by: Ceyla Avery
Salt air and the lyrics to a song she never liked to sing.
She stood there in her sapphire silver dress anticipating. The abundance of social galas made it stale, seeing all the familiar faces you were forced to know since childhood. Nothing show-stopping nor surprising. Like a centerpiece too gaudy yet too expensive to get rid of.
However, on this particular night, she felt the sticky feel of eyes burning through the back of her head, the whispers, and side glances that observe her whole being.
The clock struck half-past 10 and he burst through the door. Arriving a tad bit late with a lazy grin on his face.
Her heart skips a beat.
She watches the man pull down his collar and brush his sand-colored hair through his fingers to the back of his head until she reminds herself not to stare at his nape.
He will converse into the busy fray with a small smile as he rotates his champagne glass in hand in a slow manner. She yearns.
She ponders that perhaps it was just not exactly a little crush.
Some people look at her and think how immoral a woman must be to lust after a taken man. Some people look at her and scheme, like gods, like how Aphrodite gave Helen to Paris. Some people look at her and shake their heads as the promising lady of a prominent family chose foolishness and plotted her downfall.
But he does not look at her.
Not even once.
Not like before.
She is relentless.
She runs along the white coast, her dress damp and her shoes thrown off somewhere she doesn't care.
The woman asks herself, with a hint of melancholy and pity “Will I ever see a glimpse of sun here on the water? Or hear the sound of crashing waves or even a feel of summer breeze that might give me the warmth of a hug?”
No one answered.
All alone under the gray September sky and the expanse of a shore that seemed endless.
She has a love to grieve upon.
And that is the thing about people who get left behind. She has to, and desperately, revisit the trees, the fields, the path, the secret entrance, that led her to the vast blue sea. To trace her steps, in hope that it takes her back to happier days. Because in the quiet summer of August, her name was still on his lips.
A rare gust of wind hits her as it brings in daydreams, And images. From unspeakable moments. From the far end of the shore that she can no longer call “mine”. Doubting, if he ever called it-his.
To beg. To want. And pretend that it was enough.
If she ever grows her voice back, she will sing that she lived despite it all.
infatuation