Fourteen
"What matters is now."
I don't want to start our story with once upon a time because it seems so general. I want to be more specific since he is a specific for me.
Fourteen years ago, I was thirteen years old then, we met. Just met because we didn't really cared about the existence of one another until one year later.
One year later. We became inseparable, almost inseparable. Imagine from being strangers we became so much more? Many things could happen in one year like him wanting me and me rejecting him.
He was a boy, and I never wanted a boy, I wanted a man. A boy only knows how to play and I'm not a game, a man fights his own battle even until he reached his grave. He accepted rejection like a man and for that I'm surprise, though something inside me snapped when I realized he didn't even intend to fight for me like a man.
Then I was confused. I know what I wanted and it wasn't him, so why am I into him? My eyes would always end up wherever he was. From the moment he opened our classroom's door until the moment he gone out of it to go home.
So I decided that I'll wait for him, I'll wait for him to become a man, the man that I want.
After years, years of watching, waiting, hoping.
He became the man that I want.
And I can say that it's all worth. He's all worth it.
I watched him chose from a printed t-shirt into a polo shirt, I watched him wore slacks instead of his same old denim ripped jeans, I watched him fix his hair instead of leaving it tousled, I watched him received his diploma on his graduation day in college, I watched him choose from G Shock to a Rolex watch, I watched him grow in to the man I wanted.
But I only watched.
I was never the one with him in every step of the way.
It was her.
She made him choose a stylist polo shirt instead of that same old printed shirt. She introduced him to more comfy slacks instead of that faded ripped jeans. She taught him how to fix his hair. She was there with wide open arms right after he went down the stage when he has received his college diploma. She was with him when he bought his first Rolex for his first salary.
She made him a man.
She molded him into a man that I could only want but never have.
Now, as I watch her walk down the isles to the man that I wanted, to that man I had wished for, to the man I had waited for, to the man that was never meant for me.
I can't help but remember that boy.
The boy who always remembers every details of my story because he always gives his hundred percent attention, the boy who always accompanied me whenever I went, the boy that spent his allowance to buy the novel I wanted, the boy who would always stay up late with me just so I can have someone to talk to, the boy who doesn't like reading but reads my favorite books, the boy that looks at me like I'm all that he sees and that I am all that mattered, the boy I rejected only because he is not the man I want, the boy who did not intend to fight like a man because he fought the way he can, like a boy.
I blame my 14 year old self for looking for a man in that boy's body, for looking for the wrong thing.
Now that boy is far away, distanced by the time that can't be travel, a time I could never bring back.
And all that is left to me is regret.
"Hey."
His bride sought after me right before I leave the wedding reception. She's beautiful and kind that I can't envy her even though she got the man I was waiting for.
"You leaving already?" She asked. I nodded while smiling weakly.
I can't stay too long, the longer I stayed the longer I'd break.
"I gotta go, you know work and stuffs." I lied, I could careless about work.
"This might sound weird but I've been curious for some time now." She said.
"You've been best friends with him for so long, is there a time when you loved him more than as a friend?" And then she asked.
Again, I smiled weakly.
And I love him until now but...
"He is yours."
I turned around to leave.
But hearing his voice made it so hard that I stopped on my tracks.
"Love?" He called for her.
And so I remember how a boy like him fell in love with my 14 year old self.
He deserves this. He deserves her.
"Make him happy." I said without looking back because if he saw me he'll tell me to go back inside the reception with them and that will be suicide.
When I got home I immediately looked at our photos 14 years ago and looked for the boy that I wanted but denied.
There I saw with him in the photo, a 14 year old girl smiling genuinely with a boy she obviously likes.
But she wanted a man so she watched the boy turned into man without even minding if she even turned into a woman. She trapped herself with that boy and the thinking the he'll be the man for her in the future.
She fantasized about him in the future without even thinking about the present, and now that the future has come she is regretting that present big time.
Staring at the picture, I remember how did that boy fell in love with that girl.
Carelessly, selflessly, fierce with all the gentleness, with all his heart and stupid.
I remember how did that girl fell in love with that boy.
Carefully, selfishly, secretive but bold, with half of her heart and so stupid.
So stupid, she waited for a man to love her greatly when she already had a boy who loves her even more.
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Almost
Random"The saddest word in the whole wide world is the word almost. He was almost in love. She was almost too good for him. He almost stopped her. She almost waited. He almost lived. They almost made it. " -Tiny Stories, Nikita Gil A Compilation of...
