My soft, light-blue dress swayed around my knees in the gentle breeze, sweet with the diluted fragrance of frangipanis. I felt better just breathing again. But, from here I could see the school parking lot, which only brought back the memory of my embarrassing eat-the-cute-guy-in-the-corridor display, making me hold that newfound breath.
When my head dizzied from the movement, I sunk my toes into the cool, slightly moist soil and grabbed my guitar. The stranger I usually saw in my mirror glared back at me from the glossy surface; I ran my fingers over her face then gently along the strings, making a dull, tuneless song as I thought back to when I first saw this guitar; it had been on display in the music store window, and I had fallen in love with it immediately. How was it so uncomplicated to love an inanimate object, yet, when it came to a boy, a girl would fall all over herself to hide her true feelings? Well, unless she was me. Then, the truth would come out in embarrassing displays…in corridors…at school. I dropped my head into my hand, replaying that whole fazing out thing for the hundredth time.
But what was the point? Really? I mean, it wasn’t like I could take it back by reliving it.
With a deep exhale, laced with the heat of humiliation, I squared my shoulders and twisted the pegs on the neck of the guitar, then strummed a soft A minor; the first chord my mum played on this when she bought it for me. And a song formed from there, taking me through my David playlist until the thinking about him got too much to bear again.
My fingers stopped dead on the strings. I couldn’t get this boy out of my head for five seconds.
“Please, don’t stop on my account.”
I smelled his sweet scent before I felt his presence behind me. “David? Where did you come from?”
“Seriously? Do I have to give you the birds and bees talk?” His fingers appeared around the ropes of the swing just above my head.
“Funny,” I said sarcastically, but in truth, I actually did think it was funny.
“I uh—I went back to get my books from my locker—saw you sitting here,” he said. “I hope it’s okay I dropped by.”
“It’s more than okay,” I said, lifting my feet as he gently pushed the swing.
“Hey, uh—” He cleared his throat. “I’m sorry I left like that at school today.”
“Oh God, David, don’t you apologise. I was the one who—”
“Ara, you did nothing wrong.”
I planted my feet, stopping the motion of the swing, then laid my guitar on the grass. “What do you mean? Emily tells me I practically licked you.”
“Licked me?” David laughed, settling onto the ground right in front of my legs, resting his arm over his knee.
“Yeah, the whole...fazing out thing.”
“Oh, that.” He dusted his hand off on his jeans, leaning back a bit. “Sorry, I never even noticed that. I mean, I knew you fazed out, but it was actually your strawberry shampoo that reminded me I had something to do.”
“My shampoo?” I raised a brow.
“Yeah.” He grinned, his white teeth showing.
“O...kay.”
“So, what were you thinking then? In the hallway?” His eyes searched mine for a moment, an incredibly suggestive grin warming them.
I looked away, feeling almost naked. “Just that...” I like you! I like you and want you to like me so bad it kills me! It. Kills. Me! “Just that it’d been a long time since I was in anybody’s arms.”
“Why’s that?”
I shrugged. “Guess I just don’t really like to be touched anymore.”
“Why not anymore?”
I rubbed my chin, kind of wiping off my scars.
“Don’t do that,” he said, rising onto his knees.
“Don’t do what?”
He pulled my hand down from my face. “Don’t rub at your skin.”
“I—” I studied the grass under my bare feet.
“Ara? Look at me,” he asked softly, tilting my chin to lift my gaze. “Why do you hide your face so often?”
“Because it’s hideous.”
His eyes lit up, shimmering like a green marble held up to the sun. “Hideous?”
“Okay, maybe not hideous. But—” I couldn’t bring myself to ask how he could possibly look at my scars.
“Can I say something?”
I nodded, keeping my eyes on his.
He so slowly reached out and brushed his fingertips just over the fine hairs on my face. “These scars you despise so much, Ara, they’re not what you think they are.”
I held on as long as I could, but I just couldn’t let him touch them anymore; I gently pulled his hand away and turned my face.
He sat back down on the ground, his elbow on his knee, knuckles just beside his lips. “I know you think everyone can see them, but that’s not true. It’s only up close that I've ever noticed, and I have, not once, ever thought you were hideous, Ara. Not ever.”
I rubbed my jaw into my shoulder, reliving the memory of waking to tiny cuts and slivers of glass in my face. “I don’t see how you can say that.”
“That’s because you don’t know how beautiful you are.”
I smiled at my feet, afraid to look up, afraid to see sarcasm in his eyes. And as if it came out of nowhere, a hand slowly appeared, moving cautiously toward mine, but stopped just above my fingertips, hesitant, like he was asking me—making sure it was okay. I tensed from ankles to knees, holding my breath, feeling my heartbeat surround everything in my world. It all could've turned to ash under my feet—the ground, the swing, the day, the future, and I would’ve remained oblivious to it, because even the suggestion of touching him—of holding his hand—closed off everything else that could possibly matter.
“May I?” he asked.
I tried to say yes, but only a quivering breath came past my lips.
David’s cheeks lifted with a soft grin; he turned his hand, sliding his fingertips under mine, closing them against my palm, then pulled me down gently to the grass in front of him.
“Ara?” David paused, frowning at me. “You’re supposed to breathe.”
I took a deep breath and, though daylight remained, all around me night enclosed my world—tunnelling my vision to the only thing in the universe worth looking at. I smoothed my thumb over his, feeling myself lean closer, our eyes locked so intensely that if we were any nearer, the colours would’ve blended.
“Are you okay?” he asked quietly, holding my hand with a kind of gentility that made me feel precious.