Spring had always been my favourite season.
Sleepy branches awakened from a season long slumber, rubbing their crusty eyes and shaking off the last remnants of a winter's snow. If you listened closely, you could even hear them yawn. Fresh saplings pushed their way through the fuzzy shamrock green grass patches that were starting to coat the ground, where melancholy melting snow used to rest. Electric hopefulness and optimistic resolutions buzzed in the air, like the bees that washed and towel-dried their heavy-eyed faces, strapping on their empty pollen saddle bags and bracing themselves for the year ahead. I think you could hear goddesses clinking champagne glasses, their delicate laughter tinkling in the wind.
The Harmonica Town beach bubbled with excitement and hearty laughter, radiant with warm glee. The village youngsters were gathered at the beach for Toby's surprise birthday party, which had been expertly arranged by Paolo, Renee and yours truly. Despite Toby's ever composed – read, lackluster – reaction, the soft beam on his face, a kitten that'd just had its dish of milk, was all the gratification I had needed.
A lot could transpire in a year.
Over by the vibrant, delectable buffet spread, a myriad of grape greens, raspberry reds and pineapple yellows, stood Anissa and Phoebe, both positively glowing, the way they say pregnant women do.
Phoebe's usually tanned, coarse skin boasted a newly attained healthy bronze glow, prettily complementing her curled turquoise bob, ends of her locks looping away from her face, the stomach-dropping twist of a rollercoaster. Calvin and she had opted to take the unorthodox route, getting pregnant before taking that walk down the aisle. Said father of her expecting child stood next to her, donning his trademark crisply ironed khaki shirt and weathered brown Stetson hat. The once wander lusting traveler had indeed been converted into a family man. The dead skeletons of a crush I had once harboured for him admired his determination in knowing and getting what he wanted.
In Anissa's arms was Van, his chubby infantile arm slung around the back of her neck, a baby koala clinging to its mother. At three seasons old, he was already capable of stringing together almost coherent sentences; a fact Jin took great pride in, constantly beaming like firecrackers had been lit up on his cheeks. A gardener that proudly dusts off his hands when he takes in the sights of how his orchard has flourished. The slightest hint of a bump under Anissa's daisy-dotted ankle length skirt could be traced with the tip of your index finger. Her watermelon flush, the icy fruit on a summer's day, against her virtuously fair complexion alluded to how baby number two was well on the way.
"What're you staring at?" my favourite syrupy mocking voice momentarily knocked my rotating world off its axis, coming back to realign with him as my centre of gravity. Chase's pale mint shirt lay creaseless against his chest, top two buttons, reminiscent of toy marbles, left undone in the forgiving spring winds. "Your mouth was all open and gaping. If you're not careful, bugs will fly in," he chuckled teasingly, wrist bending adjacent to his hipbone as his palm spread out by his side.
"Dummy," I retaliated poorly, blithely punching his chest in a last ditch attempt to strengthen my crumbling comeback. The beat of his heart sent a repercussion down my short fingers as my fist gently made contact with his pectorals.
Dear was what I half meant. Our own secret language of hushed sweetness and honeyed hearts. Our bared souls given to one another, wrapped under thorny thickets of disguise, so the world would never know; so they couldn't take from us what was ours, and ours alone.
"It's alright," I continued, retort worthy of Chase's razor tongue finally manifesting on my lips, "I think as long as you're next to me, I'm safe." Raising an incredulous eyebrow at my too sweet words, Chase didn't play folly for my tricks. Grinning in premature victory, I goaded, "After all, bugs are attracted to things that are rotten."
Half scoffing, half bursting out into laughter, the words were lifted from Chase's lips, doing cartwheels in the air – first landing: eight points, second landing: nine and a half points – before falling onto my ears, like collapsing into your bed after a long day's work. "You're an idiot."
I love you.
A grin pasted itself onto my face, habitual reaction to those three words. The tip of his tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on his teeth.
"I was thinking about how crazy it is, how much things have changed," I snapped out of my reverie, finally granting Chase's initial question, left suspended by a string in thin air, with a response. His willowy fingertips faintly brushed against mine.
The squawking of overhead mallards returning home from their winter migration floated through the air. Daring mackerels intermittently flopped in and out of the ocean's cerulean blue surface, the colour of a goddess's luminescent robes, each layer of lustrous fabric caressing the next to create a waterfall of aquamarine iridescence. Timid hermit crabs, burrowed beneath the sand, dared to peek their bulbous black eyes out at the bustling thrill that engulfed the town beach.
"Thanks again for throwin' Toby this party, Molly," Ozzie's gruff, Southern twanged voice coiled around my shoulder; a result of having been raised in a smalltime town for the most part of his life, where their top priorities were fishing and not getting shot.
Ozzie had a sunshine smile but thunderstorm eyes. By that, I meant that even when his teeth flashed a thousand watts, his eyes betrayed him; stiff like rocks, creases a network of spider webs that carried a million stories. He was an endangered sun bear: hard-edged eyes weary with first hand wisdom, like a soldier who'd seen one too many deaths on the battlefield.
"Toby, I wanna get some ice cream!" Paolo's ravenous voice echoed through the air, sound waves supersonic in the failing spring breeze.
"Sure thing, buddy," Toby chuckled gently to his sprightly seven-year-old cousin, whose trademark tuft of cocoa brown hair clung sullenly to his forehead, individual strands having been matted to his temple by beads of perspiration. The cyan blue hat that was perpetually glued on to his head glowed fluorescent in the blinding daylight. Instantaneously distracted by a gleaming lone seashell by the shore, Paolo skipped off for a closer examination, leaving Toby and me to ourselves.
Unlike Ozzie, my best friend had smiling eyes. The edges of his eyes always tapered slightly upwards in blissful serenity, the jade in his irises: the colour of my mother's engagement ring.
"He's a good kid," Toby commented kindly, striped over shirt fluttering mellifluously in the flowery wind, the flickering of a drowsy butterfly's wings, "Ozzie did a good job with him, even without his mother."
Ears perking up like a dog that hears the word walk, I dared to venture the question that had been playing on my mind since the day I'd moved to Castanet – almost a season ago, now. "What's the story about Paolo's mom?"
One of the things I appreciated most about Toby was his refreshing candour. He was never one to skip around his words, sidestepping dusty shards of insecurity. If you asked him about something, he would give you the straight answer. And if he wanted to tell you something, he would come out and say it. He was honest without ever being mean, funny without ever being cruel.
Which was why I'd been avoiding asking that question.
A gray tinge momentarily clouded his sunbeam face, like a droplet of ink, as if poured from a jug, had been dropped into his skin and slowly spread itself evenly. "It's not a happy story, I'll tell you that," he finally came to respond, deep jade eyes gazing sympathetically at Paolo, who, seeming to sense that he was being watched, turned back to shoot an adoring grin at Toby. Toby's own short, smoothly rounded teeth made an appearance in his returning smile.
"This is what I heard from my parents, since Ozzie hasn't talked about it since it happened," the pale silver-head began; face still miraculously tranquil in his retelling of this juxtaposing painful story, "He and Paolo's mom were in love. They were going to get married."
The marriage of emerald grass blades and barley brown sand grains we stood on transiently whipped against my ankles, like knowing pain before it happens.
"She got pregnant. His. He stopped hearing from her shortly after that."
Paolo had eyes like water. When he moved, you could see the translucent swishing of his pupils, the bittersweet motion of the waves behind his eyelids.
"One afternoon, he woke up from a nap and found Paolo wrapped up in a blanket, lying on his doorstep. Kind of dramatic, huh?" Toby joked lightly, sensing the dampened atmosphere, rain crying against concrete.
"Kind of," I smiled halfheartedly, urging him to carry on.
"She left him a note, saying that she was afraid. Said she loved Ozzie, but maybe not enough," Toby relayed to me, voice like cottony clouds on spring mornings. His ability to remain so nonchalantly gleeful through his somber story amazed me. "He moved here with Paolo so they could get a new start. But I don't think he ever got over it."
"Does Paolo know?" I enquired quietly, heart filling with secondhand sorrow for the youthful boy, his innocent freeness exuding childlike naivety.
"I told him when he asked me."
"Of course you did," I chuckled softly, basking in Toby's invigorating genuineness. Tangy cheek puckering pineapple soda on a muddled summer day. "It just seems crazy how a child can live with something like that."
"I think he still carries it with him," Toby admitted, smiling fondly at me, as if sensing how all this old sadness was too much for me to take in, "You can see it in his eyes."
A gust of wind brushed against our clammy skin, sweeping away with it the coagulated weight of our conversation that sat upon our shoulders. My chestnut locks flittered sharply against my cheeks.
"But he'll let it go eventually," Toby's calming voice broke through my thoughts, head tilted to one side as he observed Paolo in his seashell-induced oblivion.
"I don't know," I mumbled, hazel eyes tracing his gaze, "How can you just let go of that?"
"Because it's heavy."
Toby could water down the murkiest of tornadoes into a transparent bead of simplicity. He reminded me of when I was younger, and my silver necklace chain, a swirled turquoise teardrop dangling from the end of it, would get entangled within itself. I would sorrowfully present it to my mother, gifting her with the burden of straightening out the chain again. What I was saying was that you could lay an intricately, convolutedly tangled web of thoughts before Toby, and he would return it, an immaculately simple piece of string, even if what you'd given to him before hadn't been a complete thread of thoughts to begin with.
"I hope one day Oz forgives himself, too," the twenty-one-year-old figure of wisdom continued, "I know he blames himself for what happened, but it wasn't his fault."
"It must be hard to carry that around with him," my diluted voice trembled in the stale air.
"It's amazing what people can live with." Toby's voice carried a certain weightiness of solemnity beneath its uplifting lightheartedness.
Paolo came running back to where we stood, the divide between the gritty beach and the tender meadow. A newborn's hopefulness shone on his pebble round face, the waters in his eyes shimmering in the quickly fading daylight.
"Come on, P, let's get you that ice cream."
Transported back into the now, Ozzie's stormy eyes remained clouded despite his teeth-baring grin; tinged dark yellow, with coffee brown stains lacing the etched corners.
"It was no problem," I replied pleasantly, silently wondering if he blamed himself for maybe having loved her too perfectly, or not perfectly enough.
"Paolo nearly gave the game away a few hundred times," Ozzie chuckled heartily to himself, jet-black bushy eyebrows slanting in his good humour. He pronounced his son's name as Pawl-low, drawling out the vowels as a result of second nature. "Boy's a bad liar. He gets that from his ol' man," Ozzie went on, paradoxically lying straight through his teeth. The conversation went on for a few more minutes before gradually whittling away, the disappearing of a dim sunset into nothingness.
Chase smelled like blackberries and lilies in the wafting spring breeze. Like zesty happiness that made me want to twirl around with my arms spread wide open; the fullness of life whisking me away with it.
"There's the birthday boy," I called out teasingly as Toby approached us, silvery powder blue hair reminiscent of a luminous pearl in the dancing spring sunlight, "How does it feel to be twenty-three?"
Chuckling good-naturedly, the serene silver-head quickly retaliated, "Watch out, you guys are next."
"Happy birthday, buddy," Chase wished him smilingly, even his well-meaning words coming out coated in dripping sarcasm. Old habit. He gave his long-time friend a sincere pat on the shoulder for good measure.
"We're getting old," I sighed nostalgically, eyes landing on the now nine-year-old Paolo, squatting down next to his best friend, Chloe, laughing animatedly as they chased a panicked scurrying hermit crab with a broken stick. Angels giggling.
"Hey now, grandma," Chase tackled wittingly, trademark mocking tone saturating his syllables, "We're only just getting started."
"He's right," Toby chimed in, calm voice like peridot leaves swaying in the breeze, "We've still got a long road ahead of us. Here." Raising his snow-white plastic cup, inside which lay a perfumed blueberry cocktail, he held it suspended in the air, waiting for us to join him.
"To the rest of our lives."
Grinning, Chase and I raised our full cups, the sparkling cocktails inside swishing as our cups clinked in unison, our booming words echoing through the vivacious air.
"To the rest of our lives."
If you subscribed to the classical theory of elements, like I did, and how everybody was more of one element than another, then Toby definitely had an excess of water in him. Sometimes I thought that if the wind blew too hard, he might disintegrate and go back to the ocean from which he'd been born. Maybe in a past life he'd been a sailor, or a pirate, or maybe the vast marine itself. His blood probably even tasted like the sea.
Toby's fishing silhouette cut a solitary figure against the shadowy backdrop of midnight. Crashing waves against saw-toothed shoreline stones rung through the dusky sky. Baby seagulls sung silently in the darkness of night.
"Aren't the fish sleeping by now?" I chided playfully as I sat myself down next to Toby, crossing my legs and leaning back to rest on my farm work trained arms.
"Exactly," his trademark soft chuckle escaped his lips, the colour of coral anchored to the seabed, "The only fish swimming now are the ones that want to get caught."
"It must be hard to be a fisherman like you when you're such a softie."
Toby was a dreamer. He waltzed around with his head up in the clouds, but his feet remained firmly planted on the ground. What that meant was he was an optimist, someone who saw the goodness in everything; even the insignificant fish swimming in the sea. His head was made of the same material as the sun.
"My parents used to take me fishing every year, after my birthday was over," he clarified gingerly, trusty fishing rod hanging loosely between his intertwined calloused fingers, "We'd just sit in silence. It was kind of nice."
"You miss them?"
"I think everyone misses their family," he admitted in all his genuine candour, real gold amongst too perfect silver, "Even if they're just a phone call away like mine. I don't think anyone ever really outgrows their parents, no matter how old they get." The glowing moon came to settle serenely in his silvery wispy hair, nestling its moonbeams between each individual strand.
"Yeah, I get that," my airy voice affirmed in the creaking night.
Toby perpetually smelled like the beach, like the sand and sea were the unknown particles that made up the atoms holding him together. When he was near the ocean, he was tranquil – perfectly in his element.
Pulling out my fishing rod from my rucksack, I casted the bobber out to sea, letting the neon red and yellow float clash strikingly against the hazy navy backdrop. My mother's words of wisdom echoed in the back of my mind, a record player skipping on a jump rope.
When you leave home, honey, your friends will be your family.
We sat in silence as the orchestra of night wrapped around us.
"Thanks again for the party," Toby finally beamed melodiously, breaking the delicate stillness, coral lips pulling up across his smooth cheeks.
Wrapping a friendly arm around him, I half hugged, half strangled the gentle kitten; my family away from home.
"Happy birthday, buddy."
Chase's house door rasped grumpily as I tried my best to gingerly creak it open. The velvety purple cape of nighttime flooded through the agape door.
Attempting to traverse his crosshatched latte floorboards soundlessly, I silently sneaked into the pillow-soft bed he already occupied, one arm crossing languidly over his shut eyes.
Chase always got off work at one in the morning, so I never wanted to accidentally wake him on the days I got to his house later than he did. Laying my head next to his, my hazel eyes – almost amber in the darkness, like I'd reverted back to my childhood – traced the outline of his lissome eyelashes, which sometimes fleetingly flickered in his sleep; galaxies swirling behind his eyelids.
His honeyed peach hair fell chaotically across his face, their ladylike fingers stroking his cheeks as he inhaled, and exhaled, inhale, exhale; his deep breaths the only thing assuring me I wasn't frozen in time. His flushed lips rested ever so slightly parted, the millimetre between two rose petals.
Sometimes I feared that if I breathed too heavily, I might pull him straight out of his dreams. I would pray for the world to temporarily stop its spinning, to not break the perfectly fragile serenity of his slumber.
When he was asleep, I saw the vulnerable little boy I'd grown up with again. No honeycomb wall of sarcasm to spring to his defense, no cutting tongue to knock away the slightest hints of discomfort. When he entered dreamland, he was seven-year-old Chase, who stood four feet tall in a sunny meadow, waving a dirt-covered twig around as his sword; he was king and I was queen and that was our reality.
Letting my rough fingertips trace the sharp angularity of his jawline – the intense fell swoop of a razor leaf – his orange scented skin felt warm against my fingers. It burned love into my veins.
"I can feel that, you know," syrupy voice of sarcasm shot shock into my system, momentarily jolting me into breathlessness.
So much for no sarcasm.
"I thought you were sleeping," I whispered, voice hushed.
"You think someone can sleep through those elephant feet you call your fingers?" he drawled groggily, wrapping his muscular, lean arms around me, pulling me closer to him. Laying my heavy head against his chest, I could hear his heart pounding unusually faster than it normally did.
In the dead of night, with only its violet cloak of mystery swirling around us, I heard Chase whisper those three words into my hair. And not you're an idiot, like he usually said; his gravelly coating of his true feelings.
Perhaps even more beautiful were the four syllables that slipped out from under my tongue in instinctive response; leaving the faintest traces of a smile on his drowsy lips.
The entire world seemed to come to a grinding standstill, halting its thousand mile per hour revolutions just for us.
As the boy who planted flowers in my heart drifted back off to sleep, I found it hard to do the same, because all those dreams that I had painted in my head as a little girl, staring off into space on sleepy classroom afternoons: they were already coming true.
Disclaimer: I do not own 'Lolita' by Vladimir Nabokov, 'How I Met Your Mother', 'Memoirs of a Geisha' by Arthur Golden or any of Nicole Krauss's works.