Words Left Behind

From the time they were young they were inseparable, going together like peanut butter goes to jelly. They jumped and played, laughed and cried; every moment of their lives lived in perfect unison. He was her next door neighbor, which may seem awfully cliche but might be the only reason they became friends. If you saw them together from afar, you would have thought that they couldn't be anymore different, but as you took a closer look they seemed to be exactly the same.

He was silent, reserved, most would think ordinary or invisible, even ghost-like. She as interesting and flamboyant, her young body always twisting and turning, dancing to the beat of her own drum She was the fire to his ice. They say opposites attract, and the two, playing by those rules were the perfect pair. As they spent their days playing in the sunshine, their mothers looked on them fondly from their kitchen windows, never speaking but forming an unspoken bond through the love they shared for their children.

One autumn afternoon, when the two were much older, nearing high school, they were walking home from school, just as they did everyday without fail. Her scarlet hair shone like brushed copper in the sunlight, a smile playing on her lips as she filled the air with the noise of idle chatter that generally emanated solely from her on their midday walks. Usually he replied every so often with a nod or shake to show her he was listening, but today his amber eyes were focused on the clear sky above, daydreams clouding his vision, diverting his attention from the lovely girl beside him. Her chatter ceased as she wondered, Was he even listening?

His far off gaze was answer enough. An uneasy, awkward silence hung in the brisk air as leaves fell orange, red, and golden around them as he gave her a sad smile, tears threatening to spill onto his rosy cheeks. Butterflies fluttered in her stomach as he slipped a slim hand into hers and gave a reassuring squeeze. Eventually, they reached their houses, still hand in hand. She pulled away to go towards hers, but he held fast. Wait, his grip seemed to say, and she listened. A letter slipped into her hand, its envelope crisp and white with her name written in his slanted handwriting.

She walked away clutching the letter to her chest, but he stayed, watching her hair of fire drift and sway across her back until the front door closed, sealing her inside. Even now his words did not rise out of his throat, and never had they. Mute...never would talk...misshaped vocal chords, at least that's what the doctors had said. It wasn't dramatic, it wasn't life-changing, it simply was, and he lived with it because it was all he knew. But now he wished he could tell her with his own voice.

For so long she had acted as his voice, a bond so difficult to replace. He envied the way she always knew just what to say, but he couldn't help but feel indebted to her for how she always defended him against those who called him tongue-tied and used their voices to yell mean things knowing he couldn't in return. But now things were changing and he was anxious, scared even. So he took to writing. Everyday from the time he knew to the time he would have to leave, he wrote her something. It wasn't always a letter, some days it was a quote or a funny joke, just something for her to know that he had some type of voice.

He never could bring it upon himself to tell her he was moving, but on a whim he wrote the letter, putting the other things he had written along with it in the envelope. He poured his voice into it, giving her something to hold onto. When he saw her looking out her bedroom window that night, he knew she had read it. She caught his amber gaze, but he looked away. Hands fumbling, she wrote and taped a note that read: 'Aken talk to me' onto the window. He smiled at her when he saw the note, eyes crinkling in the corners, a crooked smile on his lips.

She met him outside in the secret spot they had discovered conjoined their backyards.

"You're moving." Her doe eyes stared up at him, tears spilling over down her cheeks. Reluctantly he nodded. His light brown hair rustled in the cool breeze as his gaze shifted to the stars above. They twinkled and danced. She slid her fingers into his and they held on tight. His eyes looked into hers as he leaned in letting his mouth dance over hers. He pulled away, cheeks burning, when she did not return the kiss. His body darted back into his house before she could even understand.

"Aken, wait." She called to him from her bedroom window, but he turned his back to her heartbroken.

The next day for the first time she walked back home alone, not being able to find him anywhere. She was greeted with a gut wrenching sight. Moving trucks swarmed around his house like bees to honey. A tear slid down her cheek and she abruptly wiped it away with the back of her hand. Then she saw the familiar amber eyes looking down at her from in between the blinds now pulled over his window. Flying into her house and up the stairs, she wrote a note. Taping it to the window, she waited, wringing her hands all the while.

Finally, the blinds lifted and he met her gaze warily, then nodded. Relief flooded through her body at the fact that he had agreed to meet her one last night before he left her forever. Then she waited. Until eventually it was time for another midnight meeting. Under the glimmering shine of stars on a clear autumn night, they sat, awkwardness sitting in between. It wasn't a word that broke the silence, but a series of words that he would never forget. His broken heart mended in an instant, instead focusing on the press of her rose bud lips on his as the dancing gently at first, then moved to a more ferocious fight between fire and ice. It was then that she felt his voice, not physically but as his lips moved along hers, she felt it singing in her mind. And with that sweet and innocent kiss, she left him, before the tears began to well again when she remembered that he was leaving.

The next morning, he was gone. Nothing was left behind except for another letter addressed to her in his penmanship taped to the door. Inside the crisp envelope was a story he had written just for her. She read this and the others he had written over and over, infatuated with the eloquence of the words written on the paper, the way the language seemed to pour out of him and for once it seemed that she was at a loss for words.

As the years passed, she spent a few minutes everyday staring out her bedroom window, remembering all the glances and smiles they had shared late into the hours of the night. Even when the new owners moved in, she was unable to tear herself away from the old habit. He did send her many letters, but it was never the same. Soon they began to grow apart. Eventually the letters slowed, then stopped, and secretly she felt a void when he no longer wrote. But their lives drifted them into different directions as he realized though he couldn't speak through his mouth, he could eloquently speak on paper. His words were beautifully boisterous, the words seemingly hanging in the air of those who read them.

She became a dancer, her body moving gracefully in time with the beat, her emotions becoming entwined with her physical being. Their success being so closely linked through the art of expression, would have seemed to be the force that connected the two together, but their paths never crossed again. But even now she can be seen reading and rereading his old letters, still hoping that one day that time will come for them to combine his words with dancing not just to create a joy for the world to bask in, but for the simple pleasure of being whole again.

The End