You'll Fall For Me, I Promise

25; 'She Found The Colors To Paint Him'

English Lit and Sociology will forever be my favorite lessons. Sociology gave you the chance to learn and study people, developing theories on why people did what they did and what factors of life could have caused a shift in them. English Lit, which I'm sat in right now, gave you a chance to evaluate the emotional side to the behavior, and going through books and theorizing why people did what they did on an emotional level.

The only thing that I hated more than not being able to speak the only language that I knew, was holding my tongue because certain eyes kept them strained on me, holding me back from the only language I knew because I knew if I uttered a single word then my newfound world of moving on would come crashing down and the numbness would capture me once again. I felt like I was healing, progressing, but he was making it hard when his emerald eyes burned into the back of my head.

"I want to do something different today," Miss.Morrison announced, capturing the attention of everyone in the room. "I don't want to study a book that's been assigned by the board. I want something from the heart. I want to know how you're feeling today, but through the means of literature. I don't care if the author or poet died a hundred years ago, or if they're sat in this classroom, I want something pure."

My heart skips a beat. Literally. I couldn't participate. I was still on the road to recovery. My heart still pined and my head replayed our memories. His eyes continued to burn the back of my head, and I knew the moment I stood in front of the class our eyes would be locked and I would fall all over again. I wasn't ready yet. I wasn't strong enough.

So I tilted my head downwards, looking only at my book, hoping not to be chosen to stand and share my heart and soul with the people that I hardly knew. I listened as, one by one, someone read, recited, or made up something to explain their feelings. Some were happy, and some where simply popular quotes that they thought would get them brownie points. But some, some were heart wrenching and I couldn't stop myself from looking at these people because they were braver than me. They stood there and poured themselves out for people I'm sure they didn't even like.

"I'll go," I hear his voice speak out when everything went quiet. I looked around at the other students, seeing the shock and confusion on their faces. No one had ever heard him participate willingly in this class. He was the bad boy, after all, and what bad boy expressed his feelings?

His steps echo through the room, everyone silent. I keep my eyes averted, seeing him glance at me as he passes to reach the front of the room. "This is SHE by Lang Leav."

I purse my lips, my head snapping up in shock. Leav was one of my favorite writers since I had gotten into literature, and she was someone who's poems connected directly to my heart, tugging at the strings. When my eyes met his I could see that he already knew that.

"She was the sound of glass shattering- the sharp ringing in your ears. The perpetual motion of a spinning ballerina trapped inside a music box. The sad, tinny tune of La Vie en rose.

She was the zig-zag in your straight line. The absence in your direction. She was every turn you took when racing through a hedge maze, against the setting sun.

She was the tide that came in and out, like the breath of the wounded. She was the blood that flowed between heart and head.

She was the book that was not written. The sentence that was not scripted. She was the word you wished you could have said."

He looked directly at me when he was finished. The class clapped and our teacher applauded him on finally expressing himself, but he never took his eyes off of mine. He slowly made his way back to his seat, and I was standing before I even knew it.