Meraki

Two Faces And One

Describe a character twice – once to fall in love with them, then again to be repulsed by them.

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His smile alone made me happy.

No, happy was the wrong word. Happy was how I felt achieving something I had worked towards for years, finally being successful. Happiness was walking my dog on a late afternoon in autumn, feeling the gentle and perfect breeze against my cheek and breathing fresh air, smelling of rain and leaves and sky. Happiness was sleeping in on a late Saturday in January, when it was cold and all I wanted was to stay where I lay, perfectly warm, and being able to do so.

Happiness was being a part of something bigger than you, amidst hundreds of people just like you, when you all took part of something in agreement – like a gathering in a fandom, or watching the premiere of a movie with only die-hard fans beside you. We all yelled at the same time, we all got the nerdy references, we all laughed and cried and made memories together.

To be happy, I decided, was a feeling you could never keep over a long period of time. It was a fleeting image, a moment when everything was right. Not perfect, as some might think, just simply right. There was nothing wrong in it, no wrong answer, no pollution in the air, no cold or alone or helpless. Happiness was just a second in a minute, yet it was brilliant.

What I felt when he smiled was something different. When he smiled, I saw in his eyes his love for me and his love for life. I saw the world as he saw it, with all the beauty and the anger and the sadness, and that picture alone made my heart ache.

He was tall like a tree was tall, standing above me in a way that was never taken for granted, but simply as though he had always done so and knew no other way. He was lean and strong and would bend in the wind, and everything that defined a tree.

Then again, he could be hard and cold like a stone could, never really giving in to any element. Fire would not burn it, wind would not move it, water would not make it any less hard, and earth could not be nearly enough.

He would let me hold him, he would warm me up if I ever felt cold, and he would be nice and calm and helpful and gentle and everything one could ever want in a man. He would listen, with that little smile of his. He would talk with another one hidden in the dimples in his cheek. His smile was handsome and pretty, filled with love and lust.

When he smiled, I simply fell for him a little more.

And when his hair hung in his eyes, the dark curls making dark shadows over his even darker eyes, I felt it even more. It was nearly impossible for me not to love him like he was, a geek and a nerd and a champion in being himself. He always held my cold hands in his warm ones, he always listened to music as though the world would die without it, he always made a face while drinking tea, because according to him it tasted of nothing other than leaves soaked in water. But that was the definition of tea, I would tell him, and try to describe the taste for him. And he would take another sip, desperately trying to catch on to a small hint of the taste I could feel.

All this, and even more, was why I was happy with him, happily in love with him. Happy, generally, in the moments I shared. With him. I was in love.

It had been weeks since last time I saw him. Hours and days since last time I talked to him. He had sounded busy. He had sounded bored. He had probably been bored.

Behind his smile, last time I'd seen him, there had been darkness.

Hidden, in his dimples and his black eyes, were lies and hidden truths. Secrets. He had secrets from me, and I would never begrudge him that had it not been for all the lies. He didn't understand, maybe he chose to ignore, that I could see thought them. The lies were concealed in the way he looked at me – never too long and always too short. They were hidden in his stance, looking arrogant now that I knew him some more.

He ignored my words and my thoughts. Instead of trying listen, like he'd done in the beginning, he spoke of himself and his greatness and how all my mistakes was something he could have done right. Had it been him, he would say, it would never have happened. Even though all my mistakes were as simple and small as hanging a jacked in the wrong place or talking to the wrong guy.

I could see easily that he thought of me as nothing more than his personal belonging. He owned me in some way, I couldn't fathom how, and everything I did that did not please him made him feel as though he had the right to punish me.

Every time I tried to make plans for us together, he changed them. Every time I did my best to please him, he found something not quite to his liking.

In a way, since I'd got to know him, he had turned from charming to arrogant, from cute to clumsy, form easy-going and teasing to mean. His lean stance was meant as a symbol of him towering over me, my owner and my better in every way. The shadows that fell over his eyes gave me a relief from the agonizing site of his hatred for me.

Maybe hatred was the wrong word. Maybe boredom was better. He was bored with me. I was a game he had won and worn through, and now he wanted something else.

So he chose my best friend, and proved to me that even those I thought was on my side were really under his control. She had willingly leapt into his arms, knowing full well she was a weapon against me, and crushing my last and final hopes of ever changing him.

I had tried to save the boy I found in the fire, and he died. In his stead, I had found the boy who lit the fire in the first place, and I had tried to change him. Neither had worked, and the boy I once fell in love with was long gone. This was something completely different. This was the loss of hope. The loss of love. I was in pain and in shattered pieces. I could never love the monster he'd become.