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For weeks I’d watched you sitting in the courtyard on that bench- that one by the wishing well.
Maybe a part of me had always hoped for a reason for you to notice me back.
The breeze gently rustling the ends of your hair while you were absorbed in your book or your script.
Sometimes your brows would furrow or a the faintest smile would cross your painted lips.
You were remarkably beautiful. No doubt the other boys thought as much, too. I had observed them, one by one, vying for your attention or for you to flash them one of those rare smiles.
Part of me rooted for them, even not entirely sure I desired to see them succeed.
They had gathered the courage, after all, offering their hearts on their sleeves.
Yet the fatal blow was always served quick and swift.
I pitied them, even as I found myself slightly relieved once they had stopped coming around.
Every day you still continued to sit on that bench, like a wonder of beauty undisturbed in its natural state.
I reassured myself that unlike those boys I was merely content to admire.
Until I wasn’t.
The previous weekend I had seen you perform at the theatre. Even playing the most ghastly villain you were terrifyingly beautiful.
I walked away smitten, as if experiencing a new kind of love at first sight- never had a cruel display of the worst in human nature left me with this tender feeling of wanting to hold it so close.
It wasn’t you, yet had been drawn upon from something within. Coughed up from wherever it had dwelled inside of you.
Perhaps another work you had seen or one you had read. A painful memory. Some turbulent emotion that had never been acted upon. Whatever it was, it didn’t matter- I wanted nothing more than to see the world reflected through your eyes.
Rose-colored, simply by the sight of you.
So I gathered up my courage.
I prayed this time it would play out differently- that it wasn’t my fate to become just another one of those boys.
With each step I took forward, I grew more aware of all of the things that set us apart. My messy hair and clothes. All the scuffs and the dirt caked on my boots.
I had nothing pretty to offer you except the butterflies in my stomach.
“Yaa!”
One escaped, wings soaring up into the clear autumn sky.
I finished my piece and you seemed as unnerved as you were unimpressed. Rejection came and the wind left my body.
But surprisingly it didn’t land like a fatal blow.
So I followed you. I tried the next day and the next. With each failed word another butterfly dislodged itself from my throat and floated away. I talked even as you didn’t look up at me or say anything back.
Until one day you did.
And then I let the rest of them free.
As the next weeks passed, I found the view even more lovely as I sat there on the bench beside you. Gradually more of your words began to filter between my own. I adored the sound of your voice.
What had become my favorite part of each day was also my saddest whenever it came time for us to part ways.
The weather grew colder and it was starting to get a little chilly at our usual spot.
Consciously or unconsciously, you began to scoot a little closer to me as if trying to pool our warmth.
One day your knee accidentally knocked against mine.
The heat from the blush that spread across your cheeks was enough to prematurely shake the dormant pupae- from those butterflies that had been released to seek shelter from the winter’s harshness- awake.
“Sorry...”
You mumbled it with an awkward smile as you tried to look away. Suddenly even my own face felt warm.
Maybe somewhere, someone was watching our love story unfold from the same place I had once stood admiring you. But in that moment, nothing else mattered.
I placed a nervous hand on your knee.
Your eyes peered into mine, full of apprehension.
Even now, when I recall the butterflies we’d shared back then, yours had been far more beautiful than mine.