Withering You

Noah

Times were good when you were dependent on your parents for everything.  Now I had to make the choices. I'm afraid I will fail terribly. Next week is graduation. You won't be there to receive yours. I don't want to go, Ava. Your name would be read though. The school had asked for your parents to come. It would hurt me to see them. It would be cruel to make them watch other kids receive their certificates when their child is no more. I don't want to see their pain. It would remind me of the fact that you are gone.

After graduation I'm flying out of the country for college. It's simple. It happens in everyone's life but how can I go far away from you?  I've seen you in here. You live here in my memory. It's easy to imagine you here with me like this but in another country? There would be no fragments of you to carry around. It's scaring me.

"Noah, where are you going? We need to get you boxers, remember?" Dad asks. He was loud enough to turn a few heads. If I could blush then I would have turned beetroot red by now. Dad and I were doing college shopping. You know, the things I would need when I'm away. Since mom couldn't make it she sent me with dad. I don't know if I should complain.

"Dad. You didn't have to be so loud," I hiss at my dad.

"Chill, son. It's only boxers," dad says with a smile.

I shake my head at him in vain as I follow him to the males' section.

Maybe it's all just a coincidence, Ava. But it feels like everything is working against me. Especially God with a capital 'G' working against me. I wanted to groan out loud in frustration when I spotted Saige. My heart dances in my rib cage. She was chewing gum in a manner that if my mom found me like that she would slap the gum out of my mouth. She doesn't notice me. But that's not the problem here. I noticed her. My hands turned sweaty. My feet turned mushy. She is not you but she strongly reminds me of you. I fear I would lean in and bury my nose in her wild hair and smell the fragrance of you. I look away quickly before she can spot me.

I'm scared. I have been searching for you in every girl I meet, thought no one existed like that but now, I fear I have found one. I tried to deny it from the very first time I saw Saige but it seems like I can't fool myself around anymore. It hurts. It frustrates me too.

I wasn't attracted to you by your figure, Ava. It was those feelings that you had the ability to set loose in me that made me attracted to you. You understand me, Ava? You set lose a million feelings in me and this woman standing a few feet away does the same to me. I really am trying Ava, I don't want to kill the you in me with another woman. It hurts me to think like that. But I can't stop this woman from seeping into my heart. I don't think I have the ability to stop her.

Saige was long gone from the shop but my heart was beating crazily till we had reached home.