[Hannah]
I looked at him through the side mirror of my Rover, and I was wondering how he could pull that off on me. I wanted to be annoyed at what he just did, but, how come something tugged in my heart and actually didn't want me to feel that way.
As if it was telling me to feel giddy the moment I saw him take off that helmet.
He walked towards me, and here I was, heart thumb-thumping crazily inside my rib cage. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, something that I had been holding on from the moment I saw him.
How could I feel that way, when I knew that I was over him. After what he did, I knew that I was.
'Thank you,' he said, as I opened the window to address him. I nodded, as if it was not a big deal for me. I didn't want to say anything, because I knew my voice was going to betray me.
'Not a problem,' I replied anyway. Good thing, my voice sounded normal. Or was it?
He smiled as he took a glance at the old house. He then looked at me once more before saying something.
'Can I ask you something?' I looked back at him, and seeing those eyes, I truly wanted to melt in front of him. What is happening to me?
'Can I bring you to school tomorrow?'
What the heck? Was I transported to some twenty years ago?
'Geoff, I can go there alone,' I replied, steering away from his glance and closing the window. I wanted to hide my face from him, and thankfully the heavily-tinted window did that for me. I averted my eyes to look at him through the rearview mirror, and as he climbed up his big bike, he sped away and left me there.
A few seconds later, I found myself out of the car, got in the house and never even bothered to say hi to my parents who were there at the outdoor patio. I went straight to my room and locked myself up.
Walking in was like an eternity, and when I reached the small table near my bed, I took out a small wooden box. Feeling the roughness of its edges, I felt like it had the same state of my heart. A lone tear then began to fall and it was then that I realized –
I was never over him.
I opened the box, and on it was a small piece of paper. I took it out and even when my mind was telling me not to open it, I went ahead. True enough, the words resonated in the same way that it did two decades ago. When I was young and too much in love, in a way that I understood it at that time.
Looking at those words, my tears fell like waterfalls that I had to close the note immediately and silently wept. Everything that happened this afternoon reminded me of how painful that love was, how I wanted everything to stop at that time, how I wanted to ask Geoff for an explanation I know only he can give.
He hurt me in the most painful of ways, and he coming back into my life just that easily did not help at all.
Especially when I thought I was fine all along.
After spending minutes to probably an hour of crying, I got up and went to my table. I realized that all this time I was telling myself I was fine, when I knew I was just conditioning myself to be one. It took me this long to realize one thing.
Taking a pen and a note, doing it the old school way, I wrote a note in answer to the one he left.
Geoffrey,
Do you know how much I loved you?
Do you even know how willing I was to let you lead the way for me?
Do you know how much I have endured to forget you?
Or at least forgive you for what you did?
Can I even forgive you if you come over?
Can my heart ever forget the man it truly loved? Before and, Now?
Truth is, I do not know what happened to you, and I know that I should not care about that.
But why is my heart trying to wake up, after a long time?
Why is my heart still calling for you when I am nervous?
Why is my heart still yearning for your touch?
Why does my heart still want you to walk me home every day?
Am I still in love with you, Geoff?
Have I not ever forgotten you, after all these years?
Pouring out all the emotions I have in my heart into that letter, I folded it and kept it. I placed it in the small box which actually contained all the things that he gave me – the Pooh band-aid, his white hanky which he gave on the night he left me and the dried petals from the one and only peony he gave me. I pursed my lips to conceal a smile, but I couldn't conceal what my heart felt looking at them.
Who am I fooling?
'Hannah, this is just about work and nothing else. You can do this. He doesn't deserve you, remember that,' I told myself as I kept the box once more near my bed. But as I opened the drawer, another reminder paved the way to the tears once more.
The only picture we have on that fateful night. Standing there, looking at that old photo, admiring how dashing he was that night and how he asked my dad about us.
I never thought that would be the last night we would share together.
'What happened to us, Geoff? What made you do that to me?'
I was taken away from my reverie when I heard a knock on the door.