Love in Three Acts
Disclaimer: The author retains no rights to any recognizable features of the following story. What the author does own is whatever her imagination produces for the public to read without monetary gain.
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She was eighteen when he last saw her.
A wide-eyed girl filled with such naïveté that it made one wonder how innocence could be retained when so much bad was happening. A girl who used color to substitute for the face that she was hardly distinguishable in a crowd to the point that your eyes burned upon glancing her way. A girl that memory refused to let go of even though you wished for nothing more than to forget her.
She was eighteen when he last saw her, even though it still feels like he had been in her presence only the day before.
The girl with the obsession that still had the ability to make him cringe when he thought of the lengths taken to win his affections and, ultimately, his heart, despite the seven years that had lapsed since their encounter. The girl who laughed off how broken the life she had at home really was--he was certain to this day that his sister was the only one who knew the severity of which it was shattered--and the disintegration of her parents' marriage, forcing her decision to stay in the city they had traded for Pittsburgh. The girl with the eccentricities that his nineteen-year-old self found weird but he viewed as her coping mechanism at twenty-six.
He supposed that it could have been possible for them to keep in touch over the years but when the opportunity to have her completely separated from his life had arisen, he had jumped at the chance to have her cut from his life without a second thought. He was a college man with goals and aspirations and a career to be chosen. He was a fledgling wizard-in-training that knew that there could only be one in his family and refused to let the honor befall upon either of his younger siblings. The last thing he wanted or needed was a goofy girl approaching womanhood following him around on his college campus. He had gotten enough of that all through elementary, middle and high school.
She had offered them all a chance to speak up in those few months before graduation happened, to ask her to stay in the city she loved so dearly for the next four years just as they had done just a year prior. The visual of that night is so glaringly bright in his head, even with the amount of time passed, for it was the night that they had all signed the papers to execute their relationship with the auburn-haired girl. The night that she lost some of that innocence and naïveté that she had carried to get her through the shambles that happened to be her life.
Her parents could not afford to send her to an out-of-state college, she had told them during that night. While she was still living in New York with the Russo family, her parents' address read Pittsburgh and that was the address that counted in the eyes of the college that she wanted to attend. Unless someone could vouch that she was indeed living in New York and had a residence to call her own there, she would have to pack up and move to the one place that she had gone through such great lengths to avoid. She had dreamt of attending NYU but would have to settle for the University of Pennsylvania if no other option was presented.
We'll miss you, his father had said. I'm sure U of P is a great school, was the answer his mother had given. Well... was all his brother could offer before running off. And all he had told her was don't forget to write since his insides were cheering and dancing at the notion of finally shaking her from him. The only person in the family that she had thought of to be partially her own to be affected by this turn of events was his sister and that was expected since they were best friends.
The months leading up to graduation were silent. She was hurt by their lack of care and their unwillingness to provide her with merely an address to save her from the family she had wanted to forget existed, especially when they had been more than willing to open up their home to her not so long before. Her way of showing that was to retreat inside herself and communicate with only her best friend who in return spoke to the rest of the household in glares that showed contempt and disgust. And since they all knew that the damage had already been done and therefore did not have any ideas on how to reverse it, they left her alone and only approached when a question needed to be answered by her specifically.
She had not stayed long after graduation ended. Two weeks, four days and fifteen hours was the exact amount of time that she remained within the Russo household, leaving her room exclusively for packing material and food since school was no longer an issue. The only person who dared to visit her in those weeks was the one who still remained on speaking terms with the girl, the only one who showed any emotion to lose someone who had been such an intricate part of their lives that they were blind to just how great a role she had played. She only stayed two weeks, four days and fifteen hours for the simple reason that it had taken that long to pack, find affordable movers to haul her belongings across state lines and secure a ticket that would not drain her savings.
None of them were given the chance to share in tear-filled and heartfelt goodbyes like they had foolishly expected. They had been hurt by her sudden lack of emotion towards them and her decision to make her break from them abrupt--him more so than the rest given their history--but it did not take long for any of them to realize that they were solely at fault in the matter. They had chosen to ignore her subtle pleas for help, had chosen to give her well wishes instead of an option better than the one presented. In short, they would have to lie in the bed that their ignorance had made and no amount of hindsight was going to change anything.
No one really knew the repercussions that her leaving their lives would entail until the weeks that followed her departure. His younger brother, who took pride in the fact that he was not one who would fall under the category of normal, took long pauses whenever he spoke as to make certain the right thing fell from his lips. It was as though he was afraid the very idiosyncrasies that made him Max Russo would cause his family to disregard him the way they had done to her. His sister withdrew and became extraordinarily more sullen than usual, snapping at whoever deigned to ask what was wrong which caused his parents to second guess their every move made and word spoken.
But what he never expected was how her moving away affected him. He found that his success was not as satisfactory without someone there to compliment with that look of complete adoration that she always had. He found that he missed having someone there to listen to his ideas and notions without getting that okay, you're weird expression on their face halfway through the conversation. He missed her laugh, the way she got excited over he simplest things, even the garish costumes that she created for her daily wear.
She was eighteen when he last saw her and he would be damned if he did not miss her.
TBC...
