Disclaimer: I do not own West Side Story or any of its characters. If the character was not mentioned in the play, however, I own them.
A/N: Most stories that I have read never give much credit to Anita, who of course is my favorite character. I would like to show Anita in a way that will change the way people think about her. Please let me know what you think.
Anita sat on a bench, thinking. She had been sitting here for almost a whole hour, and nothing had changed. She still did not feel any better, but then again, she did not feel any worse. She did not know how long she would be sitting on this cold hard bench, but she knew that she would sit here forever, if she could.
The bench was comforting, a place of warmth in a world full of ice. It may seem ironic, for the bench to many people was a place of cold, sadness, and death. True, the bench may seem like a beacon of lifelessness, but it held its memories. And for Anita, memories were all she had left.
Rain had been pouring for the last 15 minutes or so. Anyone who walked by the bench probably thought that this girl was crazy, sitting out on a bench like this in the pouring rain. But Anita did not care. She was glad to be sitting in the rain, for it seemed to echo the cry of her heart in a most strange way. It also seemed to take the pressure off of her shoulders, which was a comfort to a girl with pressures beyond relief.
She wondered why all this had happened. It seemed like so long ago that she had been happy. The happiness that she felt wasn't just happiness either, it was true joy. She had loved life, and she had had love. Yes, she had. She, Anita, had once had love.
Love. It was a simple word. But that word had been absent from Anita's life for quite some time now. She wasn't even sure now what day it was, what year it was. All that she knew was that once, love had been present. But then, it disappeared. In a matter of moments, she had lost the love that she had had.
But all that didn't matter now. Now Anita had to move on, to try and forget, to try and let go. But that is so hard, when all you know is sadness, and all you know is that once you were happy. How can you move on when so much has changed? How can you erase that which was once so clear? How can you go back, when so much has gone forward without you? How can you try, when all else that has been attempted has failed?
Why? Why her? Why anybody? That was what Anita wanted to know. So much had happened in her lifetime. So much had changed, and so fast. She still was trying to understand what had happened, what had gone wrong, why it had all disappeared.
Perhaps if she recalled it one more time, she might discover the answer she was looking for. It was doubtful, for she had already recounted the story several times. But she had not yet found the answer. Perhaps, just one more time would be the difference. One last time...
