"For you? I'd hold the skies on my shoulders, if it came down to it."
*****
He didn't think she'd ever look his way. Let alone, stumble into him- and into his life. But all things happen for a reason, and sometimes- when you love someone from afar...
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THE ULTIMATE REALIZATION that you're in love is almost always exaggeratedly optimistic in fiction.
People say that it's liberating, that it's pure elation, and that it's paradise-like you're running off into the sunset hand in hand with someone.
But it's not like that at all.
It's scary.
It feels like the ground underneath you has suddenly disappeared, and you're falling- heart in your throat, limbs flailing, stomach dropped and all. Like a dip in a roller-coaster that's never-ending, so you don't know what it feels like to finally stop to let your feet touch the solid ground.
It feels like you're always falling, without being able to land because the ground isn't anywhere near you. The term that comes closest to it would be freefall. And it's even more terrifying because it always lingers- never quite going away.
I was sixteen when it happened.
I was running errands for my mum in another neighborhood, away from my own, when I saw her.
I knew that this was her nan's house because she had attended my last recital with our school's drama teacher- and my mum had offered to walk her home after that.
I had completely forgotten that her nan even lived in this area until I caught sight of Ophelia as I was walking back.
There was a small patch of flowers, right outside and she was crouched among them, a loose ribbon tying her long auburn hair back. It took me a good minute of staring at her like an absolute creep to realize what she was doing.
She was feeding birds.
They were sitting on her palm, eating out of her other hand- and she was looking down at them with her eyes bright and shining like it was the best thing she could be doing at that moment.
Right then, watching her sit among flowers with one bird perched on her shoulder and two others sitting in her hands, made a part of me seriously question if she was even real. Because right then, she seemed far too breathtaking to be. If fairies were real, she'd be one.
But all that wasn't what made the ground under my feet seem unstable.
She was smiling.
While I had been lucky enough to catch glimpses of very small, shy smiles- I had never seen her smile like this. Wide, toothy, completely carefree- holy shit.
I couldn't stop staring.
I willed my mind to remember that moment for as long as I could, and I prayed that one day I'd muster the courage to talk to her with that image in mind as motivation.
Because I wanted her to smile at me like that.
I don't think I had ever wanted something that bad. But I think I realized then, that once I had the courage- I'd probably do anything to have her look at me, notice me even, and smile like that.
