Before is nothing but flashing black and white memories.
Before, words are words, and nothing beyond.
Before, life is just days passing by.
Before they met, it seems like life has nothing to offer him but football. Besides training and games and the chase for titles, life just went on for him. If life is a river, Javi just floated around with its stream. He has families, friends, and some fans out there. Still, life still felt like a river, and Javi often thought that he’s merely an empty shell flowing with the stream. Girls were only different names with different hair colour and different eyes. Hugs and kisses were nothing but skins come in contact and nothing, nothing came more than that. Words spoken were empty, nothing but to fill the awkward silence.
Before, life was just a matter of existence for him. And Javi believes that life offers him nothing but football. He was happy with it. Or trying to believe that he was, indeed happy with it.
And that’s why, when his friend called him to hit another club in the town, without expecting anything he just said yes and just showed up.
That was before.
Before he met her.
When
When he saw her, the world he used to know crumbling down.
When he saw her, the life he once knew has something new for him.
When he saw her, is when he knew, that she would be his reason to live again.
The music is too loud. The lights are flashing and swirling around the room, creating abstract patterns of light and shadow on the floor. People laughing and dancing around him, and Javi is just one among them seeking a way to go through the night.
Javi is sitting on the bar, swirling the sparkling liquid left in his glass, thinking of how this night would be just the same with the other nights. Desperately hoping for something different, without really knowing what he wants to change, what it is that he wants to be different.
“Hey!”
A tap on his shoulder makes him turns his head around. Manuel is standing behind him, smiling with his gleaming white teeth. And for a second or two, Javi envies him. He envies for being able to really have some fun, for not faking his smile, for just genuinely be happy.
“Great place, eh? Having some fun here?” he asks Javi. Javi lifts the tips of his lips, forming something that he hopes looks like a happy smile.
“Yeah, sure!”
Manuel nods to hear his answer, and brings his glass to his lips as he gazes around the club. Following what his team mate is doing, Javi looks around the place.
And that’s when he sees her.
That’s when he is paralyzed, and feels that his heart stop beating for a while.
She is standing in a hidden corner, next to another girl. She is laughing at something, and Javi wonders how the laughter sounds. With her black dress that wrapped her perfectly, Javi can see the beautiful curve of her, as if her body is one of those perfect masterpiece statues by an artist.
And when she flicks her hair caramel hair to the back of her shoulder, Javi’s heart skips another beat.
“Javi?” Manuel’s calling him. Javi blinks and turns his head to face Manuel. His friend is staring at him, looking amused.
“Huh?” Javi knows that somehow he sound like an idiot. But seeing that girl leaves him breathless.
“Whoever you’re looking at, she must be so damn beautiful that leaves you looks like an idiot…”
It takes a second or two for Javi to process what Manuel just said. But even after he gets what his mate just said, he can only nods and mumbles.
“Yes. Beautiful. Very beautiful.” He says, as he looks at her again. She is still standing there, even the whirling lights can’t compete with the radiant beauty that she glows.
“Come on. Go and see her…” Manuel shoves his shoulder a little. Javi hesitates for a while, but a thought crosses his mind. Life often offers chances in unexpected times. And maybe, this is his chance to change his life in a way that he never knew before. So he gulps the remaining liquid in his glass, puts it on the bar, and slides down from the stool that he is sitting on. He tries to make his way to the girl, all of the other people in the club seem surreal, even the flashing lights seem blur, as she, she is the only bright thing that he can see, that he wants to see.
He’s finally there. Just two steps away from her. And at this very moment, he was speechless. She is beautiful from far. And this close, she is divine.
Javi can do nothing but stands there and just stares at her.
The girl that she is talking with chuckles to see him, and pokes her arm. With her chin, she gestures the girl to turn around and look at him who is helplessly standing near them, lost for words.
As the girl turns to face him, everything just fades away. She is the only thing, the only beauty that ever matter that he can look at.
“Yes?” she vaguely smiles. A hint of amusement, mixed up with a slightly puzzled expression are on her face.
Javi tries to breathe.
‘Hi.” He says, and clears his throat. “I… I am Javi. Javi Martinez…” he reaches out his hand awkwardly, not sure if it is the correct gesture for this kind of place, for this kind of things. But her mesmerizing charm does not really help him to think clearly.
Her smile gets a little bit brighter, and her eyes are also smile. She takes out his hand. Feeling her delicate fingers come in touch with his own makes Javi got a nice sensation tingles all over his body.
“Hello, Javi. I am Viola…”
“Viola…” Javi enjoys the sensation of saying the name. Her name is just as perfect as he imagines, and it sounds beautiful.
The girl nods, and her smile remains there.
Javi knows, that it is his chance indeed.
The time when they finally meet, is his chance to live again.
When they meet, is where his life comes into a whole new meaning, a whole new world.
…After
What comes after is what really matters.
What comes after is nothing but complete.
What comes after, is a whole new world.
“Viola? Love? Wake up…” Javi whispered softly in her ear.
“Hmmmm…” she murmurs, but her eyes are still closed. Javi kisses her eyelid, making her smile. Javi sits up and leans his back against the headboard of their bed. His hand gently strokes her shoulder as he watches her eyes flutter before they finally open. He grins when the eyes search for him, and looks at him with questions.
“What is it?” her voice still sounds sleepy as she moves herself to lean her head on Javi’s chest.
“You look beautiful even when you just woke up…” Javi says, and kiss the top of her head. Viola lets out a light laugh. A laugh that Javi could never get enough, even though it’s been a year since they got married.
“Are you really waking me up only to say that?” she tilts her neck so she can face him.
“That, and this one also…” Javi slides his hand underneath his pillow, reaching out for a thin box that he’s been hiding there. He gives the blue-velvet box to Viola, who widens her eyes.
“Javi? My birthday was two months ago…”
“Yes. How can I forget.” He answers.
“And our wedding anniversary was last month.” She says.
“Yes. And we went to Venice to celebrate it…” Javi plays her strands of her hair in his finger, feeling how soft her hair is one of his favorite things.
“So… What is it for?”
“Well, today is exactly two years, four months and one day after our first met…”
“Javi, don’t tell me that you really do the counting?”
Javi nods. “I do. Because you know what? Every day that passed by after we met, is something to celebrate. Because after we met, life gets a little bit brighter, a little bit more colorful, a little bit more beautiful every day. Every single day…”
She laughs again and buries her face on his chest.
“Come on, open it…”
She does what he says. Inside the box, a beautiful necklace with a star-shaped pendant lies on the velvet fabric. The room was still quite dark, but the small diamond in the pendant still shines. And it reminds Javi of how Viola’s eyes sparkle and how her smile shines.
Viola gasps, and closes her lips with her hand. She turns again, and lift her head to kiss the tip of Javi’s nose.
“Oh, Javi… Thank you… This is just beautiful…”
Javi kisses her, and wraps her in his arms.
“Yes, it is beautiful. But it’s nothing compare to how my life has turn to be more beautiful after you came and change it…” he whispers.
Javi does not really care anymore about his life before they met.
He still remembers that magical moment when they finally met.
And after they are together, life could be nothing more than just…beautiful.
