I draped the long creamy orange silk over my shoulders and back. The scent was of peaches that perfumed so fresh and picked from the garden of a god of farming. My long, wavy brown hair swathed over my shoulder. I gazed into the mirror. Flaming red eyes stared back at me. I ran my fingers over my sides down to my waist. I wasn’t like an hour glass, but I wasn’t chubby. I felt my ring finger and stroked the beautiful round ruby strapped to my finger by a strip of gold.

I remembered this morning on my way to work. The suns light seeped through the edges of the earth. The sky way gray and gray clouds streaked across it like water colors. Soon the sky filled with stunning oranges, pinks and light sapphire blues. I realized soon that my heart was racing at nature’s paintings of the sky as if I was in love with this piece of art. I looked in the rear view mirror. I saw my eyes rise with orange flames and I looked down at the wheel. My finger nails were sneaking into a very faint red orange color.

A golden cross hung from the corner of my mirror by a silver chain. I stared at it. If felt tears rush to my eyes. Was god mocking me? I didn’t know what was going on. Nothing was making sense to me, as the sunrise rose into the sky, so did my excitement, every day on end since my 21st birthday. I let my feelings gush into my diary which I hid under my bed, ashamed of my abnormality.

This love of the sunlight reminds me of my boyfriend. Don’t call me strange or bizarre as I expose my feelings into this journal. His name was Ray. He had red hair that almost looked brown and eyes olive green. He did not look ugly, but not very good looking. But what attracted me to him was his sensitive personality. He was a guy around his guy friends. But when he was around me, he would act kind and polite. I always thought it was cute, how he played basketball with his guys. But I haven’t seen him since I had my 21st birthday. Yes, at college I see him every day from Monday to Friday. But it is as if he is being pulled farther and farther away from me, his personality changing. His beautiful hope is to seem more and more invisible, now, as our classes are separated.

I’m not sure if it makes me happy or sad to see him acting his charming way, but not around me. I suppose when he does, and I happen to be just walking by, it fills me with hope that his lure is not lost. But I think now that our friendship has faded, and he has chosen but another someone.

Now, my heart curls around the hope that the he will return, and we will become friends again. I have other companions as well, but Ray is one that is golden. I find myself searching for reasons to ask him to accompany me. But I uncover that there is nothing for me to say to him. There is no relation to us anymore, so I hope something will come up, even the smallest thing.

I stared back at the cross thinking of the readings on some one’s shirt that I scanned in the park. There is no irony, no coincidences, everything happens for a reason. But I find that this irony and coincidence is my life. What keeps me obtainable? It is something grim that now haunts me such as the cross hanging from the mirror. Oh god, why me, I would find myself asking, why me? The day he gave me this beautiful ring was so long ago, and I imagine that my charming love has forgotten of this day. This feeling of loss is as if a person has died, but only a personality has and is replaced with one ignoring and self centered who only looks the same.

And tonight in this desperate loss, I will go to where my deepest love used to live and where now a boy named Ray lives. I must try to speak my mind, to let him swallow my feelings. I pray to whoever has really created life that he will remember in his heart those times together that we have had. And if not, I cannot see how I will live knowing that my chances to bring back my love are gone. I can already imagine the emptiness.

I heard the calming sound of rain beat against the roof. I took my black umbrella from the closet and set out into the nights’ rain. It made a tinny sound as it splashed against my car. Falls of water spurted from the gutters wildly like a waterfall. I got into my car and slammed the rusty door. I started the engine and backed it up into darkness. As I drove down the roads and streets I could remember clearly how to get to Ray’s house. I heard the wheels of the car searing through the water that lay in puddles on the black roads.

Soon I arrived at Ray’s apartments. I pulled up into the dark parking lots and stepped out into the cold, misty night. I opened my umbrella quickly though I was almost drenched in rain anyway. I walked slowly and quietly inside the apartments with a key Ray had copied for me long ago. Just like the old times I slid up 4 floors in the elevator to his room; 2056 which was still fresh in my mind. I stared for almost two minutes at the numbers on the door, 2056. After this moment, I would know the truth, what was really happening.

I shoved the key in the lock and the doorknob twisted open the door. I stepped into his room. Ray was lying on his bed, a laptop in his lap. The light of the screen shone brightly on his face, the same face that I remembered. He peered at me and glanced as if he didn’t know who I was. “O-oh, hi, Mika,” he said finally. I felt myself blush when he said my name. “What are you dong here?”

I said nothing and walked deeper into his room, sitting across from his bed on a chair. He turned on his lamp that was next to him. I sat backwards in the chair as to face him and rested my hands over the back of the chair as to let him see my fingers. To my great pleasure, the ring caught the lamps light perfectly. As he saw my dark expression a strange look came to his eyes.

“I don’t feel like were as much friends as we used to be, Ray,” I said. I tried to be assertive, but I still loved him and it was hard for me to do this. Tears came to my eyes and tried to leek out, but I held them back. Ray didn’t say anything to the statement, but sat with his mouth hanging half open in confusion.

I went to sit next to him, but not too close as to show him that I had not forgiven him for forgetting about me. “I haven’t been in the crowd lately, catch me up on what’s happening these days,” I said. This was my test. If Ray responded with a full answer about girls, jokes and what was going on in basketball, I’d know that he had forgotten about our old friendship. But to my relief, he didn’t answer which meant he knew I was being sarcastic.

At this moment, I wanted to leave him alone, to think about what I had shown him. But I couldn’t, because I knew boys. The next day they would pretend as if nothing had happened. So I stayed. I felt my heart beat so loudly, but my face I kept calm and did not let my love for him show. Ray shut his eyes and sighed, closing his laptop.

To be continued in chapter 2...