Symmetrical Scars

7) Shattered

"Nature's first green is gold, her hardest hue to hold,
her early leaf's a flower, but only so an hour,
so leaf subsides to leaf, so Eden sank to grief,
as dawn subsides to day, nothing gold can stay."
- "Nothing Gold Can Stay", Robert Frost

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<> Kid's POV <>

The next few days continued like that. It was one happy day after another, almost too perfect to be real, and I knew it wasn't going to last long. That's just the way life is, nothing perfect can sustain itself forever...

But who wants to believe that?

It's not like I didn't notice Raina getting quieter each day, it's that I didn't want to notice. She barely spoke in the first place, but now even when I did get her to speak, it was distant. Raina never quite looked like she was completely focused, like she was thinking about something else that was clouding her whole mind. It's only an educated guess, but that's how she looked to me.

I decided not to say anything, figuring it'd be rude to tell her she didn't look all there. So with both of us not saying anything, there was only silence between us.

In that silence though, I realized just how little I know about Raina. Even after almost three months of knowing her, I haven't heard her speak a word about herself. I don't know her favorite color, or her birthday, I don't know if she's had past relationships.

I mean- not that it matters much, but it's a good idea to know someone before you fall in love with them; a piece of advice that I refused to follow.

Maybe I can just ask her about it. Everything about Raina seems like a game of sorts, making decisions that effect everything afterwards, even the smallest detail changes the entire outcome. But how would asking a few innocent questions change anything?

"Raina?"

She was staring at the ground again, her hands entwined in front of her, painting a picture of complete symmetry and perfection. Raina hardly acknowledged I had spoken, that or she hadn't heard me. After a moment however, she looked up at me with her beautiful blue eyes.

"Yeah?" Her voice was soft, hardly a whisper, almost pulled away in the soft desert breeze.

"When is your birthday?" I decided to start with this question first, somehow it seemed the most innocent of what I wanted to ask. Better than starting with how many romantic relationships she's been in.

Raina looked up and stared off into the distance, deep in thought again. I think I've lost her. Raina bit her lip lightly and turned to me. "December 13th."

That was a few weeks before I met her, and a long way off now. Hopefully I'll get to see her then. I was determined to get Raina to continue speaking, so I continued asking her little questions, with a long pause before each answer.

"Favorite color?"

"..."

"Raina?"

"What? Oh, um..."

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah. Fine... Um, yellow. I think."

It was like every word she said was being read off a script, and each syllable unlocked something she didn't want me to know.

Raina's words were planned and carefully thought out, she's always been like that since I've known her. But now it was like there was more to it, it was less like she was afraid of saying something wrong, and more so like she was hiding something. One missed step could send her words tumbling out and she wouldn't be able to stop.