Starting Over

4. The Story Retold

"The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, know loss and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen." ~ Elizabeth Kubler- Ross

~*~

"Blake ,please,"Lucy says, touching his cheek. He shakes his head at her.

"I can't, Lucy. I need to you. And you have to come back," he says.They are in a field of daffodils and the light breeze brushing  past them. They look into each other's eyes.

"Then, you have to find me,"she says, smiling.

He frowns. "Find you? how?"

She pulls him into a hug . "Blake , I love you," she says. "I'll always be there for you"
She vanishes, as if dust. As if she was a mirage of an oasis in a desert.
He tries to catch her, moving his hand in the air. But she's gone. He screams her name and drops.

    Blake got up from his bed. Beads of sweat fell down from his forehead. Find her? He sighed. Why at all did you have to leave, Lucy? Why did you have to leave me, hurt me, stab me, kill me everyday with your absence ? Just why, Lucy.?

~*~

Blake sat down on the chair in the university and opened his book. Chlara came and sat beside him in silence. But that day wasn't a day of silence, it was a day when their story was retold.

  During break Blake and Chlara got out of their class and proceeded towards the cafetaria. Just then, Blake's phone rang.

"We can't make it today, Blake. We're so sorry. We got this work and now we're stuck ..," Kristine said, guilty. Blake nodded and replied, "It's okay, I understand".
Then, he hung up and turned to Chlara.

"They aren't coming today"

"Oh," she said. There was a moment of awkward silence between them.

"Can we sit outside today, please? I you don't mind?," she requested.

"Sure, no problem," Blake replied.

        They walked outside and sat down beneath a tree. They chewed onto their food in silence.

"Blake?," Chlara said, all of a sudden.

"Yes?"

"What was Lucy like?"

Blake looked at her in surprise. She had never asked Blake about her. And right now, she had just dug into that deep wound of Blake's heart and let it open. Like a monster, she had scratched his wound all over again. A wound which hadn't even been filled. Blake did not reply.

"I sorry, you don't have to tell me,"she apologised, looking away.
He shook his head. "I'll tell you, Chlara"
He inhaled and looked at her. She waited patiently.

"Lucy..," he began, slowly. "Lucy .. was my sunshine. Bright, cheerful, funny. She was a beautiful person, in and out," he closed his eyes and her face was created immediately his mind, like a painter who paints a picture so vividly because it's the most beautiful thing he has seen.

"You could never get tired of her, never get tired of being with her, of looking at her. She was one whole of a person.The first time I saw her, I knew it. I knew she was one crazy, funny, interesting, beautiful and well, a different person. I was just thirteen then."
Chlara smiled, nodding at him. He continued.

"I saw her from my room. I saw her dancing, singing, falling, laughing. And I laughed too. I couldn't stop laughing. She made me smile, all the time. She spread laughter , spread joy all round her. And when I met her in school, I knew her better. I knew that she wasn't any girl, she was so much more. She was a treasure of laughter, of wisdom, of happiness, of beauty. She made everything beautiful around her.. And when she smiled. You couldn't stop looking at her, it was inevitable. She didn't need reasons to smile, she just did. She smiled, looking at the sunrise, looking at the sunset, the flowers, the leaves. You could almost feel that she could communicate with them. But it wasn't that", he said, shaking his head. "It was just like.. she saw the extraordinary in the ordinary, the perfect in the imperfect, the abundance in the dearth. She had an ability to draw emotions from people who otherwise kept it locked away. She was so different. She was my everything and without her I'm nothing. "Chlara smiled, nodding, laughing, wishing that she had known Lucy. Blake told her about Lucy's birthday, their confession on Heather's wedding, the letter she had given him and the rain.

"I thought she was crazy," Blake said , laughing. "But no, she just saw the beauty in everything. The uniqueness in everyone, merely because she herself was unique. She spoke reasonably, beautifully and her voice was almost musical. I used to be riding along her magnificient voice, as it dipped and soared. We used to talk late at night, look at the stars, laugh.I fell in love with her each day, deeper and deeper, as if drowning in her ocean. She taught me that without love, we were like birds with broken wings. And so, she spread love, giving a part of her heart to everyone she met." Blake described her so affectionately, with so much emotion in his voice, that you could almost feel him dancing within. " She built the most beautiful memories  in one's life. She was so much, so many personalities, words cannot describe her." Chlara could just smile. She could feel Lucy's beauty, feel the magic she might have created in the lives of people around her. " She was like a bottomless well of inspiration we drink from without ever slaking our thirst. She welcomed the new without shedding the old. She assimilated the new, the foreign , reinvented and renewed her character to remain revelant. She had an aura of magic, that enveloped her like a cloud". And while they thought that, Lucy's body rotted in the grave, perhaps ? But her character shone even more.

"But then she left me. It was so unexpected , and so painful, it made me hate love. I saw her there, lying, burnt, bleeding, fighting for life. I couldn't even recognise her face in the hospital. And I knew I had nearly lost my own life. It was so painful. My legs trembled as I picked her up and carried her fragile body , a flash of heat crossed my brain. And when her body was there on the bed, her face wounded and burnt in scars, I broke, I shattered to pieces. It was impossible I had thought. I shook her, pleaded her to get up, but she just left me, all alone, to suffer. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know how to cope, I didn't know how to say goodbye,"Blake said, crying. Chlara's eyes welled up in tears. "I wish she was here," He ended. He couldn't speak anymore, his voice wouldn't  come out. It was as if his voice was now caged by the outburst of his emotions.

Both of them cried, silently, until they knew they had to stop.

"I'm so proud of her. And I'm glad I knew someone like her," Blake said.

"You know, Blake. If I ever had a sister, I wish it was her," Chlara said, smiling through her teary eyes. Blake nodded. There was silence for a long time, before Blake spoke up.

"I love her too much to let it go. And now, I have a fear. A fear of grief, of that sorrow and of that vulnerability that love entails."

Chlara pulled Blake into a hug. He was surprised. "It'll be okay, Blake. Im sure it will," she said.

  "It couldn't be okay , Chlara . She doesn't know. Without her I'm just a bare brown tree.."

But even a bare brown tree has it's own beauty. And soon, as the seasons change, it grows leaves, and comes back to life.
~*~

Next chapter : The trigger. (Lucy one.. Lucy two.. )