Almost

The Cherry Tree

"I kissed each bullet, simply because I loved the person holding the gun"

 - Donte Collins

When you found me, under that cherry tree, I wasn't expecting someone like you. I was expecting someone close to me, like my mother or sister. Not his best friend. Not the one closest person to the man that unknowingly broke my heart. It struck me as odd, that you, Mason, were the one to wipe my tears. How was you not as oblivious to my affection towards Kaleb as Kaleb was. You knew that I was head over heels in love with your best friend.

I wasn't sure if I should've been mad or confused, but in that moment I was just grateful. I was grateful you didn't tell him, so he didn't know how I felt in that moment. So he didn't know he made me feel like I was breathing too much but too little at the same time.I didn't want him to know that he was the one to put the anchor on my chest.

As we sat there, under that cherry tree fading with fall, I knew my heart had made the wrong choice. It chose the wrong one to love. It made the same choice as every other love smitten girl in this town had. It had fallen into the trap of his beautiful looks and his arrogant ways.

But I wanted to change my decisions, I wanted to make another choice and pick the better man. But it was too late. My heart had made its choice and now I was stuck in the contract of unreturned love.

You wiped my tears but never said a word. It was a moment meant to be silent, one to savor without words. It was in those minutes that you held me when I realized that you might just have been the greatest person I had ever known. To think of all you've been through. But no one ever really sees that, do they? They never pay attention to you, only him. 

To be overshadowed is a horrible thing, especially when it's by someone you chose to love. When you love them so much that you ignore that feeling of being invisible because they're just that great. I've always wanted to know what it felt like  to know you are the one to put someone through so much misery, yet it is impossible to stop.

I knew it all to well - that feeling of being second best. It broke me down little by little. But it never hurt you like it did to me, did it? You were the strongest person I knew.  

"It was stupid, wasn't it?" I asked you as my sobs quieted. "I was stupid. To think I meant something to him. I was just another girl on his list. My God - I'm such an idiot to believe I was something special. That I was different. I never am." My voice was cracked and my laugh pathetic.

"Don't ever say that, Aria. You are special; he's just to stupid to see it."  You stopped the warm hug you were giving me to drape your jacket over me. In my haste to leave my house I had forgotten my own. Afterwards you dropped your arm onto my shoulder and let me just lay there with you. 

It may have been minutes or hours that we we sat there, but eventually the stars came out and we made a silent agreement to leave. I handed you back your jacket and we walked towards our cars that were parked besides each other. 

That was the day I discovered the real Mason Colt. Not the one who was an amazing athlete and known for being Kaleb Watts' best friend. But the one that held me when I cried and the one who lifted from that deep place in my mind. And as I drove I worried that this would be the only time I saw that Mason. And I hoped it wasn't.

And my wish almost came true.