I’ll Always Be Waiting For You

Summary

Many times, love is like that butterfly that is always out of your reach. She was like that, a happy butterfly. Unattainable. But he, well, he knew that he would always wait for her. Come what may. Forever. Even if an eternity passed by. Always.

She had always been a friend. Never a best one, but one who had always been. We never fought, simply because we were never close enough. She would smile that smile each year when I gave her a new album on April the twelfth, a strawberry grin that made me happy for days. She would blow me an air kiss sometimes in the mornings and she would hug me, too. But she acted that way with everyone; then why did it feel so special to me? She never spoke anything bad about anybody, getting along with everybody, laughing at everything-- her laugh, a loud, contagious bark that would ring in my ears for eternities afterwards. More than anything about her, I always remembered her laughter. I loved her laugh, I spent all my twelve years in school trying to make her laugh. And most of the times I succeeded, but only because it wasn’t hard to make her laugh.

She had been my neighbour ever since we were six. In fact, I was the first she knew in the town, the first in the school, the first in class. But that didn’t last for long. Because she had the vibrancy around her that pulled others to her like a magnet. People need to be happy and Tina made people happy. Even if she weren’t. Nobody ever knew anything imperfect about her life, because she never let on. She had a mother, a father and a sister. And she adored them to bits.

She did everything with a passion which was sometimes overwhelming: Singing, playing cricket, studies, painting, laughing. Everything. Tina was well liked simply because she was passionate about everything--and body. She made you feel worthy, almost as if you mattered.

But to me, she had always been the person whom I would look at shyly from the corner of my eye, that one person who would always smile at me, no matter what. That one person I was sure I could go to if there was anything wrong in my life. And even though she never really paid me any attention, I cared about her. Crushes I had many, girlfriends too. But I was always waiting for her. Though she made everyone feel loved, she made me feel restless. Because I could not understand her. Usually girls would press the ‘ignore coldly’ button if they disliked you, or be too overfriendly if they didn’t--but she…she was neither. When I told her that I liked her, she just looked at me silently, as if she understood me. As if she had known all along.

My being cold to her didn’t affect her in any way. Apparently. She would still give me the sweet smile, even though I looked at her resentfully. Yes, I failed to understand her. What was her game? I would wonder as I roved past her sitting there, chatting a mile a second with her gal-pals. Her friends would grin slyly at me but she would give me the same smile. The same smile that she used to give me before I told her. Was that how much I mattered to her?

The weirdest thing about her was that she never seemed to like anybody. I shooed away the claims that she was a lesbian, because I knew she wasn’t. She had plastered every inch of her bedroom walls with Will Smith’s posters, that much I could see from my window; I had heard her sigh about this man or that, like any other teenage girl. Of course that didn’t really prove anything, but even so, I knew somehow…

Many guys held the same complaint that I had, when she knew we liked her, why did she never react? And how did she always know even before we did? Why that unperturbed demeanor? Such passion but such collected countenance?

She looked frail, a bony, 5 feet 2 figure with the lightest eyes and smoothest dark hair, but she could hold down a truck. She looked quiet but she could out-talk our principal. She was wild, oh yes, with the scariest sarcastic sense of humor. So if she held the life of the universe within her, she also held the meanness. Tina was not a person to be crossed, simply because she killed you with her silent stares that let you know very clearly that she disapproved. I had thought that if she didn’t like me back, I would be sentenced to this stare, but no: I was gift-wrapped poison in a parcel of sugar. I was given a small sweet smile, and a kind “You will stop smoking won’t you, Harry?” Looking into her eyes, I had almost said yes; she held such sincerity in her dark eyes that I knew she meant it. And I realised that she did care about me. But she didn’t like me back.

She didn’t like anybody, even though she loved everybody.

I continued smoking.

Until one day, I woke up and bounded off my bed to my mirror, fingering my blonde hair. I needed a change. That was it. Clearly, she had become so used to me and my pretense of machismo that she felt no attraction. Well, that would change. I fingered my mane and decided to let it grow into those floppy American-boys shag that her friends so adored. And I would grow a little beard. Hadn’t she said that she liked guys with a little goatee? And I would dress more casually, simple jeans and a black T-shirt… Smoking too would have to go. She hated it, hadn’t she said that often enough?

Maybe now…

I saw her come up, swinging into sight, a small smirk playing with her lips. She always smirked in the mornings; by afternoons, she would smile, and by the time school was about to end she would be laughing. But no matter what, happiness--a feeling of comfort and security enveloped her like a mother to her first born. Oh yeah, she was Destiny’s child. Little Miss Perfect.

She eyed me up and down, her perceptive eyes taking in everything. Her eyes acknowledged the smoothness of my cheeks, even as I rubbed them uncomfortably. I felt young, naked, without them. She looked at me, mischief playing hide and seek in her gray eyes; she held out her hand and I cautiously put mine in hers, feeling the softness, the warm coolness that always underlined why she was so popular among her peers; Tina was the angel with the halo of freshness around her. And she smiled at me, smiling that same smile.

What was it that she wanted?

By the time we were in our senior years, most of the guys had given up on her. Sweet, they said, but too weird. Friendly, but reserved. Attainable, but as much as the moon. Me, I never gave up on her. I waited for her, waited and hope that one day, she will realise that it was I that she wanted. I, that would always look after her; I that would cover her if stones were being pelted at her. I, Harry, would always be there for her--even if she didn’t want me to. I would always be by her side even if her fatal smile told me to go away. If not in body, then always in spirit. Always.

I’ll always be waiting for you.

I would sing her to sleep. I dreamt. Like the innocent baby I was.

I never realised when I started loving her, when I knew everything about her, superficial or otherwise. I knew that her mother hated her father’s guts. I knew that her older sister was a drug addict and a rape-victim, struggling in the rehab. I knew that she loved reading more than music, despite everybody thinking otherwise. I knew, the only one in the world of our school, that she preferred ballads to hip-hop. That she held together her family. That she, my Tina, was the strongest person I ever knew. And I knew, oh I knew that even though she never heard me, she felt me and that I, Harry, a normal guy, was under the spell and would hear to everything that she said. A dangerous bind she had put me under; if she told me jump off a cliff…I know as true as the sky is blue that I would have.

And I knew that she was scared of me. Because I was everything she didn’t want me to be. Everything that could make her perfect countenance crumble like her house’s roof after the rain. And so when she sees me, she gives me that smile that perfectly disguises the shiver that she feels. Mistress of Disguise, that’s what she is. Knowing more than she should know about this world, listening to nobody, understanding and calculating everything. Mistress of Disguise, Queen of Hidden Tragedy, bravely living out her perfect life. Miss Mother Mary. My Tina. That was she.

And she shivered when she saw me.

I got it after awhile. She will never love me, never come to me, and give me a different smile. Because if there were anything like love in her world, she already did that to me. And if there ever were anything like belonging in the realm she ruled valiantly, she was already mine. But she wasn’t.

So because she had dedicated her gray heart to me without ever letting go of it, did it mean that mine would be show the same practicality? So was it wrong of me to ask for a simple warm hug, a meaningful look? A different smile?

So was it wrong of me to wish I had never met her? To wish I had never loved her? To have gone away from her and moved on with my life? Because I wouldn’t stay in the same time with her forever, in the eye of the hurricane? Yes, I said I would wait for her, but what was the point in waiting when I knew she was incapable of ever gifting her heart, as shriveled up as it was? I always loved her. Always, never doubt that. But I saw no happy ending. Saw no future. Saw nothing for she and me, us that never would be. And felt it best to move on. To find a new girlfriend, one who gave me a carefree, warm smile, wasn’t afraid of me, talked to me, told me that she loved my eyes. One who loved me. Unconditionally, unabandonedly. Without a trace of the shiver.

Yet I wake up in the middle of the night, eternity-old laughter filling the room, pushing everything out, including my wife, a spicy bark that holds traces of sarcasm, traces of sweetness, traces of her.

I will always be loving her. I will always be waiting for her.

Because that is how we are destined-- for each other.

With the shiver in between.

Author’s Note: Well. My first story on this site. Ah. Not my first story though, I already write fanfics (at fan ) and I already have another story designed for this site, one I have been working on for quite a while. This one, though, was rather random. I was listening to Shiver by Coldplay when I felt an itch. I got up, sat down in front of my laptop (of course, I had to knock my brother away first) and tap, tap, tap. There we are. Voilà! I hope you liked it, and I hope that you will review since well, that would be pretty encouraging, wouldn’t it? If you haven’t guessed already, I am kinda nervous about posting here. So…review people? :)

Er, need I mention, based on Shiver by Coldplay :)

Love and may you have the best day of your life,

Ginny