The Case of the Tardy

“Don’t you fall for me now,” she says.

It’s not fair.

She tilts her head down, dark brown hair tucked behind her left ear, and looks back up at me. The parentheses marking the ending points of her beautiful smile, a genuine smile, a smile that dims the sun. However, today, it’s different; the radiance of her smile is marked with a hint of sadness in her eyes.

“Promise me you won’t fall for me,” she continues.

Speechless.

“I promise,” I manage a lie.

Why?

“I make my bed every morning. I wake up every morning and after countless of snoozed alarms, endless scrolling on my phone, I stand up from my bed and the first thing I do is make my bed… because it makes me feel more together.”

She chuckles and turns her gaze toward the sun, her eyes turn light brown for a second before they shift back to me. Her chests rise as yet another gush of oxygen enters her lungs, a promised breath awaiting the next, with the expectation that she does not break her promise.

“I’m a mess.”

No, she’s not.

“I am a mess.”

She’s everything.

She’s perfect, more than I ever deserve and yet she doesn’t see it. They never see it. Or maybe I’m crazy, but I would prefer not to be. The past few months had been tough, but the thought of her kept me going; as much as it seemed otherwise, she never left my mind.

“Sometimes we can’t get what we want, even if it’s all we ever wanted. Sometimes maybe what we deserve isn’t good for us. Sometimes maybe we just need to let go of certain things and hope that someday it will finally be the right time to take them back; and sometimes we might live the rest of our lives with that string of hope hanging at the back of our heads, often visited yet untouched. As much as I hate the idea, I’ve realized that maybe… maybe I can live with that.”

She manages a smile, lips pursed. The sadness pierces my heart.

Don’t.

“We can’t obstruct change. You were right, we both deserve better, that hasn’t changed at least… Trust me, this was all I wanted, it is still all that I want, and I want nothing more. As much as it kills me, I know uncertainty would vaporize my heart in an instant. I’m tired… Of waiting, of hoping, of guessing games, of feeling like I’m going crazy. I know this would be the solution to all of the above but we have to ask ourselves, what happens then? We can’t stop the inevitability of reality tearing us apart.”

Ouch. We both know it.

She runs her fingers through her hair and her tongue through the perimeter of her lower lip, that habit of hers hasn’t changed at least. She’s so beautiful I could kiss her right this millisecond, but as usual, I hold back.

She’s breaking my heart, like I did ours so many months before and I can’t handle it.

“So please don’t fall for me, because I can’t handle that.”

Too late.

#TheCaseoftheTardy #GeraldineWu #geraldinexo #short