Aica and I started to walk over the bridge leading to the blenches where we talked about ‘okays’ the first time and coincidentally we found ourselves in the same bench talking about the same ‘okays’ as the vibrant colors turned into monochromed blue.
I looked at the vast sky and the sinking ruby disc being replaced by the cresent diamond slowly yet fast as the silence grow deeper between the me and her in the few gaps between the bench. “Let go home” she said softly as she stood up patted her hind and added “care to walk me Mr. Jaspers?”
I stood up and said “let’s go eat somewhere, I’m starved”
“ok, I heard from Giff that your’e a good cook”
“that brother of yours is kinda chatty is he? Well I live alone so a few recipes are a must since I don’t want to live with just heated canned goods”
“Great, let go to our place and you cook us some dinner, Giff is on a fieldtrip and returns by midnight”
“now? Ok well let’s buy some ingredients”
We entered into a convinient store on the way to her house to buy a few stuff missing from her kitchen. Carrying two bags of groceries and a laptop bag, walking became too awkward. To make the walk easier she asked me to play a game with her, she wanted to play truth or dare but since it was pretty imposible for me to dare, the game ended up in ‘Truths’. “Hmm what’s your favorite color” she ask, as if to make me more comfortable with her.
“Blue, I guess. It reminds me of the rain and I love the rain. My turn, Hmm what’s you favorite color” mimicing her tone
“Ugh, you just copied me, we’ll to tell you the truth it is blue as well”
“you have just copied my ans—“
“no I did not, you copied my question. Its not like because it reminds me of the rain but because in the spectrum of colors, blue is the hardest to find in nature, and so taking photographs of blue animals or plants are kinda, you know, cool. Ok my turn, one plus one?”
“is that for real?”
“don’t answer me with a another question”
“two, ugh”
“no more maths” and then she smiled as she holds both her hand at her back leaning forward to wink.
“Favorite verse?”
“that will be the first Corinthians 13, from four to seven and the eight first line too”
“Ugh love is patient, love is kind, it doesn’t envy. Love does not brag, it is not puffed up.”
“It is not rude, it is not self-serving, it is not easily angered or resentful. It does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endure all things.” She spoke with a gently pace starring me straight in the eyes as if the stars have fallen down to twinkle her eyes.
“what’s number eight?”
“Love never ends”. She says in an adorable voice as if she wasn’t adorable enought to make me blush. Its a good thing that the two paper bags covered my head as I felt the blood flow through my cheeks.
“Oh”
---
“Hmm where almost there!” she shouted in glee “Ok my last question for the walk” she took a deep breath and sigh “How many girls fell for you?”. I can feel the excitement in her voice as my heart pounds heavily in my rib cage.
“ugh, umm. Since the game is called truths” I said in a reluctant manner, maybe due to the weight of the bags and the laptop being pulled by gravity or maybe the series of answers and questions which made my heart beat faster “ –I’d say zero but” with a slight boast “I had a few mutaul understandings” and then she smiled and stopped to get her keys and open the door to Valentines for both of us.
I sat on the couch where I flipped some albums with her the last time I was around to catch my breath and followed her to their kitchen. It was romanian themed with all the gray graphite and white marble serving as their kitchen top.
I steamed the rice , crab sticks and chopped some cucumber and guimaras mangoes. After rolling and cutting it in inches the I served her with callifornia makki the Adreu Jasper’s way.
“Oh Andreu! Giff’s gonna hate me alot for eating this heavenly dish without him” she said while chewing some of the crustecean meat.
“I like japanese food alot because of anime, do you like anime? I do believe it is my turn to ask”
“hmm I don’t know but I sat sometimes while Giff watch this guy wearing black with a big sword and then he cuts this monster with holes” she said paying no attention to what she was saying.
“Hey” I smudged her lips from mango stains.
I coundn’t believe myself, It was the first time I touched her, and of all the places, its her lips and then I remembered her husshing me and mine so I guess it was ‘quits’. But still it was awkward I removed it in panic. She laughed and laughed as she watch me take in the shame of awkward juniorship.
“are you kinda shy? Or something” she asked in a dignified feminine voice with her chin up while shrubing her hear back. I didn’t answer.
We finished eating by 8:24 and I sat down the couch as she stir coffees for both of us, I can smell the arabian beans puffing with the white swirl of smoke as she hands me my cup. She sat beside me and she said “you know what, I like it. You. Me. Talking like this in dim light” the dim light made her hair glow into blaze. I looked at her and saw that her clothes were different, she wore a long sleeved white shirt and micro shorts, she placed her legs up the couch and hugged it and said:
“thank you”
“what for? Umm, Are you okay?”
She glanced at me with the same brown eyes. There it was again, the same beautiful eyes piercing my soul staring at me.
“for being here, Giff lucky to have you as one of his best buddies”
“uh, yeah I guess so”
“your turn” her glance moved as she took a sip of coffee.
“you? How many” she smiled and took another sip. She looked back at me with the same eyes yet so different. It lost the sparkles of the stars. With butterflies in my stomach it occured to me that while she wanted forevers and infinities, she also wanted love. We talked about it a few minutes which felt like hours and hours like we are framed in pictures stucked in time. Later I realize that her white shirt is already wet with tears flowing through those once so vibrant eyes.
“I’m sorry” that’s the only thing I can say when she told me about her past, and their love, and showed pictures of their forever and how it ended when he died of cancer. The same way Agustus did.
She ask me to embrace her when she lean down the couch, her head just above my shoulder. I stare at her from a bird’s eye view, her black hair glowing in blaze, her eyelashes curling from her lids, the line tracing her cheeks to her eyes.
“ok, well come closer so i can give you a hug” I said with most enthusiasm to cheer her on.
“I don’t need a hug, I need an embrace”
“what’s the difference?” she looked at me and wispered to my ear.
“you can hug everyone to make them happy, to comfort them, to play with them or to be just plain cute and clingy; but you can only embrace me. You can only embrace someone you love”
she was quiet all of a sudden, I can smell the coffee in her breath as we stare each other seeing our reflection looking back at us in each other’s eyes. I put my arms around her as she leans close. I’m in one edge of couch, her head leaning on the side of my chest.
“thank you Andreu Jasper.” And then she fell asleep in my arms, her hands holding mine as if the spaced between my finger fit with hers perfectly. There I noticed something, from the sleeved rolled up to her elbows glided by sotly by my forearm. Several lashes in her hand, form the inner side down her elbow to her wrist. Stripes of lighter flesh. I wanted to ask her why, but she was sound asleep; and then I realized the she wasn’t innocent, she was hurt, and that she wanted to be love but was scared. But more over my realization, I love her.
---
