It wasn’t the way she pulled her dull brown hair back in the morning, or the smell of her old, “warm vanilla” body spray. It wasn’t the way her left eye drooped slightly more than the right. It wasn’t her average brown eyes or her thin pink lips. It wasn’t her soft pointed nose, the one dimple on her right cheek, or the small, dark scar on her bottom lip. It was something else entirely.
He smirked as he ran his hand through his thick, cinnamon-colored hair. His green eyes flashed to hers while his nose crinkled ever so slightly. He was a little cracked around the edges. But she didn’t care, because most people are. He was a masterpiece with strokes of passion and colorful feelings that swirled into compassion. The world painted him with the purpose of being different, to show that pain can hurt, but can create so much beauty at the same time.
They had both climbed mountains, tripping a few times here and there until fate happened to place them in the same place, at the same time. But of course obstacles stood in the way, mentally in the form of anxiety and physically in the form of “friends”. Timing is something else entirely. She imagined him to be a large grandfather clock watching them run through his swirling maze. And as soon as they saw each other and began to get closer, he would toss a boulder in the path, for fun. His laugh would tick and tock until they found another way to each other, just to be hit with a bought of fog, so they lose their way again. Timing was a bitch.
But finally, when Timing wasn’t looking, they found each other in the maze. Both timid and shy, but both willing to try. Their love was like the snow, quiet and slow. It didn’t shout for attention, or wither in the cold. It slowly collected around them and the warmth of their souls kept them sane. The world seemed to slow down, giving them a chance to get to know each other beneath the surface. Sometimes it was a blizzard, and sometimes it was a sprinkle. It was perfectly imperfect.
But like the snow does, it melted. She could feel it in the way he started to pull away from her.
It wasn’t the way he nervously laughed when talking deeply. It wasn’t the way he told her how beautiful she was. It wasn’t the way he sang the Backstreet Boys. It wasn’t the way he messaged her how it wasn’t going to work out. It wasn’t the way he said “it’s me, not you”. It wasn’t the way he never messaged her again. It wasn’t the way he pretended like it never happened.
It was because it did happen. It was because she trusted her already broken heart to someone who couldn’t even give her his broken heart. It was because Timing is a bitch. It was because they had to hide it from the world. But mostly it was because that kind of love isn’t meant for everyone, especially her.
It hurt. By god it hurt so bad. She wanted to scream, she wanted to be mad, but all that came from her lips was “Oh well. I guess my hearts cursed to be alone until the day I die.” The tears did flow, but it wasn’t because it happened, but because of what could have been if he wasn’t such a coward with his words and feelings. Hiding behind Timing as if that clock would give her the excuse she needed.
But don’t fret, because although she is still sitting among the broken pieces of her heart, listening to Hope squawk that it might still happen while it hoards those broken pieces. She knows that one day, Hope will fly away and she will rise above the broken pieces to put them back together, alone. Because of the way she has learned to be the heroine of her life, not the victim.
The Ponytail Chronicles 