Sadness was what she feels, sadness welling up inside of her body as the car turns the corner and zooms along on its way. She feels too attached to the heart inside of the other car to see it go and not feel the tears stinging her large, brown eyes; to feel the lump rising in her throat; to feel her stomach churning regretful knots around inside of her. This is no ordinary love, she’d known that from the very beginning. Yet even as she realizes that she’d driven eleven hours to see him, even as she’d packed her bag and waved good-bye to all her single, lovin-life-and-everyone-in-it college friends, she needs this moment of separation to fully recognize the fact that this love will last her whole life.
Unlike her friends from back home, and even her friends at college, with boyfriends they’d left behind, she knows in the back of her head, when she looked into his green, sincere eyes that these were the only eyes she’d ever look into in this way, that the strong arms that held and hugged and stroked her were the only arms that would ever do these things. How she knows this, is practically indescribable. She simply knows. It is like those corny love stories on the “Lifetime” channel, only real. Certainly he, the hero of her story, is anything but corny, while at the same time sending the flowers, writing the love notes, and pausing to call and tell her he misses her. Theirs is not an easy relationship. Certainly they’ve had their share of fights and arguments, misunderstandings and all the things that go along with testing each others limits. She is stubborn, he even more so. When she thinks she’s right, she fights to the death—he’s exactly the same way. Yet she is the one who is loud and outgoing, and he the more laid-back, quiet one. She loves parties and friends and social events, while he prefers the company of a few good people and an uneventful night.
Such different people, yet so in-tune with one another that they fit perfectly together. No one could possibly have seen it coming when they were in high school: he, the silent, alternative music loving BMX biker, she, the smart, spontaneous social butterfly. But someone had seen something, the girl remembered. Ali had.
An artsy, free spirit, Ali is her best friend, and someone who had always been able to see things that others can’t. Which was why the girl had been so confused when Ali had positively dragged her to that carnival in ninth grade to meet him amidst the chaos and adolescent confusion that was their world.
She remembered clearly that night as the first time that she spoke to him. She and Ali had been walking past screaming vendors and shrieking, midriff baring freshmen, when her scheming friend had grabbed her arm while insisting, “Let’s go over here!” Confused, she had followed her friend’s lead and wound up face to face with a sight she didn’t quite know how to comprehend. Standing in front of her, grinning wildly, was a tall boy, about six feet tall, with hair gelled in spikes that pointed in all directions. He was holding a box of snappers, the kind she threw on the Fourth of July when her courage had either run out, or abandoned her. “This is Travis!” Ali exclaimed, looking rather smug and self-satisfied, while she was left to wonder what in the world she was doing looking at such a sight. Left with nothing to say, she simply stared and stared at this boy, named Travis, searching her brain for reasons why Ali found it necessary to torture her like this. It was hard work, and even harder after the boy began pelting her and surrounding passerby with the snappers. “Cut that out!” she found herself shouting, and then she walked away.
Infuriated with her friend, but even more infuriated with the boy, she swiftly called her brother and proceeded to ask him to pick her up, immediately. She had found the carnival boring, but even more than that, she told her brother, she had been pelted by an immature boy named Travis that she severely wanted to get away from. Her brother had always been her savior, acting just protective enough of her to make her feel safe in most situations. Upon hearing that she would be leaving soon, she turned back to her friend, to find that they obnoxious boy was back again. This time, however, he was devoid of snappers. Replacing that burden was a plastic bag containing a single goldfish. Once again at a loss for words, she simply stared in confusion, wondering why this boy would not leave her and Ali alone.
“Want me to swallow it?” he inquired, and upon hearing no reply, untied the knot that kept the fish safe, tipped the bag up, and proceeded to swallow the entire contents of it. Horrified, she grabbed Ali, and ran away from the boy and the noisy carnival.
That was the first time she ever saw him.
The next time was at lunch, and once again, Ali was the perpetrator. Pulling him behind her, a breathless Ali introduced him yet again “…this is Travis, remember…from the carnival…swallowed that fish, so funny…” She couldn’t believe her friend would do this to her not once, but twice, and glared throughout the strained conversation in which Travis asked her a few questions about her classes and teachers, and she gave rude, terse responses. A bewildered Ali questioned her attitude afterwards, and she had almost completely lost her temper. Why was Ali pushing this so much? What did she see emerging from these awkward introductions?
She smiles as she looks out the window, through the tears that threaten to fall. The future is so uncertain, what with the War. He is her only constant, the single part of her that won’t change any time soon, and she finds comfort in this. Thinking back, of their beginnings, is one of her favorite stories to tell, and even just think about when he is absent from her side. When she sees couples, young and old, strolling the New York City streets, hand in hand, and she feels the familiar pang of sadness, she thinks of their story, she and her lover, and how they will one day be together each day, and not just for a little while.
She cannot wait for that day. She sighs a deep, resigned sigh of one who dislikes a current situation but vows to go through it anyway. She thinks of their goodbye kiss, a long, penetrating thing that spoke volumes not only of their passion for each other, or their love, but their dedication as well. Despite the length of their relationship (lengthy, for a high school beginning, people said) they never got bored of each other, never felt the need their peers did to constantly date and meet someone new and experience different things. They were honestly and whole-heartedly dedicated to one another, and now, as she finishes her sigh (knowing there will be many more), she looks out the window and sees not the pounding rain, but his face, struggling to smirk through clouded, sorry eyes, as he finished his goodbye-for-now kiss, and asked her, “So you like guys who swallow goldfish, after all.”
Thoughts take over, and she is ready to face this journey.
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