From Hearing Her Voice

My head lay sideways upon the desk. The stains of red paint and pencil sharpening scattered across its surface lightly brushing my cheek every time I took a breath. My eyes gazed upwards towards the girl who sat beside me. Her eyes were iridescently beautiful. The tears she had once shed were still barely visible, yet I still found it difficult to believe that anything, or anyone, could have hurt this girl enough to make her cry. I closed my eyes.

My eyelids opened slowly as I held back the tears. She looked down at her work, and, as she did, her hair fell perfectly across the side of her face. I smiled. She turned her head to look at me, my eyes started to close. What is this feeling? Embarrassment? Fear? Hate? The sound of her laugh struck my ears, like a shallow raindrop hitting a puddle. My eyes opened, quicker this time, to see her staring back at me. I knew immediately what she would say, the question she would ask, and I knew what my response would be.

“Are you okay?” She asked, softly. I hesitated and took a moment to take in the words she had spoken. Her voice, the way her lips moved, the close of her mouth. It was all different. The comfort and fragile safety I had once received from hearing those three words, from hearing her voice, had disappeared. She continued to look at me with the misunderstood belief that she was making me feel better. I wanted to reply, but I couldn’t. One word, “yes”, that’s all that was needed. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t bring myself to say it; after all, it would have been a lie. I was not okay.

“No,” I sighed. There was a brief moment of silence. Words she had once spoken drifted through my mind, each one sounding more false than the one before. She frowned and looked confused; as if she believed that I was always okay, never expecting me not to be.

“Why?" She questioned, with a sense of worry in her voice. “What’s the matter?”

The words she spoke, once again, had no meaning to me anymore. Every smile, every laugh, every good feeling I had once been given by her had faded away; the few emotions that were left had been overcome by fear. The fear of even more pain and even more hurt. The struggle to say something, the fear of hurting her, of getting hurt myself, the words ringing clear in my mind, the love I still felt for her. It was all too much. A puzzle with no solution. Anything I said, anything I did would result in tears. It was a cruel and melancholic thought.

I sat there, trapped and held hostage by my own thoughts. I sighed; causing some of the pencil sharpening to gently glide off the surface of the desk. I envied their ability to move away so easily. My eyes were fixated, still gazing up at the perfectly beautiful girl who sat beside. My eyes started to water, the thought of never getting to be with this girl or to hold her again was weighing down on me like an anvil. I tried to stop myself from crying to no avail. I tried to wipe away the tears before she could see, but she turned to look at me once again. Had she noticed? Did she know I was crying? She smiled.

The tears had now seeped out of my eyes and on to the table, yet the crying had abruptly ended. When she smiled she managed to look even more beautiful than before, something that I thought was impossible. My heart beat faster, quicker, harder. This feeling was indescribable, like the first time I held her in my fragile arms, gently whispering “I love you.” The memory, which would have once made me weep tears of painful sorrow and sadness, now made me smile. Happiness? How long had it been since I had experienced such a feeling?

“Are you okay?” She asked, once again. I hesitated as I had before, the feelings, the thoughts were different. Any feeling of negativity I had felt for her had almost vanished. All that I thought, all that I felt, was lost there in her perfect smile.

“Yes,” I replied, with a humble smile, “I’m okay now.”

She smiled again and nodded as if to approve of my being okay. Then she stood up and left.

My smile started to fade, as I realised the mistake of having just lied to myself. The sound of her footsteps slammed tauntingly against my eardrums. I felt the urge to reach out and call her name, yet I did not. Instead, I sat there drained and confused, knowing that the cycle would never end. For deep within my soul, there would always be an ounce of me that would want her and, blatantly, branded across hers would be the reason that I never could. And with this thought, I sunk back into my chair and, once again, lay my head sideways upon the desk.

***

I wrote this back in school about four years ago about a girl (as it usually is). This isn't the the style or subject I would adopt now in my writing, but I felt like it deserved a bit more than fading away within the circuits of a USB stick.