world has taken the 'eye for an eye' rule too far. I didn't know how happy I was with it, but there was potential. And I was excited to show it to Elliot.
In the back of my mind, I saw his face constantly as I worked. I was in deep.
And little did I know at the time, but that would be my defining weakness.
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oooooh... mysterious last line!!!!
You guys were good at answering my last question, maybe you do actually read these notes....
Anywho! Thanks in advance for putting up with this boring chapter, but it had to be done! We have to meet Addy's dad sometime!
If you like this story, vote and comment! I hate stressing it so much, but it has to be done! And if you don't know what to comment, just put a smiley face, I like smilies :)
------> Random love song! (because I can!)
Thanks for reading!
<3 thatcrazybookworm