Hear My Heart Beat
The best type of love is the love that surprises you, the one that isn't planned out; the one that the more you dig into the more you fall in love and the deeper you dig the more you start to realise that there is no way out, but you don't panic rather rejoice that you're stuck in there forever as long as whoever you started digging with - the one you fell for- is still there digging with you into a deeper hole; still there to hold your hand and still there to make you feel at home. If you find that love, hold on to it and never let go because the moment you let go of this love, that is the moment you let go of who you are and you will get lost and there won't be anyone there to hold your hand and guide you, so hold on. Never let go.
Chapter One:
New Beginnings?
I looked him in his glistening blue eyes and knowing it was the right thing for him, I mouthed the words 'go' because I knew if I were to say those words aloud, my voice would be a dead giveaway of how I felt inside.
He would see pass the fake smile and see the gaping hole inside my chest and he would stay, he would let his own dream slip away and stay here with me because that is the kind of guy Wyatt was, but I couldn't be the one responsible for wrecking his future not after all his hard work, not if I truly loved him, I will continue to smile until he leaves and I will continue to smile even though it hurt to look at him, I will continue to smile because that is the kind of girl I am.
Why is it that we always fall for our best friends? Is it because we know we can trust them? Is it because we know them so well? Is it because of the way they know exactly what is going on in our heads? Or is it because they are there any day, anytime, anywhere without the promise of kisses, intimate touches or whispered sentiments of love? I think we love them because they are there when there is nothing in it for them except for that little glimmer of hope that maybe someday there will be.
I looked him straight in the eyes and said, "Promise me one thing", his blue eyes were mesmerising as he looked at me and said "anything,"
"Don't forget," He smiled but anyone who knew him could see the pain in his eyes and the effort behind his smile... he was not coming back. His parting words were, "no matter what happens between now and then... don't forget you are the one." He handed me a letter and he turned to leave, he turned away from home, he turned away from our dreams of a white picket fence, he turned away from our future and…me.
Watching him turn his back and go to Australia was merciless. They really need to do something about that, like some drug that can stop the aching you feel when in airports, why is that anyway? Why does that feeling suddenly come in the airport only? I almost ran to him and begged him to stay but if I truly loved him, I would set him free. Can miles truly separate you from friends? If you want to be with someone you love, are you not already there? I knew Wyatt was already in my heart and that is where he will always be. I would not forget.
I knew Wyatt was leaving for days now, am I that slow that it hit me just now? No, it must be something that happens to people inside the confines of an airport it must be something in the bleach they use, it induces tears, tears you can't control, you can't stop, ones that are silent because they're not meant for show, you're not looking for attention whilst shedding those tears, you're not looking for a hug or the classic 'everything is going to be O.K.' No, you are looking for your heart; the heart that was taken away from you when you just realised it existed; the heart that you only heard beat when you were with him - the one- the heart that is now on a plane to Australia.
The heart that you will never see again...ever.
When life offers you a dream so far beyond any of your wildest expectations, it is not rational to mourn when it comes to an end. But it is not as if you can rejoice either. You are stuck in a vacuum and there is no way out. It felt wrong to say I love you one day and then say good-bye the second. I felt I was cheated, robbed of my happily ever after. The dream ends and the nightmare begins; suddenly you turn the page and the story is no longer a fairytale –it is not a story anymore – it is reality. Reality does not have a happily ever after.
The plane took off and every limp in my body went numb, everything around me became a blur and by the time I woke up from my reverie I was in our neighbourhood and yet here I was in a neighbourhood I grew up in with friends I learnt my ABCs with, but amongst these familiar faces I was a stranger, they talked animatedly, laughing and living, oblivious to the fact that with every laugh I yearned to hear his. They did not seem fazed with the fact that Wyatt was missing, they were moving on but then again they were whole. I was not. My grief was my own; a skeleton that would rattle forever with me and this was something I would have to get over alone.
The same trees the same road the same cars the same birds but not the same person sitting next to me, it will never be the same person, Wyatt is gone...gone...gone he will never be back and as I look at his home for one last time, it no longer feels like a home somehow it has changed, the scent, the look and the owner.
Did the real estate agent even mention that by buying this house they are easing the Reed's departure? That they were taking away from me Wyatt. They say no man is worth your tears. Boy, were they wrong. You cry tears of happiness, sorrow and hope. The man that truly loves you will be the one who is there to wipe them away when they are shed.
What do you do when everything and everyone you knew – loved – just disappeared? What do you do when you look around and all you see is what could have been? When all you hopes and dreams come true but before you get to enjoy them all your fears and nightmares take over? What do you do when around you everyone is moving on with their lives and you realise that you are not part of their future – that you were never part of it and that all you'll ever be is some memory that gets washed way with time? I would run away, breakaway from the restraints of the memories that lingered in these streets and I did. I fled the streets but the memories lingered.
I folded the letter carefully and sealed it in an envelope I would found in the glove box. And then I carefully sealed away my heart.
It took me three years to get over him; it took me three years to overcome the pain. It took three years for me to forget. It took three years for him to remember.
Three years ago I was a love-sick teen filled with hope that he'd return I was blinded by love and his promise clouded my judgement but now I take the next step towards my future I am now drained of life like an overstretched elastic band I can never return to the way I was before. I have become a drone, emotionless and void of love. Today, I graduate from school and all the chains that attached me to this town and that boy would break. Today I will break free.
Weeks after Wyatt left, I found comfort in those countless hours we spent on the phone, but they too became a distant memory, laying there on my bed I heard a sound I was sure I was imagining was that my phone? I jumped off my bed but my feet got tangled on the sheets and I tripped and fell, my head missing the desk corner by mere inches but I got to the phone and immediately answered "Hello" my voice sounded exhausted but I didn't care if I hadn't slept for a decade as long as I was awake to hear this voice. "Hi." He did not fail to render me speechless even through the phone I could hear him smile at my lack of a response.
He was the one to first break the silence "How has your day been?" Miles away he still tries to make everything feel normal, it is as if he never left.
I told him about how I was about to fall and hit my head on the corner of the bed and he answered in the most spectacular way, "Impossible, because you wouldn't be able to fall unless I was there to catch you and if you were about to fall I would have been there in an instant to hold you in my arms." I was speechless and tears were forming in my eyes I wanted to hug him, to have his scent engulf me.
"It's getting late, you have school tomorrow so get under the covers" I wanted more time with him but as I was about to complain I let out an involuntary yawn and I did what he asked. As my eyelids became heavier he said "I might not get to see you as often as I'd like, I may not get to hold you in my arms at night, but deep in my heart I know that it's true. No matter what happens. I will always love you. Sleep, my angel, dream sweet dreams you have captured my heart and it's yours, only yours." The phone went dead and I figured he thought I was asleep, I was not going to answer him anyway because nothing I could say would ever compare to that.
As the sun shone, announcing a new day, it seemed like the joy was stolen from the sun, as if it too had lost the most precious thing. I was happy at this, it was not out of cruelty or cynicism that I wanted the sun to feel miserable but I needed someone – or something- to understand, to feel what I felt because the people around me did not, they just expected me to overcome it. How could I?
Wyatt called in the morning and I held my breath at the sound of his voice, and the wind ceased to rustle the trees, listening and expecting him to say the words that would bring him home, back to me, instead he asked, "Are you ready for school?"
"Yes." I lied, but how could I tell him that it felt like it was the first day of school all over again, that I felt like an alien without him there holding my hand and walking me to classes? I had many friends at high school but they were Wyatt's friends as well and it felt wrong to go back to school, fake a smile and pretend to have fun without him there.
That was the last vivid contact I had with Wyatt, soon the phone calls became more distant and less frequent until he didn't bother to call anymore or was it I who just stopped answering? It did not matter, the day he got on that plane nothing mattered anymore.
No amount of makeup would hide the fear, the pain and the anguish in those eyes. Eyes I could hardly bring myself to look at, let alone properly look into. I sighed briefly, grabbing my bag from the end of my bed, trying to quell the nausea already rising in my stomach. Two nights, I will get my diploma, go to the dance and satisfy the whim of everyone else, catatonic motions - that was all that was left of me. A hollow shadow of a being.
I left the house and headed towards the school, the town was filled with the celebratory atmosphere that resembled the pride of all those years of hard work and accomplishments, as for myself those years passed by in a blur...wasted. Today was a the day I will turn a new leaf, my life will not be meaningless, he left me broken to what I thought was beyond repair but all I need is someone with the right tools and dwelling on the past was not helping, today was a step towards the future. Or so I hoped.
It turns out life has a different plan set out for all of us and in the end these plans leave us wondering, was it worth it? It is a prosaic portrait that we draw for ourselves early on in life, we claim that we want to be astronauts and princesses and the usual only to have these claims crushed by reality and so we grow up wanting to be the next Bill Gates or Donald Trump but once again life swerves us from our set path and delivers us to a new reality, so I ask you once again, is it worth it? Fighting fate and declaring yourself free from the strings life attaches to you is a delusion because regardless of how much you fight and how strong your drive is, reality will always hit. And it will never be pretty.
But that is a different story, today is a joyous day, one that we share with family and friends, taking pictures and laughing at old stories, commemorating an event that would otherwise be forgotten. Had it not been for the flashes of cameras and gleaming smiles of the proud parents who have waited a lifetime for their child's name to be called out – had it not been for all that I would not have been able to stand straight, I would have crumbled but like the past three years I held on to that fake identity and I smiled, laughed and reminisced just like the good girl I was meant to be.
I am sure, wherever he was, he was living his life in the shadow of the boy he once was too.
I wanted to delude myself into thinking that I wanted him to move on, to live his life but there was a part of me that wished he suffered, that he thought of the damage that he caused every night and that he dwelled on all the memories. There was a part of me that wanted to believe that he cared once. That he still cares.