joe
she wa smy little mermaid that''s why in my heart i've always called her ariel. i could make her eyes sparkle. i could make her smile. i could make her giggle or roar with laughter until she'd wipe those happy tears off her eyes.
but i could not maker her like me.
an hour past midnight, ariel and i, laone in an off heat corner of a mall. that was when i decided to pose one question maybe just maybe, i should have never asked "i like you, do you like me too?"
she need not answer, her eyes said it all. still, i chose to wait. she shook her head, fixed her gaze on the floor and whispered, "no." her voice was barely audible but just the same, the responce came crashing through my head, down my gut and back up my throat. had i choked to death then and there it wouldn't have mattered.
with emotions dulled by fifteen bottles beer, i smiled because i saw the end coming but asked her anyway. i smiled because i wanted her final memory of me to be that is smiling, even as i struggled to keep myself together. i smile becayse i knew that after all was said and done, i'd have a sad, sad story to tell that goes like this:
ten years ago, a sixteen year old high shool boy meet his first love who happened to be a twenty two year old lady. that chapter ends with his first love going off to marry a twenty-six year old man. the couple goes to the states never to be seen or heard again.
ten years later, after that boy had grown up to be a love scared man, he meets a young lady, also twenty-two years old who looks, talks, acts, carries herslef and for god's sake evern like his first love.
the day i met ariel, it was as though fate had frozen my first love in a time capsule just long enough for me to grow old enough and give it another shot. maybe this was my chance to oset right what once went wrong. maybe not. the end.
i prayed that night that i would not wake up tomorrow because the one thing i know with absolute uncertainty about rejection is that it always hurts more the morning after. whenever my friends ask how she swept me off my feet so swiftly, i borrow a line from good will hunting and answer, "do you know how it feels like to think that you have somebody who is an angel sent down just to watch over you and that you were an angel sent down just to watch over her?"
my angel did not like me.
she had gone swiftly and suddenly as she had come, leaving me with a few memories and a lot of kindness. yes, ariel was the kindest person i've met in years. she had this way of making me feel like i was the king of the world. in reality though, i was a lowly pauper begging for every scrap of time and attention she could spare.
even a pauper has the right to remember. and i will.
i'll remember how, during a party at the office. i caught up to her just as she was about to leave and shouted, "just in case we never talk again. i want you to know that i think you're absolutely beautiful." i'll remember how she said "thank you" for every nice thing i did or said to her, and how she played me once, telling me good night, sleep tight.
i'll rememver how she dipped her french fries into her choclate milk shake the last and only time we were at wendy's, how dainty she looked in her faded school uniform unveiling her misaken thoughts on being neither photogenic nor telegenic. how great she looked in checkered blouse and faded blue jeans. how she brushed her hair as she swayed to the beat of live music. and a million other everyday she did them, thought them, felt them.
but most of all i'll remember hoe her kind eyes peered through my facade, right through my soul, and saw all thepain hiding behind my smile on that deceitful nigjt. i can take it. i was going to be fine. this was the first and only lie i ever told her and with good reason. my little mermaid didn't want to hurt me even though i wasn't her prince charming. as i walked away, i turned to take one last look.
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