"Have you ever fallen in love, Pey?" He asks me out of the blue, pulling me from my thoughts of the couple that sat on the bench across from us.
I look up in confusion,not understanding why he would ask me something like that. That question isn't something that comes from him. "No, I don't think, why do you ask, Eli?" I respond after a moment of thinking.
"Well," he starts looking down at the ripped leather journal that sat on my lap," you write such amazing stories and poems, but where's the inspiration from? You say you've never fallen in love, but your writings show so much emotion, I've just always wondered. How's that?"
I smile at him and set my journal on my book at that sat next to my shoes. I throw my blue, nearly used pen on the journal and look back at him. "Do you see that couple across from us?" I ask him, pointing directly at the couple I was staring at a few moments ago. Quickly lowering my arm he scolds me, "Don't point it's rude, but yeah what about them?"
I roll my eyes and stare at them again.
"Do you see how they look at each other. They act like they're the only ones in the world and nothing could be more important," I tell him, looking back at him. I see him staring at the two with focus I his eyes to see what I see. I notice how he watches the cute couple act with each other and he smiles when he looms back at me, his green eyes sparkling with happiness, his jet black hair slightly moving due to the harsh wind that blew against our faces.
I look away and back at the boy and girl saying, "it just amazes me how people from two different worlds, different backgrounds, different histories could come together and fall in love." I sigh and move the hair that blew in my face, "the way they act together is just", I trail off not knowing how to form a sentence.
We both stare at them laughing over something he had said, the girl leaning forward covering her mouth, the boy happily watching her smile. After calming down, she leans back and snuggles into the boys side, his arm automatically slinging around he shoulders playing with the ends of her hair. She begins to play with his hands, drawing shapes, talking about something we were too far to understand. Tearing my gaze away from the two I look back at Eli, seeing him observe the two.
"I might not know what love is, having never felt it, but I fee love when I look at them. They radiate love when they are together, even a blind man could sense it. They could inspire thousands of books and shorts stories and movies and poems, a thousand times better than mine, with a thousand times better grammar and English. Looking at them makes me hope, when I do fall in love. I feel and look as happy and in love as they do." I whisper to him, staring at him rather than the couple I speak of. I notice how the corner of his eyes are a bit wrinkled from all of the laughing, how his some of his hair goes one way, some hair going the opposite way. How his cheeks have so many freckles in the light, but natural light.
We sit like this for a few more moments until his moms car pulls to the curb. He looks to me when he notices his mom and I realize how green his eyes are, showing specks of a golden honey color.
"I gotta go, Peyton, but I'll text you okay? I now understand why you write what you write and know what you know when you notice people do the oddest things when they think no one is watching. Maybe I'll have a few things to write about myself yeah?" He says standing up, slinging his backpack over his shoulders.
He walks to the passenger side of his moms sleek black jeep with such confidence I've never seen him walk with. Maybe I've just never paid attention to his walk. His car drives off leaving me to my thoughts on him, the couple, and of all those stories I've written weren't about my feelings.
I sigh and grab my leather journal from my bag when my phone beeps, signaling I had received a message. I look at the ID and my heart flutters, for some unknown reason, when I see that it was Eli.
Elijah: thinking about it now, you've must have fallen in love. Those are your feelings you're writing about. Maybe you just haven't realized it yet, but I have just now, now your next story, can it be about this? Seems cute enough doncha think? Anyways gotta run peace ✌️.
I reread his message over and over trying to see if there was some hidden message, but I couldn't find one no matter how hard I tried. Moving the hair from my face, I look up from my phone to find the couple gone.
And in that moment, after reading and rereading Elijah's message over and over to find some hidden meaning, I realize he's right. Me, Peyton Juliette Anderson has fallen in love, and that person I've managed to fall over the edge though there was always a railing to catch me, as the black haired, green eyed, freckled boy, that made me ponder if I've ever fallen in love. I've realized that my inspirations for these poems and short stories aren't from these couples I hope so deeply to be apart of one dat, but rather the guy that always proofread my work. It's been the experiences and the newly found Elijah that I never paid attention too.
Me: yeah, maybe you're right.
"Maybe he is right."
