All Along

chapter 31

"He is almost here." Amy exclaimed glancing through my window.
"And he is looking great." Jen chimed in.
"Stop peeping through the window lest he may see you." I said while strapping my heels.
"Oh! Someone wants to keep her boyfriend only to herself." Amy teased. I blushed a little and smiled at her. "Don't worry, even if he sees us, he won't utter a single word after all I'm his elder sister." Amy winked at me.
The door bell rang and Amy went to answer it since the only people in the house were me and the three ladies.
"Wow baby brother, you looking nice." I heard Amy say.
"Is she ready?"
"Straight to the point. She'll be down in a minute."
I took a deep breath and took one last look in the mirror. My pink dress was matching the color of my lips. I picked up the greyish black clutch from the bed that matched my greyish black sandals and walked out the door to meet my boyfriend who was waiting for me near the stairs. As soon as he saw me he smiled and God! was he breathtakingly handsome?
"Hi." I waved a little.
"Hey gorgeous."
"Isn't she looking great Aaron?" Jen said skipping down the stairs.
"Hi to you too Jen." Aaron said sarcastically. "And yes, she is looking great. She always does." He said looking at me and held my hand.
"Let's go."
"Yes please."
"You may run away from us now but you two lovebirds are coming back to us." Amy shouted from from behind and we laughed.

Aaron held the door open for me as we entered the restaurant. He held my hand as we walked up to the receptionist, who seemed to be in her twenties.
"Hi. How can I help you?" She smiled at Aaron.
"Hi. I'm Aaron Black. I had made a reservation earlier today."
She looked through her laptop and smiled up at us.
"Yes sir. I see that here. Wait a second please." She motioned the waiter who was walking in our direction. "Sir Paul here will take you to your table. It's table number 4."
Paul nodded and we followed him to our table which was almost in the center of the room. Aaron held the chair for me to sit and walked over to his side of the table and sat on his chair."
"Drinks are on the house sir." There were two wine glasses on the table.
"Thank-you but we don't drink. Can we have apple juice instead?"
"Sure sir. I'll get it right away. Till then here are the menus." He handed us the menus and walked away.
"Thanks for bringing me here. It's beautiful."
"You are worth it and much more." I smiled in response.
Paul came back with our apple juices. "Here you go ma'am," he said handing me one glass, "and sir." Handing Aaron his. We ordered roasted chicken, soup and salad.
"You look extremely handsome by the way. Blue suits you." I said taking a bite of my food.
"Thanks. You look extremely beautiful yourself."
"Thank-you."
"This is delicious." Aaron said while chewing.
"I can't agree less."
We ate the rest of the food being mostly silent, making a little talk now and then.
"Aaron let's split the bill." I said once we finished our food.
"What? Why? What happened?"
"Relax, nothing happened. It's just that I don't want to be one of those girlfriends who live on their boyfriend's money. I want us to be equals in this relationship. I don't want only you to pay for everything."
"But-" He tried to protest.
"Please Aaron. That's the only way I'll be comfortable. Otherwise I'll always think that this relationship and myself a burden to you. Please." He seemed to understand and nodded his head.
"Fine. Your wish is granted. But, let me pay for this one at least. From the next date, we'll both pay."
"Okay I'll let you pay this one but only on one condition."
"Which is?"
"Ice creams are on me." I said with a smile.
"We have a deal."
Aaron paid the bill and we left the restaurant.

We stopped near the ice cream stall. I got two vanilla cones and Aaron had parked the car in the mean time. We walked to the nearby park and sat on a bench.
"This is perfect."
"What is?"
"This. Us."
"Yes. It is perfect." He smiled and looked ahead, licking his ice cream.
"Aaron can I ask you something?"
"Hmm."
"Why didn't you tell me before how you felt about me? I mean before you left and if I was your first love then why were you with Irelene?"
He looked at me.
"You are the first girl I ever liked more than a friend. I wanted to tell you but shortly after I realised my feelings for you Chaz walked to me and said he had a crush on you. You have no idea how I felt at that time. Though I wanted to tell him how I felt about you, I couldn't. He was my friend so I couldn't hurt him. I didn't want him to feel the same pain I was feeling at that moment so I kept my mouth shut. But then even the worst happened, I realised you liked him back. I lost all sort of hope. Sam was the only person, besides Amy, who knew about my feelings. He didn't tell me directly that you liked Chaz but told me not to tell you yet how I felt. That was the proof enough that you liked Chaz. That was when I gave up the idea of telling you. I thought you both liked each other so why to ruin the chance of happiness for you two and I knew even if I had confessed, it would have created awkward tension between the three of us and I wasn't ready to lose the either of you. Then came Irelene. She was a nice girl. I liked her but I was still having feelings for you. In order to get over you I started spending more and more time with her. She, well, when she proposed-"
"What?" I asked with wide eyes. "We never knew that."
"Because we never told this to anyone else."
"Okay. I'll keep my mouth shut then."
"Good. Now can I continue?"
"By all means." I smiled at him.
"So she proposed and I accepted. I maintained a little distance from you. I can't say it helped but I thought may be with time I'll get over you. Guess I was wrong. It never happened. You know Amy never approved of Irelene." He said looking at me.
"Yeah. She told me that. Why?"
"I guess because she knew I was still in love with you and she wanted us to be together so bad that she couldn't stand the thought of anyone else with me." He said giving a slight chuckle and I smiled in response.
"Amy will be Amy."
"Yeah. So continuing the story, then dad got transferred and even the distance couldn't abate the feelings. I missed you so much that I came to see you on your birthday." He laughed a bit. I raised my eyebrows questioningly at him.
"I may seem like a stalker but I used to ask Sam about you almost everyday. The photograph of you that you asked me about which was taken on Sam's birthday, well Sam had forwarded it to me. I wanted to return here so badly, to talk to you again, watch your beautiful face everyday that I literally jumped with joy when I heard we were moving back here. And imagine my joy when the first person I met at school happened to be you, the one person I was dying to see. But you were still in love with Chaz." I raised my finger.
"Correction. I never loved him. I just liked him."
"What difference does it make?"
I raised my eyebrow. "You should know it better than anyone." He smiled and kissed my forehead.
"Of course I do. So back to the story. You still liked him and I wanted you to be happy so I set my feelings aside and wanted to play cupid but you know the rest." I squeezed his hand. "Friend or not but I wanted to punch Chaz the day he made you cry. I wanted to tell you that day how much I loved you but I knew that wasn't the right moment. You were heartbroken and even if you had accepted me, I would have always thought that you did that to distract yourself from your heartbreak from Chaz, like I did. I wanted to tell you at ball as well but seeing your reaction when I only said I liked you, I kept my mouth shut. Then came Aiden. You've no idea how jealous I was. Though he is a nice guy, it was very hard not to punch him. And those days when you thought I was in love with Jamie, which is absurd, they were the real torture. I was restless, trying to figure out what mistake I had committed. Every single second was a living hell." He said looking me in the eyes.
"I love you Kayla Mathews. I've always loved you and only you."
"I love you too Aaron. I'm sorry for causing you so much pain. It was unintentional. I really am sorry."
"Hey don't be sorry. It's not your fault and I didn't tell you all this to make you feel bad. I just wanted you to know how long I have waited for you."
"I know. But can I be honest?" He nodded his head. "Though you felt pain and I'm sorry for that but at the same time I'm also happy that I've someone who loves me so much. Who loved me unconditionally even when he thought there was no hope of me returning that love. Guess the saying 'everything is beautiful within its own time' is true after all." He smiled at me. I looked him in the eye and said, "I love you for waiting for me, for loving me so deeply, irrevocably, unconditionally, with all your heart. I love you Aaron Black and I'll always love you."
"I'll always love you too." We smiled at each other and I placed my head on his shoulder and we sat in silence with our hearts at peace and content.
Could silence speak? Had someone asked me this question before I would never have been able to answer the question. But at this moment I knew the answer. Yes, silence can speak. It can talk volumes. Silence is the loudest music there is. If you listen carefully, you could hear each and every secret of the universe, every story that has ever been told from the beginning of time, every promise made to one another whispered swiftly into your ear. This silence was being the witness to the promise we made to each other.