we are the start, our change of heart (monochrome day one)
Characters: N Harmonia, Stella Gray
Word Count: 1,071
Themes Used: Starting Over; Ferris Wheel/Reunited
I wound up liking this entire piece more than I expected. I also forgot to use their names in the first draft, which wound up leading to the sort of... I guess it’s a bit of a different narration style than I usually use? But this is the first piece of writing I’ve published here, so there’s nothing to compare it to just yet.
~
She sits on her favorite bench and watches as the sun sets, lost in her own memories. She’s trying to move past it, really, but she just can’t seem to. Something started here, something special - because this is where it started, really, everything before that was nothing more than the prologue - and she doesn’t want to just forget.
The sun is slowly sinking below the skyline. She’s so distracted by her thoughts that it’s a distant sort of realization, but it’s still pretty. There’s a pencil in her hand and a blank page in her lap, absently sketching out the world as she sees it. With her attention split two ways - well, mostly one - she almost doesn’t register the voice asking, “Are you waiting for someone?”
Is she? It’s been a long time, and even as she’s trying to move on from it all - to move on from the memories of someone in particular - she’s not quite sure. “Yes - or, no? Or… I was, anyway.”
“I see,” says the stranger, and suddenly the other half of the bench is no longer unoccupied. She looks up, just a little bit curious about the first person to approach her that day, and there’s a split second where her heart just stops.
Because he’s here, when she was starting to believe he never would be again, and he’s looking at her with that quiet curiosity he’s had since the day they first met. Like she’s an anomaly of some kind - and maybe she is, but it’s not any less strange for being true.
He nods slowly, thinking quietly for a few short moments - though they feel like an eternity from her perspective, every second of silence drawing itself out - before he speaks again. “You were, then… But you couldn’t keep waiting.”
Now that she knows who she’s talking to, his voice is familiar. It’s changed a little - she’s sure that hers has, too - but it’s still recognizable. She doesn’t stop to dwell on his tone, to consider any deeper meaning; she’s lost in the fact that he’s here at all.
After a moment, she realizes that his words are a statement, rather than a question. More pressing, though, is that they’re wrong. “I thought you were supposed to be smart,” she tells him, pocketing her sketchbook and pencil before crossing her arms.
There’s a silence, and then: “I’m not sure I follow.”
In her mind, it’s all very poetic; together they make up a beautiful romantic tragedy. But even as well as she knows their story, she’s not yet sure how to do it justice. She’s found that castles and kings and the fairy tale she lived through are beyond her reach, even still.
“I can’t stop waiting for you,” she says, because she can’t put the rest into words just yet. For now, it’s simple and honest, and it feels right. “Trust me, I’ve tried. I could… I could wait forever, if I was waiting for you.” It’s a romantic sort of declaration - the very thought she was struggling to voice moments earlier - but there’s nothing romantic and everything tragic about the way she says it. Her voice sounds so soft and fragile, even to herself. As if she’s something made of glass, dropped and shattered and glued haphazardly back together. “Please don’t make me wait forever...”
She wonders if he knows the weight of her words, the weight of this moment. Wonders if he knows that he holds her broken-glass heart in his hands, the very same that she spent so long trying to repair when he left.
“I’m sorry.” He’s always talked fast, for as long as she’s known him (which isn’t all that long in the grand scheme of things, but certainly long enough to learn), but she’s found that his movements tend to be slow and cautious - the same is true as his hand settles over hers. “I’m not sure if it’s any consolation to you... I plan to stay, this time.”
She doesn’t say anything at first, instead moving so that her arms are wound tightly around him. “I missed you,” she whispers after a moment.
When he speaks again, there’s a hint of amusement to his tone. “...It seems we have an audience.”
“Oh. Sorry,” she mumbles, letting go and turning to look. It’s a small group of people, but a pointed enough reminder that she’d forgotten where they were. Neither are strangers to being the center of attention, but this is something she thinks they’d like to keep to themselves. She catches a hint of his smile, though, and decides that maybe it’s not such a bad thing after all.
He stands and takes her hand without another word, leading her toward the ferris wheel. She thinks that maybe it’s a parallel, or coming full circle, or something poetic like that. Once they’re seated across from each other, she looks out the window. She half-expects a speech of some kind, but tonight he keeps his silence.
(Well, it’s not like the speech had gone over all that well the first time. The thing about mistakes is that we learn from them, isn’t it?)
They rise higher and higher, and she catches sight of the sea of red-orange trees that lie outside the city. “It was spring, the first time we were here,” she muses, barely aware that she’s speaking out loud. “Spring is a beginning. The start of something. Autumn is change. I understand spring, but...” She looks away from the window to meet his gaze. “I’m still trying to understand autumn. I’m still trying to understand this. You understand that, don’t you?”
The words come out messier than she ever intended. Still, there’s a faint but present smile on his face when he answers. “I believe I do, yes. You could say the same for me, in that case - that I’m still trying to understand a lot of things.”
She hesitates, and she almost doesn’t say anything at all - but she already knows that to change things you have to take chances. “Then… Let’s try to understand, together.”
As all things eventually do, the ferris wheel comes to a stop. When it does, they step into the autumn chill hand-in-hand; and while spring might be nothing more than a distant memory, somehow this feels like starting over anyway.
