Appearance is important to all people. It’s arrogance not to admit it. It is human nature to look at the physical shell and draw emotion from it long before you dip to the intellect or soul, a famous writer once said. Simple isn’t wrong. But it has been part of being mortal to nurture assets and downplay insecurities.
However, in this futile world we live, keeping up appearances isn’t always where a person draws his worth…Something nobody ever told him…until her.
She was neither the best looking gal in class nor part of a certain reigning populace. She wasn’t noticeable enough for center stage, the kind where one passes by without a second glance. Someone he wouldn’t think of liking.
He was the vogue. Pop and pretty were synonymous to him. The number of people at his beck and call was his scale of worth. He was everything she carelessly brushed off. He undoubtedly found it irritating and she was oblivious to all of it. She didn’t care a thing of who and what he was and he found it frustrating that he actually did.
He couldn’t exactly remember when he started to actually look and see. It was definitely not the way she tossed her hair or threw her head when she laughed. It was not the way she smiled at him across the room or walked haughtily away or towards him….because she actually didn’t do any of these.
In fact, she sat that day on the next table near the cafeteria window, with her hair cruelly messed up by the wind, pen hanging on midair on her hand on a perfectly petrified state while staring at the downpour of rain when he finally took notice of this certain girl.
She looked so comical that he was about ready to point her to his group to be the next poor object of their entertainment when those little eyes, previously devoid of any emotion, suddenly lit up and turned to life. Her eyes were nothing extraordinary, so plain and uncolored that he couldn’t explain why looking at them plucked a vein on his chest…and left a deep impression on his self-centered head…
Since then, he couldn’t help seeing her in the crowd that it annoyed him a lot. They didn’t even run on the same circle being him as ‘Mr. Popular’ and her, well, ‘Ms. I couldn't-care-less’. She didn’t even stick to the same circle. She had a diverse kind of friends. Like she was Ms. Popular of the Unpopular but not really ‘cause she was actually acquainted with some of the upper class men. He noticed, much to his own ire, that she mixed well with all kinds of people without actually branding herself. Something he had difficulty absorbing. He was only sure of one thing: he and she were not the same. So, why did she bug him so much?
At the peak of irascibility and being pissed at himself more than with her, he ripped out a page of his notepad one day and scribbled furiously something, something so vile and foul that he wanted to throw at her just to ease his troubles…troubles she caused his mind.
He was there when she opened her locker the next day and found a stuck paper.
He was standing discreetly a few feet away, pretending to laugh at the lame jokes of his minions when she opened it.
The frown came, which his so called friends interpreted as disapproval of their attempts to be cool, when she just read it and sighed once before scribbling on the same vile paper and folded it back to where it came from.
No reason was formed on his mind when he secretly pulled it from its place and fisted it to his pocket before he followed her outside the school.
She went to sit on the garden bench while he hid himself behind the wall where he could see her and she couldn't.
He was battling with himself and what he was doing there when her tears started to fall.
Dumbstruck was not enough to describe how he felt while he watched her silently cry because of what he wrote on that corrupted paper crumpled in his fist.
He never felt more ashamed of himself. He felt his heart was wrenched out of his chest. The torture was unbearable. But he kept on looking, he couldn’t walk away. Maybe it was how it feels to die and he knew he deserved it.
Whatever words she wrote back for him were surely not enough to appease the hurt she felt that day.
After a lifetime worth of painful minutes, she brushed the tears away and righted herself. When she stood up, she was smiling that mirthful smile again……
and he was left hating himself for the 1st time in his life…
~~~~~
He kept the paper they both left marks on. A reminder of how the tiny ungraceful note changed him for life.
When guys his age fell for curves and cup sizes, he fell for soul…
When other guys digged girls on hot pants and bikinis, he fell hard for wisdom…
And when other guys finally noticed girls with brains, he just fell deeper for beauty…
Other guys his age fell in love the usual old path…But he crossed the road backwards…
An unattractive, unassuming girl tagged his heart a long time ago and made a man out of the selfish, self-centered being he was…
A girl who unknowingly changed how a young guy looked at the world with a simple note…
A woman now who that man knows was worth all the years of waiting…
~~~~~~~
It was a windy afternoon and she was strolling down memory lane. It has been years and yet---
She sighed at the bittersweet memories she had of this young man when a yellow paper landed at her feet. She picked it up and long dormant feelings stirred inside of her…
“Hi…”
She looked up to see a guy standing in front of her.
“Lovely, isn’t it?” he asked.
“Where did you get this?” she asked.
“A note…from this beautiful girl…to this stupid guy…”
And she smiled at him that mirthful smile once again…
“Hello…”
"It is not how people look at you…It is how you see yourself"
