You Smiled: A Short Story
WORDS BY MADELINE PERCEY.
Darling,
The first time I laid eyes on you, I knew I had to know you. I had to know what went on behind those eyes. Whether they held thoughts just as dark or mirrored the joyful flowers you doodled in the margins of every page in your battered notebook. I wanted to know you.
I’d like to say it was me who made the first move but, in truth, it was you. You reached across the table, pen in hand, to draw a small flower in the corner of my page. Top-left corner. Five-petaled flower. Blue pen. I mustered up my courage and doodled my number in the corner of yours. Top-left corner. Eight-digit number. Black pen.
You smiled. My heart pounded.
The next weekend I took you to a movie. We both hated it. You called it predictable and I had spent the whole time as a nervous wreck, internally debating whether or not I should lean into your side or maybe put my arm around you...
I attempted damage-control and took you to the beach afterwards. It was half an hour before dusk. You had an extra blanket in your bag—‘I get cold,’ you said—and we sat on it to watch the sun go down.
‘You can never predict the sunset,’ I said, when you asked why we were there. ‘It’s different every time.’ You got a look on your face that wasn’t quite a smile and went to take my hand.
Fear pulled my hand away, into the bag to retrieve my camera. I offered you a smile, but you weren’t looking at me anymore. You were looking at the sea. Gazing. Peeling away the layers of colour that built to the line where ocean met sky. I followed your line of sight, caught my breath, and held the lens up to my eye, only to find the picture shackled by the imbalance of quality between real and replica. Switching settings, I attempted to get it just right and grew frustrated when I couldn’t. I’d struggled with it until the sun sunk below the horizon and the sky’s pastel blush turned lilac, then grey, then blue. My mood grew as dark as the night above us; none of the pictures I’d taken had done the real thing justice. You had laughed at me, told me I took the creativity out of creating, and you were right.
You were right.
I’ll bet you’re happy to hear those words now. Or maybe you think it’s too little too late; a scant offering in the grand scheme of my innumerable blunders. In any case, I admit it now.
I had been cold when approaching beauty, because I confused being cold with being cool, and was under the impression that the latter would impress you. I found out the hard way just how unimpressed you were by the former. It was the worst first date I’d ever been on, yet I couldn’t stop thinking about you.
Scrolling through all those disappointing attempts to capture the light of that dying day made me feel empty and unsatisfied. The pictures weren’t worth the time I’d lost with you. I regretted the time I wasted in my vain attempts to win the approval I already possessed.
Now, after spending years together, I feel that same feeling. That feeling that something has been taken from me too soon. You were the light to my darkness.
I remember how, when you got sick, your skin turned pink as dusk with fever. I remember the way you opened doors like it was steps to a dance, the way your laugh was never fake, the way you answered questions like it was what you were born to do. And I had so many questions in the end. I remember the way you looked at me when I asked them: not quite smiling, but almost.
‘How are you not afraid?’ I had asked you. ‘How are you not thinking about what’s to come? How can you think about anything else?’
Then you said, in a voice barely louder than a whisper, words that I’ll never forget. ‘I’m always thinking about it, but in the way you think about that stain on the ceiling. I only notice it when I look up.’
You smiled. My heart pounded. Your heart stopped. And mine shattered.
I regret that I was only able to find these words now. I regret not being able to doodle your name next to mine in the “love, from” section of our correspondence letters. I regret never fixing our leaky roof. I regret every sunset I never shared with you.
But I remember you, and I always will.
Love, from your sweetheart.
EDITORIAL NOTE: This article has been reuploaded and was originally published in 2020.