Her Favorite Color- chapter four
Every day got worse for me after that. I began to worry about Tai more and more each day. But I was still too skeptical of everything around me that I didn't do anything about it. My past tortures me to this very day. All of the worrying and doubtfulness gave me nothing to hold on to. It was a strange feeling for me then. I cared so much for this person, and wanted to help him so much. But I never did. I told myself everyday that I would continue to talk to Tai, and I did occasionally, but he always left me with words that confused me and kept me thinking. On the other hand, I guess that's better than when he would pretend that he never showed me his vulnerable pain at all. Tai acted like everything was okay, but he can't fool anybody, especially not me.
I have always been able to see his true feeling through his eyes. So even when he kept his pain and hurt on the inside, I knew it was there. I wonder if he knew that. I wonder if he could read my eyes the same way that I read his. And if he could, was he as stuck as I was? Because I couldn't figure out what had made him hurt so badly. All of my questions were crammed inside of my head, answers nowhere to be found. That left me with only one solution.
I turned to the rainy spring for comfort. It rained often, sometimes for even two days or more. My rainstorm therapy worked then, and I was grateful. Therefore, every night or day that the rain poured down, you could have found me sitting by the window, looking outwards into the gray skies above. I would bring my thoughts, questions, and worries to the window as my special guests of honor. Then I would release them, letting each one jump upon it's own raindrop and fall into the busy moving streets below. For a small time I would be a peace. But they all returned by the next morning, seeping into my dreams while I slept (when I could), to continue to pester me throughout the day, and leave me praying for the next rain to come soon.
*****
I remember one night in particular. Nothing out of the ordinary happened that night, nothing but a long English easy that I has been putting off. I remember it because it was raining that night, but I was stuck in front of my computer, attempting to find any similarities between all of the characters from all of the books we had read that year. I couldn't concentrate, the sound of the rain and wind hitting against the patio window was too tempting. It was just waiting outside for me to go to and relieve myself of this agony. So, feeling the natural need to procrastinate, I picked up the phone and called Matt.
"Hello, Matt? This is Sora."
"Hey Sora! Whatcha' doing?"
"Well, I should be doing my English paper, it counts as a quarter of our grade for the last semester, but…" I heard his laugh and guitar chords playing from the other side of the line. It made me feel a little better, even though I would have rather been conversing with the rain then talking to him. Gee, I was a great girlfriend, wasn't I?
"I'm glad I'm not in AP English like you Sora, I'd never have time to practice with the band!"
"Oh no! We can't have that, now can we?"
"Hey, you just reminded me! We're in a show with a couple other bands the Saturday before school lets out. You coming?"
"Yeah, I guess so. I'm not doing anything else."
"Great! Hey, I gotta go. I think my dad just burned something in the kitchen…"
"Bye" I said, but he had already hung up.
I always went to his shows. Sometimes I feel like I was doing it just because I was his girlfriend. I never thought that that was a good enough reason. All these girls are screaming strange and obscene things that they wanted to do with him. This was the part that I guess you could say bothered me. Not because he was my boyfriend, and 'My God, who do those girls think they are?' but because I felt so awkward just standing there. They all adored him and worshiped him. But I never did, and I was his girlfriend. I felt like I was cheating on him, or even worse, that he was cheating on me. I never pushed that possibility out of my mind, because it seemed so likely.
It began when Izzy, Tai, Matt and I started high school four years ago. It seemed like it changed us all in different ways. Izzy became one of the smartest teens in the school. He was a year ahead and was admired for his academic abilities by even the upperclassmen. If you ask me, I think he could have graduated when we were sophomores.
Tai became…well do I really have to say. He was born to be popular. Tai was always the best soccer player of his age on this side of Japan, maybe even all sides. He made varsity freshman year and was always the best player, in all aspects. He had looks, a newfound sexual allure, and the style good enough to charm any girl, causing in the jealousy of many guys, and was a downright perfect guy. But what shocked me the most about Tai was that it never went to his head, though I'm sure that there was enough space for it to. It was like he pretended that he wasn't popular. His best friends were mainly people that nobody that was like him cared to talk to, for example, all of the digidestined, except for Matt and Mimi, but well, you know them. He dared to do things that no popular person would ever do, like help a freshman or new student find their class, or just help them in general. Tai was always fair to every guy on the soccer team, no matter your talent or your physique. I think that instead of his popularity ruining him like it did most people who are unfortunate to be overcome by its influences, it made him realize the important things in his life, and that made him a better, more mature, person.
Matt was quickly labeled "The Sex God", like Tai was sometimes referred to, but for a completely different reason. It took him no less than a few weeks of high school before he started bragging about his "adventures in the bedroom" to his new rock band stoner friends. You might be wondering the reason for the puns. It's mainly because of who Matt became. The digidestined would never guessed that Mat would turn out this way, he was always the "loner", not some guys who gets down with every girls that he sees. Unlike his friends, however, I know for a fact that Matt never got into drugs, because some of his idols careers had been ruined forever because of them.
Matt was serious about his music from the start, a main reason why many of our dates were cut short or postponed. "Or was it?" I always found myself asking. What if he had canceled them because he had some bimbo waiting for him at his studio? I never knew, and I don't think he did, but the thought was always there, creeping around in the back of my mind, reminding me about it when girls screamed for him at his shows. But stories of him and girls died down to possible whispers or notes passed in class. So any news, if there was any, didn't reach me. The old ones just became high school memories to me. So I made my move. It seemed right at the time, although very nerve wracking. But if you asked me then or even now why I was so attracted to him, it would take a long time for me to answer, or I might never find one. So why did I go for him in the first place? I guess…I was just too afraid to be alone. But I was never alone. It's so obvious to me now. I wish I had known it then.
What's life without a best friend? This would seem to be something that Matt might know the answer to, but, in the first place, we aren't talking, and in the second place, I don't think he'd ever be able to answer in a way that meant something to me. So that leaves me here to figure it out for my self now, and regret it later.
I have always had somebody next to me, supporting and caring for me. Maybe we never had a dating type of relationship, but I really loved him more than I ever knew, not recognizing it until he left. Tai was always an important person to me, ever since we met at the playground, by the green monkey bars that sat between the sandbox and shiny silver slide when we were four. He taught me so many things about life, from teaching me the best soccer moves that would guarantee a win for our team (even though I was always better than he was), to making me understand that my mother really did love me, and that she was only trying to protect me. I still consider him my best friend, even if I haven't seen him in five years. Tai was my first and greatest friend, and always will be. Too bad it's to late for me to tell him. Then maybe I could tell him that he is much more than a best friend to me now. Only in a dream.
******
I miss my rainstorms, I miss my friends, but most of all, I miss you, Taichi. You've changed me, and I need you. Please let us meet again someday.
The sky will never look the same again, till you show me how it could be…R&R! (that last part belongs to New Found Glory song "Story So Far"