I have been staring down at my notebook for hours now, it would have been minutes, but that's not what it feels like to me.
I'm feeling so many things now; sadness, regret, wonder, love...
Love.
I miss him already, once he had said those words, he had moved closer, trying to hold me close, but he failed every time.
I watched as he punched the ground effortlessly, how he could touch inanimate object so freely, so easily.
But not me.
He couldn't touch a strand of my hair at all.
"I'm so sorry..."
"It's okay." I said assuringly.
It really was.
"It's not...it's not. I'm sorry." He finally stood up, looking sadder than ever.
"Why?" I demanded weakly, getting up as well. "Is it because you don't love me back?"
"I love you, Jadellee. You know I do." He murmured heartbreakingly. "That's why I'm choosing to leave, because I love you so much..."
"What?" I did not understand what he meant by that at all. "You wouldn't leave me if you really love me!" I was angry because this time he finally came, but it was only to say goodbye.
"It pains me more than it hurts you, believe me Jade." He had clutched his hands together tightly.
"Then...why?"
"Can't you see?" He looked pained. "You cannot fall in love with someone like me! A ghost! We can never have a future together, Jade. I am not even able to touch you!" He growled bitterly.
"Marcus..."
"It's all right." He said softly. "It makes me so happy to know that at least, even once in her life, the girl I had chosen to love forever, she had loved me back too. Even just once. It was a memory I can cherish while I wait."
"Wait?"
"I'll wait for you, Jadellee. Until we can be together, until then, I am continuously going to pray that when you do join me, that I will still be there in your heart. I will hope and wait." He had tried for one last time to hold me but once again, failed.
He smiled at me sadly before he finally walked off, towards the music room, fading, slowly disappearing until I can't even see his silhouette anymore.
He had disappeared completely, at the same time the soft music from the piano had stopped playing.
I had walked off in a daze, had rushed off all of a sudden to our empty classroom.
To our desk.
To our now empty, clean desk.
Clean of every single scribble we had made on it.
He had disappeared completely from my life.
------
On the way home, I had passed by the normal occurrences in the neighborhood, had even bumped into a woman who was holding a huge bouquet of flowers. I had apologized absently, which she must've noticed because she plucked a flower from her bouquet and handed it to me, much to my surprise. Not because what happened to be the flower she handed to me was a carnation, but because of the words she had softly said as she handed it to me:
"A carnation for you, my dear, because it is one that lives the longest, outlasts all the wilting of the other beautiful flowers around it. It stays strong so keep it." She said kindly and had gently closed off my hand over its long stem.
As I gaze upon it now and up the skies, I saw that there was a new star out tonight.
New because I had discovered its new meaning for me today.
New because we hadn't had the chance of seeing it together, much less talk about it.
"You were wrong Marcus." I whispered, softly stroking the petals of my eternal carnation. "I'm not your Earth at all." I looked down at my notebook, at my accidental research, at my realization. "I'm your Venus. Do you know why?" I continued to whisper, wishing for the hundredth time that I had his tape with me, especially for lonely moments like this.
"It's because Venus, as a star, doesn't blink."
I smiled and gazed up again, fixing my eyes on the lone star at the left, staying still, but shining brightly, like a beautiful portrait never to blink, never to move.
The way Venus stays as a still star, the way it doesn't twinkle, doesn't attract attention to itself despite being a planet and not just a normal star. Just like the way Venus doesn't blink, doesn't change, and stays in its place, I know my feelings for Marcus will stay the same.
No matter how long it will be, no matter what will happen in the future.
My love for him will remain unchanged, forever.
I gazed up at the stars, all of them holding a new meaning to me because I had watched them all now with him.
All except for my unchanging star.
"Good night, Marcus. I love you." I whispered and with that final thought, it might have just been my imagination but I saw the petals in my carnation fluttering, before I finally felt that familiar cold feeling enveloping me, with a silent whisper of a song.
