Here Comes The Sun

twenty-one

july 21th
toronto

MY HANDS COMPULSIVELY CLAMPED AROUND THE CELLPHONE as seconds passed by in the shape of beeps. Beep, beep, beep, beep. All I longed for was that ecstatically euphoric serpent of energy slithering through my body, passing all organs and leaving them with colorful shield of vivacity. In my head, the beeps went on forever, and my obsessive behavior even forced me into repeatedly checking whether the 'calling. . .' had already been traded in for counting numbers, but it didn't happen. I was quick to realize that the voice I wanted to hear so badly was a recording, a voicemail that wanted to trick me into the happiness I hoped to feel when I had placed my finger on top of his name on my little screen.

"Hey," I quietly recorded the voicemail, "I haven't seen you in a few days. I haven't heard from you either, except on the news, but that's . . . that's not really you, you know. Not live, I mean. Great, rambling already. Anyhow, I was wondering maybe we could see each other again?"

I leaned against of the counter, and sighed before continuing my speech that was getting way too long. "If you're not too busy of course, mister President. I'm pretty busy myself actually, working hard on a medical project. Alright, call me back when you can. And want. Bye . . ."

With roaring shame, I buried my head into my arms on the counter, rolling the chair with little wheels established on it, back and forth. Suddenly, a snort was to be heard from across the room, and I instantly sat up straight in a fight-or-fly mode, whereas I looked for the enemy who had hunted me down all the way to this abandoned space in the hospital. Dennis, who I hadn't seen in a few days either, nonchalantly leaned against the doorpost with a big frown decorating his flawless face as his cheeks resembled those of a loaded with food hamster's, clarifying that he was holding back his laughter.

"Listen up kid," he walked towards me and leaned against the counter as well, only across from me, "I've heard a lot of pathetic voicemails, trust me, back in the day I used to be handsome, but yours . . . yours was something else."

"I can't delete it, can I?" I desperately asked.

"Nope. I'm sure the fella will like it. Did you send it to that guy your mom's so excited about?"

"She's excited about every guy I have the slightest bit of interaction with."

Dennis laughed and then looked at me, and I could almost read pity in his eyes.

"Is there something going on you'd like to tell me?" He asked, looking around the empty room. "You never come here unless something's up. You haven't been at the hospital for quite some time, is school keeping you busy?"

He was putting the words in my mouth, completely on purpose, because in that way he'd know if I'd give into that too easily I'd be lying. I stared out of the window, fixating my eyes on the newborns being taken care of in the other room. I used to come to this department all the time, I was obsessed with watching babies see the first lights in their life, seeing their mother for the first time and of course the other way around. But this room hadn't really ever been used, except for the nurses who needed a space to do paper work, wasn't a place I visited often — only when I was feeling down. Back in the day, I was to be found between these four walls quite often, drowning into my thoughts of sorrow. One day a new nurse came in, Dennis, and he knew exactly how to handle me. I was amazed, and apparently, so was my mother.

"You know, being in love is a word so frequently used these days, and its true meaning is slowly fading away, but anytime I lose track of what it means, Hart pops up in my head and shows me exactly what it is." I completely turned to him and sighed. "Everyone experiences love differently, and that's the beauty of it — for some it takes years to really love someone, for others three days, and for me it's this. It was hard to realize, but this is it."

Everything was flaming inside of my body, whilst my hands and voice were shaky, just because I found it so hard to talk. To explain what was going on in my head using words to describe it, and I was afraid that I was telling it differently than I was really experiencing, but this time it felt very accurate. I knew Dennis would understand, yet it was nerve-wrecking to expose my feels out in the open like that; I was giving away a part of me, a side of me never shown before. A side I was ashamed of, a side which confirmed that there was some kind of humanity quietly waving through my soul.

"I'm very happy for you, and what you just said sounds like the most beautiful thing ever to you. So, here's my question; why are you looking all sad?" Dennis asked.

"I think he wants to protect me from himself," I said, wrapping my hair around my finger and looking down at the thick, dark lock, "he's ignoring me."

Dennis' lips formed a thin line as he seemed to calculate and sort things out in his head. "Because of his public statements?"

"Yes, because of the enemies he's creating. He probably thinks they're going to attack me when they find out that we . . . have something." I looked out of the window, following the nurses' movement as if I was watching an elegant swan in a beautiful lake surrounded by large trees with bright green leaves. "Or he doesn't like me. I don't know, I don't have any experience with his."

"Listen, kid, I'm pretty sure the kid likes you. I can see it in the way he looks at you, he's like . . . fascinated in a very positive way. The eyes, chica, they never lie."

"What do I do?" I desperately buried my hands into my hair, completely ruining the ponytail I had carefully created this morning.

"He'll come back running to you, no need to worry. I'm sure he'll come back when he really starts missing you. And trust me, kid, it's hard not to."