Obscurity

III. of waiting and wandering

Her eyelids felt like they were about to fall off, but she carried on the winding path, nontheless.

The obscurity hadn't slept all night--after all, how could she?  Not when she knew that somebody had actually read her letter.

Somebody.

A real, breathing person.

Not just another one of her imaginary friends that she used to fathom out of her mind because of the said lack of friends. She cringed at the memory of all those lonely days as a kid--pretending to talk to her 'friends'; pretending to be heard. Pretending that she actually mattered to somebody.

It was such a beautiful feeling, to feel like somebody actually liked talking to you.  It sort of felt like that sense of relief when you'd burst into an air-conditioned room after being under the scorching hot sun.

But it was more than just relief that she was feeling.  

It was completely gratifying. 

She'd finally been heard, and she didn't want to let this window of opportunity slip through.  This won't be like the other times. She thought as she plowed through the field.  The grass was still damp from the twilight shower, and the sun had barely even risen.  It shone over the forest in different arrays of orange hues, and for a moment, she actually felt like everything was alright.

But only for a moment.

She'd stayed up all night writing the next letter, and she wrote and re-wrote it so many times, just to make sure that she didn't sound like a complete blubbering idiot (which she actually was, she soon figured out). She poured her innermost thoughts onto the letter, writing piece by piece of herself with every word that she marked with her silver fountain pen. The fact that somebody was actually reading her words had excited her so much, that she trimmed the letter to perfection, and hadn't noticed the hours go by.

But it was completely worth it.

She hopped on each root, balancing on every one that she landed on, until she stood in front of the hand-sized hole.  She took her backpack and unzipped it, pulling out the same flowery stationery and stuffing it within the hiding place.

The obscurity huffed in contentment, pleased with how the day was turning out--and it had barely even started.  

She knew that it would probably be hours until her savior would come back to retrieve the letter, but she was willing to skip a day of school if it meant that she would know the identity of her newfound friend.  

Nobody would notice that she was gone, anyway.

Her eyes downcast, she brushed her fingers against the tree, feeling the warmth that emulated from the rising sun.  She closed her eyes, steadying herself atop a crooked root that protruded from the weed-ridden ground.  

She wondered what she--or he--was like.  What had they thought when they opened the letter--and how had they even found it? Were they even interested enough to come back to know more about this mysterious stranger that left nothing but her words behind?

She had to find out if her hero was real, or if it was yet another thing that had only come to sweep through her life--passive and disappointing.

And so she waited.  Sitting behind a broom shrub that lay within eye-view of the oak tree. She'd brought a book (thank goodness), which she read while she waited, but the words seemed to blur in her mind, and no matter how hard she tried, her mind couldn't make sense of what she was reading.

Her breath hitched when she heard a commotion, which snapped her attention from her book (not that she minded; she wasn't really reading, anyway).  The chorus of laughter that erupted from the group as they made their way to the old tree. Beer bottles in hand while telling stories of mischief to one another, they didn't notice that they were being watched, and that the said watcher's heart had leapt when a rowdy boy had gone dangerously close to the hole where the unopened letter remained.  

They didn't hear her sigh in relief when she saw him being called, and inched farther away from the tree.   

They didn't notice that she was still watching them, even as their rowdy jokes and loud hoots faded away.

And they didn't see her when hours later, long after the sun had set, she sighed in despair, walking out of her hiding place, and crossing the field with her head down as she once again had her heart broken, the hope drained from her previously jubilous spirits.

But she knew that she didn't have the right to feel betrayed, or hurt, or even disappointed.

Becasue she should have known by now that nothing ever worked out for her.

 _

Dedicated to coriandre_life bc she's the sweetest thing alive