We Only Breathe For So Long

Sometimes it doesn’t seem quite possible to grasp a concept. I was having a hard time to understand and adjust myself to the immense rollercoaster in which I called life. A few weeks ago, I was devastated. Emotions are like a disease: once you get it, you cannot get rid of it easily and feel better again. It takes time and many crappy days. I used to wake up when the darkness was still holding the sky and that would be my alarm o’clock. No motives could be found to get me back to sleep or get me out of bed in the morning.

I never had a troubled childhood. It was happy and filled with pleasant memories in which I can never remember. Sure, tragic things have happened. When I arrived in Canada, my secret was grief, it was the one thing I did not share and the one thing I feared even thinking about. My mother’s death used to haunt me like a lost soul searching for the narrow gates. Although I always kept myself together, I was terrified inside, scared of anything and everything around me. But then things changed. A lanky guy came into my life. He replaced all my terrifying thoughts. He made me forget about it all in an indirect manner, the bad emotions attached to loss were still there but all I could think about was when I would see him again. Losing my mother was a terrible thing but I slowly learned that the worst is feeling like you are losing someone you don’t own yet.

John kissed me two days ago. For a couple of minutes I believed in things that only children have the power to believe in – fairytales. Those classical books about princesses our parents read as a bedtime story to us when we were little. It always included an ordinary girl who had nothing to live for until she meets an amazing, handsome lad. I had nothing to live for and I have met that amazing, handsome lad. Isn’t it much easier to believe in happy endings when you visualize things this way? As much as I wished to believe in that, it only lasted two seconds. Life does not work that way. You will always have high and lows no matter how hard you try to change the outcomes. John is amazing. He is everything any girl would want and I got the chance to be that girl. In all 22 years of my life, I truly do not believe that I have ever been as happy as I currently am. I still did not understand how but all I knew was that John influenced it. Every smile and thought, he was behind it like a puppeteer. Everything lost its difficulty and gravity did not exist anymore. I floated in the air with heads above the clouds in a world where the only ones who exist in it is us. Never again would I lay in bed wondering about the insecure thoughts that wandered all over my head. I didn’t have to. I knew John liked me just as much as I liked him. No single word in my head could state otherwise.

The days weren’t going any faster. They did whenever John was around. Talk about life being fair, uh?

Thursdays are like another Monday. They are just as long and somehow seem super far from the weekend although the following day is Friday. I had classes today and I do not even know how it was legal for a human being to be out of bed in such low temperatures. I had two long sleeve shirts, a sweater, a denim jacket and a long coat on but that didn’t allow heat to overwhelm me. I felt like penguin while walking around the campus in order to reach my classes. Gladly, today I only had literature class and a two-hour lecture on philosophers.

The winter was very rigorous and it was suicide to ride on a bike everyday to come to university and to go back home. Uncle Ronald dropped me off every morning and John insisted to fetch me from university whenever I had classes. I told him multiple times that it wasn’t necessary and that the bus was just as warm as his pickup truck but he didn’t bite my bait.

I stood by the main road that led to the entrance of British Columbia. I was leaning on a tree, rubbing my palms against each other to attempt to create friction and generate some sort of heat. I used to think I liked winter but back then it wasn’t winter, it was summer. Ten minutes after debating with my mind if I did or did not like winter, John emerged.

His truck’s windows were foggy because of the impact of the heat inside and the cold outside. I made a run to reach the passenger’s seat. The last thing I wanted was to be filled with little white dots that soon would melt.

He slowly ceased the space between us by giving me a lingering kiss. “Hello,” said John, smiling.

“Hey! How’s your day so far?” I smiled back while checking if the heater was on.

I’ll admit. I am awful with boys. John and I weren’t officially dating since he has never asked the question but we did stuff average couples did. Well, except have beer marathons. Nevertheless, I was pathetic at playing the “girlfriend” role.

He shrugged his shoulders. “It’s all right… about to get better though.” A smirk was placed on his lips and a wink as fast as a shooting star traced his eyes.

“That sounds promising. What could possibly be able to make a day like this better?”

“Lunch.”

“Pizza Hut?” I asked, sort of excited.

He laughed followed by a grin. “Not this time. I’ve been doing some research and found some nice places around.”

I smiled. “I’m glad you have. I was afraid I would be soon turning into a pepperoni pizza.”

We both fell into laughter as John spun the wheel left.

“Good one. Mind coming to the bus with me after? We could have gone now but we would die of starvation. Garrett forgot to go grocery shopping. For the second week in a row.”

He put on an annoyed expression and I remained laughing at him. “Sure!” I smiled, “that is very expected from him. Why didn’t you guys assign someone responsible to do that? Like Pat or Jared?”

“Oh, so am I not responsible?” said John, grinning while pointing his index finger to his chest.

I giggled unexpectedly. “I don’t think you are able to differentiate milk from lactose.”

“Isn’t it the same thing?” he questioned, the grin never disappeared from his picture perfect face.

I clapped my hands jokingly. “Bravo! I underestimated you, sir.”

“You tend to do that quite often miss. I thought journalists should not assume things with fancy words.”

I let out a laugh like those girls in the movies laughing when they finally get the chance to talk to their crush. I felt silly for doing such but John still kept his smirk hovering above his chin so I knew haven’t screwed up yet. The car stopped by a corner of a little Café called La Torre.

“Make a run, I don’t want a frozen date for lunch.” His hoarse voice mumbled through an attempt of hiding a grin.

John got out of the truck and ran to the passenger’s seat. He opened the door for me and I quickly stepped out of the warmth into the cold and white atmosphere that surrounded us. He placed one of his arms around my waist while we rapidly walked to reach the Café’s entrance.

It reminded me a lot of Starbucks but this Café had more of a French feeling to it. I felt like I had just stepped in a coffee shop in Paris itself. The air was filled with the aroma of black coffee beans being crushed and the smell of it diffused into the small space rapidly.

A wave of heat struck me and I suddenly felt it was unnecessary to wear so many layers of clothing. I began to remove layer by layer until I was left with only a dorky sweater.

“Is it Christmas already?” joked John.

I rolled my eyes at him as I smiled. “I didn’t think I would remove my clothes up to the point where people would be able to see this hideous thing!”

“It’s okay. I wear lame seasonal sweaters sometimes too.”

I covered my face with my palms. “I don’t wear them always!”

I could feel the blood rushing towards my cheeks and turning them coral.

John let out a laughter that made me want to record it so I could hear it again and again. “You are adorable when embarrassed.”

I took the menu and covered my face with it although the menu wasn’t capable to hide my laughter.

“So, how’s university?” he asked, putting the menu down while lacing his hands to pay attention to me solemnly.

“It’s um, normal.”

“Let me rephrase this,” he thought about it for a moment, “how is the workload and people at university?”

I chuckled, ashamed of my obvious response. “It’s quite a lot but pretty manageable. There’s so little time to get it all done though.”

“If you need help, you have my number and you know where I live.”

“I’m okay. Besides, you need to spend your time wisely by writing some more amazing songs rather than helping average people with studies.”

He chuckled and passed his hands through his messy hair. He glanced sideways and smirked. Whenever he did that, it was as if he stabbed me in the heart through an action. It looked so perfect that you would think he practiced that move a dozen times in front of a mirror.

“How do you write your songs?” I asked, intrigued. “I had tried to write songs a couple of times but I failed miserably. It never sounded right. After a while I realized that it was truly a talent and that I lacked it. Immensely!”

He laughed as I took a sip of my tea.

“Where do you get all the inspiration from?” I asked, anxious to hear the answers. “Um, I’m sorry for so many sudden questions.”

“It’s okay, I don’t mind them.” He took a sip of the beer he previously ordered. “Ahm, I actually don’t quite know...”

He scratched his scalp in deep thought. “I guess it just flows. I mean, today I might not have any ideas but it usually just pops out of the blue and when it does, I stop whatever I’m doing to jot it all down.”

“But then how do you know what to write about?”

“Sometimes it’s about things that I’ve experienced in the past while the other half of the times it’s from a perspective.”

“When I tried to write one, it was from experience ‘cause it seemed easier for me. It totally wasn’t. I couldn’t write it in a way that kind of makes the person whom the song is about a sort of enigma. It’s so hard!” I said, frustrated with the memory of trying and never being able to do it.

He threw his head back and laughed. “That’s what I like about it most. I’m able to express myself in such a way that it’s very similar to a riddle. No one really understands what I mean by the words except myself.”

John smiled at himself, pleased to have such a power over his words and music.

After I had my tea and muffin and he had his bottle of beer and hamburger, we headed out.

It was a silent ride. Silence is usually awkward and uncomfortable but this was different. When there was silence with John around, it was good. He always kept a faint smile pressed to his lips and he was too concentrated in the road that he never really caught me when I stared at him.

He once again opened my door for me once he parked the car. This time he took my hand as I got out. We laced our hands together and my small fingers fit perfectly between the spaces of his long and skinny fingers.

The boys were all gathered at their insanely small dinning table, grabbing silences of pizza while talking with their mouths full as we entered the bus. As we stepped into the bus, they all shot looks at us and stared at our hands.

“What took you guys so long?” asked Pat.

Jared swallowed some bites. “Yeah, we thought you’d never get together.”

“Funilaay,” said Garrett with a handful of pizza in his mouth.