"Happiness is like the old man told me, look for it, but you'll never find it all. let it go, live your life and leave it. Then one day, wake up and she'll be home."
…The idea of happiness just confuses me these days. I have been trying so hard for so long to redefine this thing called "happiness" by any means. I've been trying to preoccupy myself and find ways to focus all my energy in something, anything, as to feel this feeling once again. But, unfortunately, I cannot figure out how to redefine something that used to come naturally. Happiness is supposed to feel like revelation, is it not? I am supposed to be able to shut out the entire world and just feel at peace with every single aspect of my life as if that one moment in time is all that exists, and hold onto that feeling as long as I can until I have to let go. This is how I remember it being, anyway. I know I have felt it before, certainly I have, however, its nothing but a faint memory to me now that my life has changed so much from what it once was.
And then I began thinking, maybe happiness isn't just a feeling, maybe it has no definition. Maybe I have spent all this time searching for a feeling that I wont ever get because I am trying to make it logical and that is just something that a feeling cannot ever be. Feelings just are not logical because they are such transient things. Happiness is now, and will always be, so incredibly complex to me that I will never understand it in its entirety, i can try, but i still wont be some sort of expert. Happiness has so many different factors and meanings and expressions that there is no one way I can try to achieve it. It just has to happen, I suppose.
I could read a good book, and that could make me happy. I could see a family walking down the street and see the happiness in their eyes and imagine the love in that unit, and that could give me a momentary lapse of secondhand happiness. I could see my writing published and being enjoyed by others, and that would make me happy. But all of these ways I find momentary happiness is subject to me, on my own. What makes me happy will not always make someone else happy, and that is what I have slowly come to learn. Happiness cannot be defined as one way because there is no wrong way to feel it. There is no wrong way to achieve it. There is no wrong in searching for your own happiness, the fact that it is subject to you, and you alone, means it cannot be defined. Its impossible. Losing the ability to define this feeling only resulted in my inability to define any feeling, when everything I feel, surrounds a certain level of happiness. You cannot feel sadness without having known happiness. You cannot feel anger without having felt happiness. You cannot feel confusion without having felt happiness. Love is the same in that sense. Love is strenuous, heartbreaking, beautiful, trying, magic and still, at the base of it all, built on the wonder that is happiness. Love is the highest form of happiness anyone could ever experience, even if the happiness is one sided and sacrifices have been made, its still rewarding in a way. Through learning this, I have become, more or less, a broken man.
When the person you love most in the entire world, your everything, tells you they just aren't happy where you are anymore, it is probably the most heart breaking thing you have, or will ever, experience. Especially when they tell you they are unhappy, without using any words.
She did not come in one day and tell me that there was something wrong in our relationship that we needed to fix, there was nothing to fix. She did not look me in the eye and tell me that I had let her down in any way or that she needed more from me than what I was giving her. Nothing about me that she had fallen in love with had changed, nothing about me that she did not like stayed the same. I did absolutely everything I could to make sure she was entirely satisfied with the life we had, because I loved her more than I loved anything or anyone. She was it, she was the one I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. I wanted to wake up every morning with her there, I wanted to fall asleep every night knowing she was beside me. I wanted to see her smile about nothing, the way she did sometimes, because she knew how much I loved her smile. I wanted to watch her get lost in a book or in a classic movie, the way she always did, for the rest of my time on the earth. I wanted my existence, to be because of her. I loved her that much. I knew she was satisfied with that.
But while the good thing was that she was satisfied, the problem was also that she was satisfied. She was satisfied, just satisfied. I am by no means a relationship mogul, but I know well enough that settling for 'just satisfied' is not the way to live a life with someone you are supposed to love. I knew that. She knew that. And there was something, something beyond what I could comprehend, that she thought was missing from her life. She never said it, but I could read it all over her face, I could feel it in the way she would kiss me and I could see it in the way she moved.
When she came in every night, she would change into her pajamas, lay her textbooks out on the kitchen table and she would get lost in the words of people who lived years and years before she was even alive. She would finish her work, and she would just continue to read far past the time she knew she should be in bed, asleep in order to wake up for class the next day. She would read the words of great thinkers, great writers and I would watch her do what she loved best. But when I spoke to her, she was only half there. I knew she was more tied to a dead poet than she was to me. I watched her eyes glisten as they danced across the page with the most excitement I had ever seen in her and when she would hit the best line, I always knew, because she would sigh. She did this often, ever since I met her. But that sigh went from being a sigh of sheer enchantment with the writer and their way of diction and deep connotation, to being a sigh of longing. She would pause from reading for a moment, look up as if I was not there, like she saw through me, and stare off as if there was something greater behind me than the kitchen wall. She was entirely right. There was something greater than the kitchen wall past me, it was an entire new world. That certain something greater was beyond this neighborhood, beyond this city, beyond this state. I knew she longed for it. She knew that I knew. And I wanted her to know that I longed for it for her. It all came around full circle. But I also knew when she dreamed about what was beyond that kitchen wall, she saw through me because she knew I was not it. I was not part of what was out there, because I was, and will always be, what she found here.
I think we both knew what was going to happen before it actually did, so we left it at that. Neither one of us ever even addressed it. She needed to go off and be the person she dreamed of being, and she couldn't be that person with me. There was no issue there, there was nothing either of us needed to discuss. We left everything unspoken, she packed up and she left. I let her go and fulfill everything her heart desired, and I didn't allow her to tell me what she had planned, because I wanted this to remain all her own. I didn't want to be that person that kept her somewhere she didn't want to be, in a situation she didn't want to be in. if I had, would that be love? No, of course not.
I suppose this is when I began to try and redefine happiness. To me, she was my happiness. I didn't want a momentary feeling of completion followed by a sudden smack with reality, reminding me that my life is still happening around me and that I have responsibilities to get to. I wanted my happiness to be tangible. I wanted to look my happiness in the eyes and know it wouldn't be gone in a few minutes or a few days or a few years, no, I wanted to see my happiness for the rest of my life. I wanted my happiness to just walk in a room and light everything up, the way she did. I didn't want to have to do all these different things to entertain myself and keep myself busy to have the feeling of happiness, I just wanted to be able to run to it, the way I could with her. She is still my happiness, to be honest.
Watching her go, I knew I made the right decision in not begging her to stay, because though she was crying in the car on her way to wherever it was that she was going, she was still sort of smiling. Her definition of happiness was something far different from mine, and it was time she experienced it completely. She was excited to see what the world had in store for her and I was excited that she was excited, even though I was breaking inside. I had seen things, I had done things. It was her turn, I had to remind myself of that as I watched her go.
She is out there somewhere in the world, experiencing all the things that someone like her should get to experience. She is living the things that she read about and she is on her way to achieving great things, the way I always knew she would. I just had to let go first and let her live. I can think of her from time to time and smile. I find peace in knowing my happiness has found its own definition, and it doesn't need me to go on.
She finishes the last line slowly, drawing out each word, trying to comprehend entirely what she just read. She couldn't believe it when she read the last line for the first time the night before, and it didn't become any easier the second time, rereading it out loud.
"Was this some kind of joke?" she looks up at the professor, confused. She puts down the book on his desk.
"No jokes. Why do you ask?"
"Why is this the reading assignment? I mean, the book is completely irrelevant to the lesson. Why did I have to read that?"
"I just thought it would be an interesting topic to venture in to. I would like to see everyone's outlook on that piece of literature, that's all." The teacher looks over his glasses at her as he leans back in his chair, twirling a pen between his fingers.
"If I'm honest, Mr. Layne, I don't feel comfortable reading that book for a grade. Perhaps my opinion of it is a bit biased? I mean, I sort of knew the author."
"There are no wrong answers, Ms. Montgomery. I don't see what your problem with the assignment is?"
"I think I have made it clear what the problem with the assignment is, with all due respect."
The professor leans forward on his desk and removes his glasses. He sets them down and looks her straight in the eye, his casual contact turning into a glare now. He picks up the book and hands it back to her.
"This is the assignment. I am the instructor, I am telling you, you either do the assignment or you get a zero overall."
"For the entire semester?"
"That's what I said. Have a nice day."
He turned his back to her and she knew that there was no way she could reason with him to give her a different assignment. She had no options but to write her paper on Ezra's book, Ezra's book about her. Her professor would not budge on his opinion of the assignment. She even tried taking the issue to the head of the literature department but it would be near impossible to explain the issue without going into details of her relations with the author of the book. Her personal problems with the assignment probably wouldn't change anyone's mind anyway.
She walked back to her dorm slowly, trying to take in all of what was happening. It was supposed to get easier when she started over. She was supposed to be able to leave everything from her past behind and start over clean in some place completely different. That is why she chose to come to Berkeley, far enough away from home that she didn't have to be faced with the past again. But here everything was, coming up again and looming over her liked a storm cloud. All her demons were looking her in the face and taunting her now.
Ezra had nothing but amazing things to say about her in his book, nicer words than she deserved after what she had done, she thought. He had painted her in a perfect light, the way he always did and she could almost hear his voice saying the words as she had read it. To be honest, she was beyond proud of him for what he had accomplished since the last time they spoke, but at the same time, she had never planned to read it. She had heard he had written a book, she didn't know what it was about or that she was such a huge part of it, she didn't mind, but she didn't want to read it. When she was given the assignment, her jaw hit the floor. It made no sense why that exact book was the one they had to read and write a final paper on. It made absolutely no sense at all. How could a comparative literature class have to read Ezra's book? Initially she assumed it was a mistake, then a joke. But no, this was the actual assignment given to the entire class. It was just odd. It was a piece of literature that was on the complete opposite end of the spectrum from what any college course like this would venture into. It made no sense.
She unlocked the door to her dorm and tossed her bag onto her office chair before throwing herself onto her bed and burying her face in her pillow. Her roommate twirled around in her chair to face Aria.
"Bad day?" she asked Aria.
"You have no idea."
"Couldn't have been too bad."
Aria lifted her head off her pillow just to glare over at her roommate's idiocy.
"Just joking," her roommate shrugged. "Of course it's gonna be crazy stressful, it's the end of the semester."
"Yeah but there is regular stress, and then there is stress that Professor Layne inflicts on his students. That is next level stress."
"He's an ass, of course."
Aria sat up, grabbed the book out of her bag, and tossed it over to her roommate. She looked over the cover quickly and then began skimming through it casually. She flipped through the pages and randomly looked over a couple paragraphs before closing it and read the excerpt that was on the back over.
"This sounds pretty cool, actually," the roommate exclaims while flipping through the books again.
"Well, yes and no. I just don't want to write a term paper on that book. Mr. Layne is losing it, completely."
"Mhmm…"
"Does it even seem like a comparative literature book?"
Her roommate closes the book and holds it up as she looks over at Aria, confusion plastered all over her face.
"This is what you're reading for your term paper? This book? Are you sure? I think you might have misunderstood."
"Well, no. I went in and spoke to Mr. Layne."
"I don't think this is what you're meant to be reading…"
"It is! He told me so. I didn't understand either, but it's what he said. He, himself, said to me that that was the correct book."
"You have that class with my friend Carly, right?" She gets up and walks over to the bookshelf on the over side of the room and comes back with a different book. "Carly got an email the other day with a list of books to choose from. She is reading Gilgamesh, see. She left this here when she was over studying the other day."
Aria takes the book and looks it over. An epic poem. It was so completely different that the two books aren't even comparable, no similarities at all. This is what Aria was talking about the entire time, she knew they had been working with epic poetry and foreign literature. There is no way this is some mistake. She was set up, and she knew it. Whatever angle Professor Layne was playing, whether he was trying to make her fail or whether he was trying to humiliate her, she had no clue. There was one thing she knew for sure, and that was there was no way she would ever being able to analyze the real reading assignment entirely and write a brand new term paper in one night. She could try, but she knew she was about to receive the lowest grade of the entire term. But then again, this was his plan all along, was it not?
She cracked open Gilgamesh and tried her best to focus on the task at hand and not the fact that her professor just tried to screw her over for no clear reason, besides the fact that he must have not liked her. What she ever did to him to make him this angry, she had no clue. But she had no options at this point but to move on.
Aria got maybe ten minutes of sleep, by accident, around 3 am when she got writers block and drifted off. Finally, minutes before she had to rush off to get it submitted in time, she had completed it. Still wearing the clothes she was wearing yesterday and throwing second day hair into a ponytail, Aria sprinted off to the Literature building as if her life depended on it. And it sort of did.
She made it with thirty seconds to spare and trying desperately to catch her breath. She walked up to drop her paper on Mr. Layne's desk personally. She knew what he had done and she wanted him to know that she knew. She looked him directly in the eyes as she slid the assignment across the desk to him. He lowered his glasses down the bridge of his nose to read the title, Gilgamesh.
"Aria, see me after class," Mr. Layne growled, loud enough for the whole class to hear, though she was standing only a few feet from him.
"Sure thing," she replies, not even for a second breaking her deadlock stare.
Aria wasn't backing down without a fight, and Mr. Layne wasn't giving into the idea that he had anything against her. The others in the class could feel the hostility, people out in the hall could probably feel the hostility. Anything he did, anything he said, Aria was ready to call bullshit, and she did.
Mr. Layne dismissed the class ten minutes early and Aria didn't move a muscle. She sat in her seat and glared up to the front of the class where he sat at his desk.
"I did the assignment. What do you still need from me?"
"You did not do the assignment," he responded coldly as he shuffled papers around.
"I did. Its right there, you saw it."
"What I saw was a term paper on Gilgamesh, which is not what I choose not to do the assignment, that is your own issue, not mine. "
"I did what was assigned to the entire class. I did what you asked and I should be given the credit I deserve."
"Its not what I assigned to you. Therefore, you will receive no credit."
Aria jumped up from her seat and stormed over to his desk, getting as close to him as possible to make her point loud and clear.
"I know what you are trying to do! You cannot just fail me like that when I did the reading, research and writing! I did what I was supposed to do!"
"Clearly, you did not."
"So I get a zero because I didn't read the book written by Mr. Fitz? Is that what you are telling me?"
"Yes, and I'm sure Ezra would be very disappointed in you."
"Don't you dare talk about him as if you know him!"
"I know enough."
"You don't know anything."
He scoffed at this and turned away from her., "I know that this conversation is over. Take your paper and exit the class, please."
"You can't do this!"
"As I have said before, I am the instructor. I can decide what work i will accept."
"Well, I cannot take a zero. I cant. I just cant. I need to pass this class."
Mr. Layne got up out of his chair and walked around to the front of the desk. Aria took a step away from him as he neared her. He took a seat on the edge of the desk and folded his arms over his chest.
"I suppose I could think of a different assignment."
"Excuse me?" Aria asked, confused and slightly worried.
"A way I will pass you," he reached out and slightly brushed his hand over Aria's arm and she pulled away quickly. "Oh come on, you want to pass. I want to help you."
"I don't want to pass this way."
He stood up and moved closer to her. They were now face to face, his advances at her became more aggressive and she backed away toward the door as quickly as possible.
"Why not? Still hooked on Mr. Fitz?"
"I-I don't know what you're talking about," Aria denied his assumptions as she frantically tried to gather up her stuff.
"I know damn well how you passed his class."
Aria shakes her head in disgust but no words come out of her mouth. This was unbelievable. She tried to shake herself awake as if this was some kind of demented dream and she was really back in her dorm, asleep at her desk with her research and pages of annotations piled up around her. But this was really happening. Mr. Layne had set her up to make an advance on her, thinking she would give in for the grade. He was wrong.
"I did my assignments thoroughly as instructed and to the best of my ability, that is how I passed."
He scoffed and tossed his glasses down on the desk. "Come on, Aria, stop bullshitting me. Every good writer knows how to do some research. Your information wasn't hard to get. You seem to be quite popular back home, actually, more like infamous."
"You're wrong. What you're doing is wrong."
"Oh, please. He didn't have to mention a name for me to know it was you. You actually revealed yourself. The literature department isn't that big, Aria, and your writing has made its way around. Its good, real good, but quite a lot matched up with that of Mr. Fitz." He smirked, thinking he was just so clever, before he continued. "Rosewood is quite a random place to come from, I'm sure you agree, it's a small town and not much leaves there. But you did. I found a correlation there. You left Rosewood around the same time his mystery girl did. I also found it quite interesting that you attended the same high school Mr. Fitz taught at. You graduated the year Ezra Fitz resigned from teaching at said high school. You were his student. You were in a relationship with him. Its not complicated to decode, Aria."
"I wasn't trading sex for passing grades!"
He walked closer to her and brushed a strand of hair away from her face and he leaned in and gently kissed her neck. A cringe rippled through her entire body as his grip on her tightened and he whispered to her, "but you could."
"That would never happen! You have to calm down. Seriously. You have to stop worrying about her as if she is still your responsibility, Ezra."
Ezra knew his friend was right, even though he refused to admit it out loud. Aria didn't need him anymore, she probably never actually needed him, he thought. But the point was, he needed to stop worrying about where she was and whether or not she was okay, no matter how hard that seemed. It was about time that he stopped feeling the urge to ask about her every time he ran into her friends or family. It was time to let go. But even though he knew it was the right thing to do, it felt so wrong. His mind always got the best of him, and it wondered off into places it should never go. He imagined what could happen to Aria while she is off on her own and terrible scenarios always rushed through his mind before he was able to shake it off.
"I cant help but think something is wrong though," Ezra replied as he leaned against the bar.
"Aria isn't a child, don't treat her like one. She knows how to handle things."
"That's not what I'm doing. I know Aria can take care of herself, I know that. I really do. Its just…Its just that I miss her. I miss her."
"Dammit, Ezra…I know. I know, man. You're making this real hard for me to be the mean one when you're like this. I don't want to be the one to tell you to let go, but I have to be. I'm sorry."
"I know, I know."
They both leaned against the bar and looked off into the small crowd of people and didn't speak to each other for a few minutes. People were pushing past them and being loud and cheery, but the mood between the two of them didn't change. This is how every Saturday night was like for them, that is, when Hardy could actually drag Ezra out of his apartment. Hardy would try to lighten the mood and Ezra would mope. A few women would approach them and Ezra would continue to mope. The women would leave and find a couple more interesting guys to mingle with, and Ezra would still be moping. That was how the cycle proceeded every time they went out together.
Hardy got Ezra another beer, not that he had actually finished the first one, but he was trying to be polite. And when Ezra refused to take it, he offered it to an elder man sitting alone at the end of the bar. They saw him here quite often, always alone, and never drinking anything, just people watching.
"Are you sure?" The man asked as he looked over at Ezra. "A beer with a friend is supposed to be good for the soul."
"One is enough for me, thanks," Ezra replied.
The man took the beer from Hardy, nodding to say thank you. He kept looking over at Ezra, who was off in his own little world again, shutting out anyone and everyone around him.
"He's having a rough time," Hardy explained to the man.
"Don't worry, buddy, give her time. Love like that doesn't just die." Ezra sat up a little straighter and turned to face the man, "But how do you know that?"
"I've seen you two around a couple times. The tiny brunette, right? She's a pretty young woman, and the way she looked when she was with you, far different from when I ever saw her alone. Always brighter with you."
"I thought so too…"
"Sometimes, people need to go off and find themselves in order to realize all they had is all they need. You know she loves you. You just have to give her time."
"I know that."
"Then that's all."
"But how is it that simple? How do I just pretend I don't miss her? You see me around here, you have to know this isn't easy for me. Should it be? Should I feel bad for being upset that she is gone? Am I an idiot? I am. I'm such an idiot…" Ezra rambles on and on.
"You're a writer, you know how it is, fools in love. But it can go one of two ways, either you're together or you're not, and you just have to keep writing your life, see how it turns out. Sounds cliché, it is. But sometimes the answers are in the clichés. What happens might surprise you."
"You really believe that?"
The man finishes his beer and gets down off his stool. He pulls his wallet from his pocket and throws down a tip for the bartender. He turns to face Ezra one last time before he heads for the door, "I do believe that."
"Thank you, for that. I really appreciate it." Ezra leaned over to shake hands with the man.
"And who knows, the answer to all your troubles might just be outside in the parking lot right now, pacing back and forth and wondering whether or not to come in here." He smiles and nods toward the door, "I passed her on my way in. Good luck."
Ezra turns quickly and looks out the door as the man exits, just to see him walk right past a tiny brunette, pacing up and down the pavement just as he had said. Ezra jumped up and ran out the door and as he stepped out into the night, Aria paused right where she was, holding her breath as she finally locked eyes with him. Hair blowing in wind, mascara streaks down her cheeks from crying, she tried to force a smile whilst being consumed by nerves and the tension of finally seeing him again, face to face.
And there she was, physically there in front of him after all those months apart, looking even more beautiful than ever, even with wind-blown hair and red eyes from all the tears. Not being able to stand any more distance between them, having been waiting so long for the moment when he could finally hold her in his arms again, Ezra ran straight up and wrapped her in his embrace. She melted into him, realizing she had nothing to fear about coming back to him, that he had missed her just as much as she missed him.
"Ezra, I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry. I hated it there and it was terrible… and I was miserable and I missed you and all I wanted to do was see you and talk to you and i just kept imagining your face and i felt so bad for leaving the way it did and I kicked my English teacher in the balls and I just wanted to hear your voice and kiss you and my classes were terrible and it was too far away and I just, I just love you so much. I'm sorry, so sorry—"
"Stop apologizing like you've done something wrong! You've done nothing wrong, at all."
"But I am sorry. I read what you wrote, I never meant to hurt you. You didn't deserve that."
Aria was practically shaking in Ezra's arms at this point and she began to cry some more. He held her tighter and kissed her forehead. She continued to mumble countless apologies between wiping away the tears from her eyes.
"I don't want to hear you apologize ever again," Ezra held Aria's face gently in his hands as he spoke, looking directly into her eyes. And true to Ezra and Aria tradition, he kissed her until the tears stopped and she finally felt safe again.