I thought I would stop crying after I closed my diary, but for some reason I couldn't. Some memories don't stay pressed between the pages, they are not like that rose petals. Neither do they get mouldy but stay fresh with every smell of ink. Actually, some memories bleed across the years, quietly rewriting the present in their shadow. They ache their way back to the present, quietly stitching the past in every woven breath.
The room is dark and silent. I'm so scared and I'm drowning in the air. The deeper I breathe for air, it feels heavier, making my throat dry. Inside me there was a storm that refused to sleep. I tried to give rest to my eyes, but God, I'm too tired. They are swollen from too many truths that hurts, from the news, form the silence, from the name printed on the bottom of the contract.
The diary still rested in my hand like it had been waiting for this day, this exact time to be held again. Maybe it knew that I needed something, anything to hold me back together. And again, I flip through the pages and then I saw it. A photo tucked between two pages. A boy under a cherry blossom tree, not just a boy, it's him.
Rian Ashford, My first love and my first heartbreak. Reading, calm, lost in a world of his own I'd never be brave to enter. Oh god, he's achingly beautiful. The light hit him like he belonged to another season. Spring had never looked more alive.
I still remember that day, the courtyard of Vereden High bloomed like a postcard. Those soft pink petals floated down like slow, dancing in the wind just like the delicate snow. The entire school was bloomed in the hue of pink and purple and the sound of laughter, music, and rustling branches filled the air.
But none of it made my heart settle. It had been a month since I had seen him in that music room, but every time it felt like new for me. I used to steal the glances at him whenever I get the chance. And that day is vividly in my mind, not because it was the day my heart learned what silence could mean. It was the day I fell…. not loudly but slowly, without safety and he didn't even try to catch me.
Maya dragged me to that path behind the library where he was reading. I told myself not to watch him, but I did. He takes his eyes off the book and looked at our way, he smiled once briefly but at someone else. Behind my back, there was a girl, form his class and I thought I'd cry looking at him smile at someone else like that. Maya nudged me "If you keep staring like that, people will think you're panning to do something to her. If you don't, I'll definitely make her regret being close to him like that. Its lily and I'll make sure she wilts."
"Oh, dear God. Stop saying bad things to others. I'm not looking at her, I'm just trying to figure him out."
"No one figures out Rian, he's the riddle, but you…. you might be the only girl reckless enough to try, my girl."
Rian Ashford, The boy with storm in his eyes and winter on his lips. And for me, he was everything my heart didn't know how to handle.
That same afternoon we found him under the cherry blossom tree reading and maybe waiting for someone. It was the only way back to our home. No one else was there possibly except for me, him and Maya. "He's over by there," Maya whispered "This is your moment, Nayra! Maybe you've waited long enough." Maya handed her a folded note. "Just in case you freeze. You wrote this last week and promised me that you'll deliver it. So… go."
I looked down at the envelope, my own name written in small, slanted letters. My hand was trembling.
"I'm scared," I whispered.
"I know. But you'll be more scared tomorrow if you don't say it today." Maya stood far behind pushing me in front of him. My stomach tightened, "Maybe I should wait and Maybe it's not the right time. Maybe Maya is right. The blossom trees wouldn't bloom forever." I stood there for what felt like minutes, and he…. He looked up.
The breeze caught his hair, his uniform still too perfect and his silence was still louder than anyone's word for me. Then, he smiled, not a full one, not the kind that lit up the face, but a soft curve of recognition. And it was for me this time.
"You look like you're about to run," he said.
I blinked, I wasn't expecting a word form him "I like this tree" I didn't know what I was saying and I know that didn't made any sense.
He glanced over, nodded once and said "It's yours now." He was about to walk away and "Rian"
He pauses, there was a long silence. Not uncomfortable, just full. Like both of them were waiting for something. "I think I like you" The words came out too fast, but they were real. They were alive, too loud and too small at the same time.
He blinked, then he looked away.
"You shouldn't," he said "I'm not someone to be liked." His words weren't cold, they were worse than that. I smiled anyway because I didn't know what else to do.
My throat burnt, and my knees threatened to betray me.
A voice interrupted the stillness, light, amused and sugary lace in cruelty. "oh. Wow, that's awkward, Poor girl. Do you really think you had a chance?"
He simply walked by me without saying another word. Leaving nothing but the sound of grass bruised by the petals. I made an effort to speak, to defend myself, to say something but voice betrayed me. "Funny" said another sharp, steady voice behind her "Having that much insecurity in your pocket must be draining, right? Come on Nyara"
The cherry blossoms continued to fall behind us just like me.
I turn the page in my diary and the words from that night stare back;
He didn't even say no, he just walked away without reason, left the silence behind that said more than rejection ever could.
For today,
I have to forgive myself first
For the wounds that are not shown, for the silent thirst.
I don't know, why my heart is feeling so small?
Maybe love itself didn't hear my call.
And now I'm afraid that I've ruin the offering of my heart.
I'm broken, I'm lost
That night I didn't sleep. I didn't cry in front of anyone, not even Maya. I waited until the house was asleep, until the time when, only the ghost of darkness surrounds me, until my phone had buzzed with the message from Maya "Are you okay?" and one unsent reply that I didn't dare to send.