Butterfly Years

Chapter 7

Ryan’s POV

Silence. That is what I get when I tell her the truth: silence.

She has no idea how much her silence hurts me, right there in my heart. I almost scoff at myself. Since when did I go all emotional and talk about my heart?

The truth is, I’ve been this way for a really long time now. My thoughts are filled with a special someone smiling, joking around, and then turning angry at me, only to laugh the next moment. Any guesses whom?

Syaz has become a very special part of my life. She’s like this rock, who never changes. Unlike most of the other people in our class, she’s stayed in our school right from nursery, just like me. She’s also had that contagious smile, that bubbly personality, that beautiful laugh, that drives me insane. I guess I’ve always loved her; but the douche in me took really long to figure that out.

Syaz is, in one word, perfect. No, she does not have long blonde hair, neither is her hair brown. She has dark curly black hair, and dark black eyes. Every time she looks at me, she captures me. It’s the intensity of her gaze; the smile on her face doesn’t hide the serious side of her. She’s able to change from a jokey teenager to a studious student in the matter of moments.

The both of us have always been competitive; mainly in our studies. I am quite the math genius, but she makes me pause to check my shoelaces from time to time. She keeps me on my toes. She’s that sort of girl who, instead of drooling on my looks, goes through my math book to clear her doubt. I’ve always teased her, not knowing why. You can say it came naturally. And she always retaliated. It’s become our little game, and even though I know it sometimes makes her irritated, she enjoys it as much as I do.

It’s what she does to me. Her presence, her whiny voice, her beautiful face, everything makes me happy; thinking of her makes me smile. So I tease her, I trouble her; it’s my excuse to spend time with her, my excuse to talk to her. We never talk otherwise, but sometimes I go back to those days when we were really tiny, and she would occasionally walk down to my house with her parents. Our fathers got along really well, being colleagues, and our mothers did the usual recipe chit-chat. So the both of us would play in the garden, or maybe lounge in my room reading books. It used to be our little thing.

Then we grew up, and the only thing I could do to her was tease her. So I did it.

And then my father died. That probably hurt me way more than anything that has ever happened to me. And I couldn’t help feeling so terribly guilty about the whole thing. I could see a whole life of sleepless nights ahead of me. But then she came home that day. I remember Sabby had called his friends, and when I imagined her coming to my house, all I could think of was that this time she’d see a new side of me.

Truth was she didn’t wait to be asked in. She didn’t wait to give me her sympathy. Instead she hugged me. And I felt just a tad bit better. She spread this warmth over me, and I felt so safe. Being a guy, it’s something like second nature to feel protective over someone. That’s what I felt for Syaz; like a protective big brother. Of course she had one of those; she and Sabby were inseparable.

But when she hugged me, I felt that, for once in my life, she actually cared for me. I felt like this beautiful angel had come and shooed away all the bad guys; she made me feel like a little kid snuggling up to his teddy bear. She made me feel so safe.

For the rest of the week she was always around, talking to Jen, babysitting her, and that day when Cedric asked her out, I had to stop it. That was probably the day I realized exactly how much I liked her. And then in the evening, when we talked…. I’ve never talked to anyone like that, not even Mom when she was around. Not even dad, or Sabby. It was just that it felt right with her, it felt like she actually wanted to stay and listen.

And I can’t stop thinking of that moment when she snuggled up to me. It was magical. My body was abnormally warm, heck I felt like I was sitting in front of a blazing fire while it was snowing outside. She was beautiful, she was perfect.

And she made dad’s funeral special. Okay, it was Jen who sang, but I knew she was behind that. She does things like that. It helped that she dropped a hint Saturday night.

But she went away before I could talk to her. I wanted to thank her for everything. And that day, I had to talk to my godparents. They were insistent on taking me and Jen back with them to the other side of town. It would be so far from school, they said we’d switch schools and go to the high school closer to their home.

But I put my foot down. I loved my school, I love The Pack, I loved my little neighbourhood, and I loved Syaz. I was not going away from her. No.

So they told me they’d be informing Mom about my decision, and she’d be coming home. She’d be coming home.

Mom is a really nice person. It’s neither hers nor dad’s fault that they broke up. Sometimes things like that just happened. I didn’t hate her, and rather looked forward to having her back. It’s just been a year, but I miss her lots, and I know that Jen misses her more.

So I’ve been thinking, and it troubled me that whatever little there was between Syaz and me during the last week has disappeared. She probably began hating me already, just like she did a week back. Everything will be back to normal. Except for the stupid fact that I’m hopelessly in love with her, and will never be able to fall out of love. Not with her.

And so I told her. No, I didn’t plan it, not in the least bit. But it came out, and I don’t regret it. If I didn’t tell her, Sabby would. He was clever enough to notice. So I told her.

She barely had time to answer; Tia bounced in and our little conversation being completely invisible to her, she blabbered, stealing my Syaz away from me.

About an hour later, we had library class; no one ever read, except Syaz and me, it was more of a study period for everyone, but I love the books in our school library, and therefore read. Syaz apparently does too.

So I sit down and pull out a book from a nearby shelf, and that’s when Syaz walks in, with Sabby’s arm around her.

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A/N: So I told Ryan that he couldn’t have a chapter from his POV, but he insisted, so here’s what he had to say. Which is a lot. A LOT.

The ending was unexpected? Yeah? Not sure. Syaz and Sabby are best friends nay? Ooh doth I spot some jealousy? Oh Ryan you bad bad boy, you really fell hard didn’t you?

Okay maybe teasing Ryan wasn’t exactly what I needed to do. He’s raiding my fridge. Oh for heaven’s sake, Ryan, PUT THAT CHOCOLATE DOWN!

This is war.

Gotta go guys, me loves my chocos.

Love and purple chocolates,

~HarpyDumbledore

p.s. TWO CHAPTERS TODAY, FOLKS! within *seconds* of each other. so i deserve my cookies! yeah! ~~ Tomorrow's my commerce paper. oh the irony. <3 Harpy's out!

p.p.s. Dedicated to SaranshSinha for supporting me :D and for informing be that i got 107 reads. Butterfly Years hit a hundred reads people! Everybody say Olay! [crowd of people in the background say Olay] Love you guys!