BLAKE MAXWELL
I paced in my room slowly and solemnly. I could not believe that after kissing Leah a second time, she still refused to disclose the true value of the kiss. How could she blatantly say to me that her feelings had nothing to do with me? She had been sharing her feelings with me since we were five and six years old.
To tell me that her feelings were none of my business seriously went against everything we had promised to each other as children. I collapsed on my bed and felt a single tear roll down my cheek. Was there any pleasure in what she was doing to me? Was she aware? The single tear was followed by a second, and then another. I gazed at my ceiling and stared at the glow-in-the-dark stars. They reminded me of that night in which our first kiss occurred. The tears began to multiply, and soon I was unable to see the stars on my ceiling. I didn't care though; those stars seemed to taunt my memories and remind me that A Place with Leah just did not exist. I was glad those stars were not in a specific constellation.
My pillow became damp and the light outside of my house began to diminish. Soon it began to rain. Images of Leah's perfect smile filtered through my mind, one by one. My brain just could not let go of my obsession with her beauty. What was wrong with me? All of these years I had tried so hard to push these manifestations of Leah towards the back of my mind. Yet, they kept reappearing in my dreams, thoughts, and actions. I think that was the thing about loving someone like Leah - she was so divine in every shape and form that the world just had to know about her. It was as if there was a subconscious understanding that Leah was so unique and beautiful that everyone had to see what loving someone like her could do to someone's psychology. I was that unfortunate test subject.
I began to visualize an amber hue rising around in my room; I'm not sure if the tint was a product of my imagination, but it seemed real. Then a strange but calming lavender scent filled the room. It was a nice smell, but it reminded me of Leah. That's what the smell was - a Leah smell. A Leah's amber colored hair smell, to be more precise. I basked in the amber smell because I figured this would be the last time I would be this close to her - even if it was total fiction.
It was at this moment that the doorbell rang, and I was awakened from my mirage.
"Oh, hi! How's it going?" My dad asked the unknown visitor.
"It's going well, Mr. Maxwell. How about yourself?" The unknown visitor was Leah. Why was she here? She was probably here to remind me that a world in which we could be together was never going to exist. She must have been here to tell me that we could never pursue something beyond the practicality of friendship.
"It's going tremendously. Have you finished Pride and Prejudice?" Why was my dad so keen on discussing trivial things with her? Did he not know that she only looked for the pragmatics in relationships?
"Yes, sir. I enjoyed it profusely. Is Blake home?" She was here for me. My assumptions were correct; she was not here to discuss fine English literature with my father. No, she was here to remind me that our relationship was simply a friendly one.
"Tremendous! I'm glad you enjoyed it. Austen truly is a master of humor and satire."
"Gosh, I know, right? The opening line sold it for me. I just love how literature can be so applicable to your life that it almost makes you forget about the actual events you're going through. I speak for novels such as The Catcher in the Rye."
I continued to listen to them talk downstairs while I turned my head on my side on the pillow. I watched the rain pour outside of my window while I mirrored that action with my own tears. It was almost too much for me to listen to her voice without being reminded of the painful consensus we had reached.
"Okay, well I'm truly glad I could discuss literature with someone, Mr. Maxwell. But, I want to talk to Blake about something," As soon as she said that, I snapped my head up and ran to my mirror. There were the strange streaks of tears pasted to the side of my face, and my hair was a disheveled mess. I swiped the streaks off my cheeks and rearranged my hair as I heard her walking up the stairs to my bedroom. I could feel her standing in my doorway, and the amber smell returned. Although, this time it was real. I continued to stare at myself in the mirror, almost as if I were piercing my own soul with my green eyes.
An eery silence filled my bedroom while each person waited for the other to say something. Finally, she spoke.
"Blake?" I did not answer. I continued to stare at myself, and I sucked in my lips as if to remove any memory of what she was about to refer to.
"I - I, I came to apologize. For both times, actually," I still did not speak.
"I know I reacted unfairly, both times. I never really considered what it meant to you."
This time I spoke, "Yeah." She walked into my bedroom and sat next to me. It was now both of us analyzing our reflections in the mirror, above the glow-in-the-dark stars. The amber smell continued to permeate my room. A single tear rolled down her face, and I broke my stare so as to look at her directly in the eyes.
"Blake, I just don't know what to do. I feel rotten, Blake. Almost as if I were sick with worry about the consequences of all of this confusion," I continued to stare into her eyes. Another tear flowed down her cheek and landed on her lap.
She collected herself and started to speak.
"Blake, don't you feel like we would be wasting what made our friendship so valuable if something were to go wrong in a relationship?" I looked at her and pushed back the painful, ever-present lump in my throat. The feeling stung.
"Leah," I began.
"Leah, no one lives life to the fullest. That is a myth. Everyone experiences a downfall at some point, and the unlucky ones experience multiple downfalls. If everything in life were good, then life would be too easy," I watched her face for a change in emotion. A strange combination of worry, sadness, and something foreign appeared in her face.
"Blake, I don't know if you have not already pieced together my emotions with my words, but despite how profusely I desire it, there can never exist a world in which we sacrifice our friendship for something like romance," It was now my turn to evoke the strange emotion combination on my face. Another tear rolled down her left cheek.
She continued, "You just mean too much to me for even the slightest risk."
I said nothing for a while, and neither did she. We both sat and stared at each other's eyes for what seemed like an eternity.
"I see," Was all I could come up with. This time she moved closer to me and laid her head on my shoulder, turning her stare into my mirror again. We both sat like this for a while, drowning ourselves in each other's sicknesses - my desperation, and her worry.
We said nothing for an hour until she took a deep breath and removed her head from my shoulder.
"Blake, you know you're going to drive me to school everyday, right?"
"I figured."
"Good."
"Yeah."
"Blake? Is something wrong? You feel the same way I do, correct?"
"Yes, I do. I want to remain close friends with you for as long as I can."
"Then, what else is wrong?"
"I feel sick," I said.
"Me too," She said.
"Blake, I need to go home now; it's almost ten p.m."
"Okay," So, she got up to leave and hugged me closely. The amber smell intensified. As soon as she left, the smell dissipated.
I took a long shower that night, maybe to reflect the rain that was still pouring outside. It was early for when I normally fell asleep, but since I was still hungover and tired, I climbed into bed instead of staying up later.
This was the problem about falling in love with someone whom you have known since your early childhood days. It tugged at you in every direction until it left you raw with emotion and desire. The rawness left you wanting to cry and dissipate into your own isolation, and this was Leah that was leaving me in this state. I thought about her in her house, probably reading and paying no mind to our conversation, and the feeling to weep intensified. It did not matter whether it was night or day - this feeling never showed any mercy. No matter what time of the day it was, you could not look at things differently when you were like I was then.