Days Gone By

He loved the way her eyes would burst wide open whenever he walked into the room, the way she always smiled when he was around. Even when her world had obviously been crashing, she always had time to stop and listen to him. To laugh at his senseless lame jokes. 

How he loved her smile, it was enchanting, even though these days she rarely smiled, when she did, it warmed his heart, there was something in her smile that brought him comfort, it made him feel like he belonged there, with her, like her smile was entirely intended for him. And in that moment he couldn’t think of anything more that he would like to do than to take her in his arms, and press his lips against hers,and with that gesture express how much he loved her, how he longed for so long to just passionately embrace them.....

He wanted to tell her how special she was. Tell her the truth, about how he felt towards her. How happy she had made him. How he felt like a teenager without a worry in the world. Being with her took him back to his childhood, growing up on the sunshine coast, where nothing mattered but getting grubby in the sand, and dragging sand through the house, the laughter of his family that filled the home, the days filled with surf and sunshine, dinners spent around the family table, eating and laughing, when the family was one and the simplicities of life were the most enjoyable and wonderful times in his world. When money and greed hadn't ruled his world. When life has been full of love and laughter.

Those days, he thought. They were precious, when people didn’t care about the fame or the money, they were the days when he was just a nobody. But with her he WAS a nobody, yet the way she loved him, made him feel like an incredible somebody. The way he loved who he was around her, relaxed and easy going, without a care in the world. Free to drag sand through the house, free to throw off his shoes, and run around bare foot, free to just experience life without a care in the world.  that is who he REALLY was. That was the him, the him he had lost all these years ago, all these years of pretending to be somebody else, playing a role, a character, someone the world wanted him to be, yet so far from the person he was created to be.

Finally after all these years of emptiness, he had found himself again - the one he didn't even realise he had lost. He had now rediscovered life's meaning and it was all because of this girl. This girl standing in the room, with her back against the wall, crouched down, her head tilting to the ground, her eyes filled with a look he had not recognised before, a look of fear, a look of pain. Engrossed in her thoughts, turning the beads on her silver bracelet, loosely wrapped around her tiny wrist. So tender and fragile she looked. He wanted to pick her up and hold her, hug her tell her, he would protect her, he wouldn't leave her. ever. But he knew those words would be too much for her to hear, not now he thought. I can't do this now. She isn't ready to hear it. And if he were to be truth to himself he knew those words could be the end of their friendship and right now, losing her friendship was the last thing he wanted.

He gazed out of the window, keeping within his thoughts, but somehow, knowing that one day, everything would have to come to the surface, one day he would have to acknowledge their friendship, these emotions. Her.

© Days Gone By - Abigail Rose