In Memory (12 page)

“Hey, I’m not mad, okay?” I said after an awkward moment.

“I believe you. I am simply struggling with a persistent feeling of embarrassment and shame. I will be sure to ask your permission before I touch you again.”

That made me blush, just the way he said it. Maybe it’s my perverted teenage mind, but that sounded kind of sexual. Then, looking at him, he’s pretty much the most innocent, chaste thing I’ve ever seen. I wanted to reply to that in a way that didn’t sound
pervy
or suggestive, but couldn’t think of an adequate response. Then it occurred to me he wouldn’t take anything wrong, no matter how I said it. So I just said it.

“You can touch me as much as you want.”

He nodded, smiled in his weird way, and continued eating his sandwich.

S
ort of
chuckled
to myself after saying that
;
if I had said it to anyone else, I know they would have taken it suggestively.

W
ondered if maybe he did get the implications of that, and was merely feigning his ignorance. He’s really smart, so he could just be stringing me along in his weird suggestive talk.

Terra was waiting for me when I got home, and ushered me in the door quickly as soon as I walked up the drive.

“I got you a present! Come in!” she was really loud, she gets that way when she’s excited.

Gently, she took my arm, and then
not-so-gently
tugged me into the garage. “There! Do you like it?”

Before us stood a small street bike, kind of worn-out, but with the occasional glimmer of a new part throughout its construct.
It was mostly black, but had a spark of bright red here and there where the paint chipped.

I was speechless.

She looked at me expectantly, eagerly waiting for a reply.

“Ah- Um- wow, Terra, what’s this for?” I stammered, taken aback by the sheer unexpectedness of such a grand gift.

“This was your actual birthday present, not that cheap diary, it just took a lot longer to get fixed up than I had originally planned. So Happy Birthday, little brother!”

I grinned, and hugged her tightly, “Terra, I love you! Thank you so much
!!”

“I just can’t believe you didn’t clue in when I made you get a Class 6 instead of a Class 5 licence.”

T
hought about that, and yeah, that would have been a great clue if I
wasn’t
so obtuse.

Since she had neglected to get the helmet, I have to wait until a little later in the week to try it out, but I did sit on it, and it’s really comfortable.

J
ust got visions of myself driving around with big goggles, and a scarf. What?

Hahaha, all around it was a pretty good day.

136 Days, 14 October, Tuesday

T
hink I got my first ever love letter today. Noah showed up at the very end of the day, looking really out of breath. He pressed an envelope into my hand, and then turned around and ran out of the school.

People stared after him, myself included. Someone running full pelt down the hallway, nimbly dodging other people, always seems
to
draw attention.

I examined the envelope, it was a sort of off-white, and was sealed with a silver rose sticker. Sort of girly, but it also seemed to suit him. I decided to read it when I got home, so I could really savour the words. This was one of my better decisions, I think.

Gonna
paste
it in here, just for posterity.

To Aerie,

I am sorry I could not say this to you in person, for I fear I lack the courage to simply state something like this. You are the only person who has ever truly shown me kindness, and I would like to thank you for that kindness. “Kind words can be short and easy to speak but their echoes are truly endless.” I believe this to be true, as I doubt you realise the importance your friendship holds for me.

I will say now my reasons for writing this, that is, I think I could possibly love you for your kindness. Please inform me if this is a problem for you, and I will immediately withdraw my interest. I hope this will not affect our friendship in any way. Please believe I would be terrified to lose you now.

Your friend,

Noah

R
ead it over and over, making sure I got the words right. (He has easily the most beautiful handwriting I have ever seen in my entire life, but it is a bit hard to read). It was a surreal feeling, like I was in some kind of fiction, and this was a plot point to knock me off balance.

How am I supposed to respond to this? His words are so
beautiful,
I don’t know how to reply with something even half as meaningful.

There is no way we won’t stay friends. But I don’t know if I love him.

Wait, of course I do. T
hink I loved him all my life, before I even met him. He’s been there, in my dreams for
much of my
life. I’ve held him and cared for him through all our nightmares, and now I’m having reservations when I finally meet him in real life?

That’s ridiculous.
Dunno
if he loves me romantically, or platonically though. He’s
so serious about
everything,
W
onder if he’s even considered romantic love.

Wait.
You are the
only
person who has ever truly shown me kindness…
The only one?
There’s got to be someone else. There has to be.

I can’t be the only one who loves him. That’s ridiculous.

But if I am, I’m going to do my best to care for him totally.

It’s my purpose to love him
,
I know it
. A cruel twisted fate spun out into tangles of purpose.

And it’s my love for him, and his for
me, that
will kill me.

Unless I can find some way to remove his bad luck that everyone tells me about. Maybe, maybe if I can do that, I can live past the 27
th
of February.

Please let me think of a way.

Please.

135 Days, 15 October, Wednesday

So last night, my dreams were… sort
of strange (-
er
than usual). W
on’t go into real great details, but I am now aware of my
physical attraction to Noah. W
ouldn’t have recorded this if it
wasn’t
important. Not to mention the fact that the letter is weighing heavily on my mind. How am I supposed to bring something like that up?

S
ort of mixed between really
really
embarrassed and really
really
pleased. Being in class with him today was weird, I was hyper-aware of every movement he made.

The most exciting one for me was when he loosened his tie and unbuttoned the top two buttons of his shirt. This must be a fetish for me, this wh
ole unbuttoning shirt thing. H
ad to
mimic
his actions, my body giving an interested jerk as I watched him.

Every time he moved his head, all the
tendons
in his neck moved, sliding underneath his weirdly pale skin and the few remaining stitch marks from the huge cuts.

C
ouldn’t believe it had been a month since he showed up on my doorstep all broken and bleeding. Since I saw him, totally
defenceless
and fully trusting. He was naked in my bathtub.

Thoughts of that surged through me, colouring my face a brilliant pink.

H
ad to close my journal and put it away, as the Math teacher was lurking around, waiting to ambush me and see if I was actually doing the assignment. Like I ever am.
Ecch
.

We had lunch together today,
made roast beef and lettuce sandwiches.
Simple yet so satisfying.

As he was finishing his sandwich, I noticed he kept stealing glances at me, and then when I would look at him, he’d blush and look away.

“What?” I asked eventually, prompting him to look at me in the eye. His eye seems extra blue today.

“I was curious…”

“…
if
I read your letter? Yeah, I did.”

He stared at me with his usual lack of expression, all eyes and seriousness.

“And I think it’s okay.” I said.

“Okay?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay.”

“Your handwriting… it’s really nice…” I said awkwardly, unsure of where the conversation should go after that weird stumble.

“Thank you. I would return a compliment of the same likeness, but I am unsure of what your writing looks like.”

“Well, it’s legible I guess.”

“You seem to speak well, and have a more extensive vocabulary than many of the students here. Because of this, I can infer you’re very intelligent, which usually translates itself in some way into your handwriting. Although, there is the principle that everything works on a cycle, and that once someone achieves mastery beyond the circumference of the circle in their practice, they will restart at the beginning level.”

As he spoke, he drew a circle on the table using a puddle of water from his water bottle.

“Consider this, we will examine the subject, beginning here.” He indicated the edge of the circle, and drew a little line out from it, “As the subject gains knowledge, their handwriting will become more sophisticated, to the point of mastery, which is then followed by a swift decline in legibility. That is, as soon as they make the full circle of handwriting skill, and seek to continue with writing, it is highly possible that they will cross the point of beginning, which I suppose can also be considered the end, and start again.”

He traced the circle round and round, chasing the water back into its circular pattern. “This principle can be applied to many aspects of learning and knowledge, and perhaps other parts of life. For example, if you consider the abilities of one Pablo Picasso, he completed the full cycle of artistic mastery, and then began his cycle again, creating works of art that could hardly be described as realistic, but still held the base presence of being wonderful works of art. Because of his experiences with realism and traditional painting techniques on his first journey through this cycle, he was able to begin anew with the more primitive style, that perhaps held more evocative imagery.” He looked at
me and my bemused face,
and bit his lip. “I apologise, I have never had the opportunity to share my ideas with someone before. I enjoy the experience.”

I smiled wholeheartedly at this, “Well, it certainly was a bit mind-boggling. I think you’re much more intelligent than me, so some of that went over my head.”

“What does that mean?”

“Hm?”

“It went over your
head…?
I don’t understand.”

“Oh, it means,
ehh
, I didn’t quite grasp all of your ideas, but I got some of it.”

“I believe I should learn to speak more casually in order to convey my meanings and ideas to people more succinctly.”

“No way, don’t do that!”

He tilted his head to the side, the universal signal for clarification.

“I mean, your formal speech is what makes you… you. If you talked like everyone else, it would be boring. So just stay the way you are, okay?”

“Certainly. I shall do so for you.”

Ahh, Wednesday, the day of never-ending
carrots
.
How I loathe thee.

134 Days, 16 October, Thursday

So today, Noah was allowed to come over for di
nner, and to stay the night. D
on’t know how he managed to ask his father permission to do that, but here he is.

After school, we walked to my house in relative silence, enjoying the fall breeze and the sunshine.
He almost glows in the sunshine
,
he’s so pale
. I think maybe his black hair makes him look even
more pale
, it just sets off the white so well.

I did notice though, that he seemed almost happy today. He had his weird reserved smile hovering in place for the entire walk home, and took deep breaths in time with the gusts of wind.

N
oticed how the thin fabric of his dress shirt hugged his body with each gust. He’s so thin, but… so… I can’t even put my finger on the right word.
Attractive, alluring, …beautiful.

If I could write poetry, it’d be for him.

C
an’t seem to write anything better than what appears in here though, but I’m always searching
for the perfect words. T
hink it’s only a matter of time until those words are mine, but until then, I’ll have to make do with these simplistic ones.