Everything I Never Say ✓

[ nineteen ]

Nineteen

× × ×

You arrive just as the clock strikes seven, the cool night air sneaking into the house when you open the door and being chased out just as quickly when you shut it.

"Just in time," Noelle says, looking up from her phone's screen. "We were about to cut Aunt Vivian's cake."

You roll your eyes, not responding. I don't look away, not yet. I'll do that when, and only when, there's a risk of our eyes meeting. Right now, there isn't — you're too busy stuffing your luggage in the corner.

"As if we'd have started cutting the cake before he came," Hadley scoffed.

She's right, of course. But you still don't say anything, unzipping the damp jacket and shrugging it off your shoulders.

Your hair isn't overgrown anymore, Daniel. Those dark, dark strands don't fall across your forehead and occasionally slip into your eyes. It's cropped now, and the skin right behind your ears are visible, unlike before.

You've long since got rid of the glasses and braces—those you haven't worn since you were eighteen, I think.

But the hair... The hair is new. It makes me kind of sad. Maybe because it's only further proof you are someone else, a completely different man and no longer the boy I grew up with.

I don't know what your favourite colour is, or if you prefer a cuisine that's Chinese, or Mexican, or Arab. I have no clue what your hobbies are, what makes your blood rush to your ears and pumps exhilaration through your nerves. I don't know if you prefer Marvel over DC, or if you hate the whole superhero trope in general. I don't know if you prefer TV series to movies, or if you watch anything that isn't in the English language.

I have no clue about your music taste; if you like solo artists or bands and groups. I don't know if you're doing what you love, or if you've given up on following your passion and tucked your dreams under your pillowcase. No, Daniel, I know none of those and probably many more, but these — the ache that grips my insides whenever I have to even breathe anywhere near you, the heightened senses of mine that always alerts me of your presence whenever you stand a little too close, the skyrocketing beats of my heart whenever your voice reaches my ears, this unbearably deep longing in the pit of my stomach — these I know.

I think I'll always know.

I will know, even when time eventually makes way for other things to grow over them. Because they'll be there, underneath all that's new; they'll be there as the foundation of everything my tomorrows are built upon.

Sometimes time heals and fades away certain things from our yesterdays, but are too monumental to be completely erased and wiped out as if they never existed. I don't want to erase being in love with you. I don't want to forget it. Ten years down the line, when my hands are holding someone else's, I will still not want to erase it. Because you are my first love, my first everything.

My first blush, my first skipped heartbeat, my first shy smile, my first butterfly in the stomach, my first goosebump, my first nervous moment, my first fairytale daydream, my first crush, my first strong feeling, my first myriad of emotions, my first confused state of mind, my first fear, my first urge to run for the hills, my first denial, my first dreaded acceptance, my first heartache, the eventual first heart-mend, my first tear-stained pillow, my first journal entry, my first secret, my first eternal flame, my first love, and my first heartbreak. You, Daniel, are my first everything.

You are the first name my lips trembled to carry, my voice shook to voice out, and my throat choked to push back down. You are the first breath that faltered, that my lungs inhaled and was reluctant to release. You are the first secret buried within the folds of my heart, defended by a ribcage of swords and iron, too devoted to holding onto you that letting go isn't an option, not yet.

° ° °

We cut Vivian's cake and sing her the happy birthday song, and the rest of the night passes by.

It's a little loud in the living room, where most of her friends who haven't left yet are sipping too much wine and laughing boisterously.

I think of what Bash said earlier this evening in the kitchen, and I suddenly feel like a deer in headlights. What if you remember? What if you feel too awkward around me? What if—

But I shake the thoughts off. Bash was right; I was a kid back then. There's no way you'll read into it. I am, as usual, over-thinking and stressing over nothing. It's always been my way to do so.

Deafening thoughts running around in my mind while I sit silently amongst the crowded room, I sweep my eyes over the place—and connect with yours.

It is a fleeting moment, the tiniest fraction of a second, the faintest heartbeat, a soundless intake of breath. But it happens. Our eyes meet, Daniel.

Something sweeps over me, calm and gentle, and not in any rush whatsoever. It is serene and soothing, and I find myself sighing inaudibly with something like content. The pain is just a dull throbbing, like the vibrations of loud music from a party being held many houses away.

It is when you look away that my lips curve up into the smallest of smiles.

This makes me feel elevated, Daniel—the whole acceptance of you having my heart in your palms. It is true I wish I didn't run away from it and had accepted it sooner—and if I can go back in time and tell my younger self one thing, it'll be that love is only scary when we haven't accepted it yet, but once we make that choice, once we take that leap, it is worth everything. It is worth the initial pain when we think we are not going to have our feelings returned, it is worth the agony when our fears come to be true, and it is worth the slow process of healing an ache that knows no bounds.

But I cannot go back in time; I cannot tell my younger self this.

All I can do, is remember that words are forever and engrave all that is buried within the folds of my heart onto paper instead.

Love is love; it doesn't come with reasons, with instruction manuals. But I hope, when I write about my first love, it serves as a guideline, as a beacon of light, to someone who has been lead to believe that love is nothing but regret and pain.

Because it isn't, not really. Regret and pain are a part of falling in love, but it is never the definition of love. And when these words of mine reach their destination, I hope the hands that find them hold on, and not run away. I hope they don't make the same mistake I made.

So, here is my pen.

And here is the paper.

And here is my heart, ready to spill everything I can never say.

× × ×