A Flame Of Blue And Gold

the only part to an orphaned story

She loved him before she knew he was the one. It wasn't hard to fall when the way down looked so appealing. There had been others. Others who tried to capture her heart, but like dissapointed poachers they walked away empty-handed.

She thought that there was something horribly wrong with her, a moral imbalance that had erased her ability to love. Why could she not tell Liam that she loved him too? Why did she sabotage what could have been a beautifully disastrous love with her mere inability to feel? Why did she not give Diego a chance when Fortune had so clearly spun in his favour? Why did she not pursue the sparks of emotion lit by Luan or Darren or Marshall? Why did she not let her cold heart warm to Irshaad, when his heart so clearly burnt for her?

She had soon come to realise that she could not pursue any of the 'others' because her heart did not know how to love. It was a learning process and she was still struggling to pass the first exam. On the contrary, she was failing horribly. With every failed would-be relationship her belief in her inability to love grew. Her heart was not destined to beat in tandem with another. She was spared the soul crushing fear of losing the one she loved because she was a broken candle, still trying to blow in the wind.

With each failure, her flame sputtered. Every time she denied herself love, her blaze dimmed. She had morphed from a once-fierce orange flame hopeful to love, to the icy blue remnants of an unfeeling heart.

Time passed. Seasons changed. Clothes where outgrew. New people were met and she had fallen into a comfortable existence with her cold disposition. Not heart, but disposition, because hearts are associated with love - something she was destined to exist without.

             ****

He was inexplicably drawn to the girl with the warm eyes. His eyes would involuntarily roam a crowd in search of her face, his heart would rebelliously perk up at the sound of her honey-dripping laugh. There was a string extended from his heart to hers, and he had to restrain himself from tugging on it.

              ****

She had descended into a merry existence. She had become a dependable friend whose judgement her friends trusted. She laughed along with jokes, cried at sappy movies and in the meanwhile became an artist in the defence arts, mercilessly shielding herself from trying to fall in love.

             ****

He had continued to watch her from afar, memorizing the way her abundant cheeks cornered around lips curved up in a smile, inconspicuously bumping into her to fuel his nose with her scent. Her skin sang not of jasmine or coconut or strawberry. She smelled lile nothing he could put words to. She smelled not of a fragrance, but a feeling. Her scent enveloped him in comfort and peace and warmth. She smelled like home.

It was no longer enough to watch her from a distance. His restless heart was not satisfied with accidental grazes in passing. He took a leap. He tugged on that inexplicable string, and he could swear her heart tugged back.  

              ****

Her days of routine were punctuated with bursts of colour. Colour painted there by a strange boy with inquiring eyes. His messages were like a beacon of life, waking her from an existence of dreamless sleep. She'd started anticipating the afternoons when he'd pester her for schoolwork and dread the times they went days without speaking.

When the silent days became too much and every zzzzz zzzzz of her phone had her hoping his name would pop up on her screen only to be met with disappointment, she started finding reasons to seek his company. Suddenly her Math skills were in desperate need of attention and she had become scatterbrained, never remembering what Life Sciences notes to do.