Bits and Pieces

Suddenly a familiar feeling came back…
That gut wrenching, heart throbbing, feeling of pure happiness.

Maybe it was just something I ate, she thought in the car ride home, or maybe it was the movie, well it could have been both.
Why now though? Of all the possible worse moments in timing, why now? She didn’t dwell on the why so much since she was so happy but what triggered this feeling? Something she saw, the places she went, the way people acted, or maybe every event in the day? She didn’t think about it much after that; she just stared into the darkness for the duration of the car ride, listening to some slow romantic songs. Not those terrible ones about a boy and a girl falling in love, but the ones that sound like poetry, the ones that make you feel like you’re in some fantasyland.

By now she was so deep in thought she couldn’t help stopping herself from entering fantasyland, and the reminiscing began. The last time she felt this way was when she was much younger, when innocence and love clouded her world forever.
She was about sixteen then, and they were in the same place, it was a crowded day, people she was just getting to know surrounded her and she was just being herself, crazy, childish, and alive. Then she saw him, he was staring right at her, but she looked away thinking he was just looking within the area which she sat, so she looks at him again and there he is staring at her, but this time she caught him and he looks away, embarrassed of course. She thought nothing of it.

They had met before on several occasions and she had never thought of him liking her, but now she thought about it….

“Me? No way!” she said to herself walking away, thinking how silly she could be.
They were seated inside and it was dark. There were stolen glances, many flirtatious remarks, but nothing, no sign, nothing major. But then she gets a note:
“Can you meet me in the lobby?” She felt like she was in one of those silly romantic comedies she always watches, she got up and left for the lobby.

There he was standing so confidently against the wall, waiting for her to come out and meet her. The place was still crowded and still a bit noisy. But she walked over to him not the least bit nervous, but thinking.

They stared at each other for a while, just making eye contact and then he speaks.

“I like you, you know, you’re really awesome, and I just wanted to tell you, so yeah, I guess I just told you.”

She looks at him for a while and says nothing, and doesn’t move, but inside she’s jumping up and down, laughing and singing, and can’t stop smiling. So she lets him see a little smile on her face, and she sees a huge smile on his face.

They start to look around and she suggests they go back to their friends, when they both don’t want to. So they begin to walk back, each with their hands dangling down on their sides and close enough to hold hands, but they don’t. Instead they gently touch shoulder-to-shoulder, arm-to-arm, their fingers brushing each other’s ever so lightly as they enter the hall where the rest of their friends are. Around their friends they stay around the room, the entire night is lost with secret glances and giggles. They feel connected like no one else is in the room. It’s just them in their own world, and then….

The brakes in the car jam – Whiplash! A sudden stop at a red light.
He’s not here any more she kept reminding herself, no more fantasyland. This is reality, and I am happy with reality.

That bittersweet moment passes, and she gets lost again in the poetic lyrics and wonderfully romantic compositions that are playing in the car, she is lost in the darkness of the outside. No longer thinking of how staring was so romantic, how the eyes told her so much of emotion, of Love.