My heart was pounding fast. Fast and powerful, like a boxer’s punch and the intensity in my chest simply increased as she walked towards me. There were so many things going through my mind at the time. I was trying to find the words that described how she looked perfectly. Elegant. Beautiful. Awe-inspiring. Those were just a few that came to mind, but there were so many others.
As I stood there amazed at the petite goddess that walked toward me, I also couldn’t help but remember what she told me once. She said, “You talk a lot, but you don’t say much”. I slowly said, “Well, you don’t talk at all, but you say a lot”, almost like a compliment. It was a compliment. We both described each other perfectly, besides the fact I felt we could have worded it a lot more adequately.
I had always had a stutter when I spoke, so I constantly felt there was no point in thinking critically if I couldn’t speak it. Due to that, I would always speak with basic words or slang. Since I grew accustomed to not thinking as much as I should, I always had nothing important or progressive to say. But she was so different. She spoke so little, no pun intended, but her words carried so much weight. She always knew exactly what to say, almost as if she were intentionally trying to save other words in her vocabulary for another situation. And she spoke so properly. So perfectly. I would say, “Me and you”, but she would say, “You and I”. That was one of the things I loved about her.
My heart skipped a beat when she stood in front of me smiling joyfully. There was a light breeze and her hair moved graciously with the wind. Her tan complexion shined under the sun, and her eyes were light brown, almost solely showing her gentle nature. Her height used to make me laugh a lot. After all,she was only 4’11 and she was 14 years old. She was even older than me. Eventually though, her height only made me admire her even more for having such a big vocabulary and unique thoughts, but having such a small body.
“Hey” I said nervously with a cheesy smile. “Hi” she replied cheerfully. I was already in awe. I still couldn’t believe that she was here, right in front of me. I clutched the small black box in my right pocket tightly. “Do you want to start leaving now?” she asked as she grabbed my left hand. I simply nodded my head, and just like that we were on our way.
Trisna’s hand felt small in mine, but at the same time, it felt like it fit perfectly into mine. My nervousness still remained, but I was happy. Ecstatic even. The fact we took our time walking made it seem like time wasn’t even a thing. It was just me and Trisna, and that was just the way I liked it.
“When is the movie starting?” she asked. I let go of her hand and reached into my left pocket for a small slip of paper. On the paper was a time in big bold letters. “The movie’s at uh… 1:30” I slowly said. It was currently 12:48pm. “Wow!” she exclaimed. “Then I suppose we have more time than we thought huh?”. I nodded my head, and she smiled back at me. Along the way to the movie theater, we decided to stop by the park. We sat beside each other on parallel swings and talked for a while. It was a rather normal conversation. We were in the same class so it wasn’t like we both didn’t have some idea of what news was likely going to be brought up. We both knew each other so well. We could probably finish each other’s sentences. Well, Trisna could do that to me with ease if she wanted to, while I would struggle a bit. We didn’t try to though. Mostly because if we did, it would look like we were just friends, which is something I’m sure we both didn’t want to appear as.
“You know, if Junior and everyone else found out, they’d probably make fun of us” she said slowly swinging her legs. I smiled.
“Well… do you see it as ‘making fun of us’?” I asked
“No, but don’t you find it annoying? They always have an opinion on everything and you and I don’t even attempt to tell them to stop. Doesn’t that infuriate you?”
“No”.
There was a long silence once I replied. I looked towards her and she looked off into the distance.
“I mean” I continued. “I dunno much… but uh… I think that since they ‘make fun of us’, that makes them our friends”. She turned to me and asked, “I suppose. But if that’s the case then what does that make a bully?”
“Damn… It makes them a… uh…huh”. I stopped midway through my response. A combination of my stuttering and the lack of having a good answer made my point redundant. I looked down in my lap in embarrassment. “Do you want to know what I believe?” she asked. “W-what?”  I questioned. “I believe I have too many friends”.
I thought about it for a second. The words she had said were so familiar but the context in which she meant them made her words peculiar to me at the same time. “Trisna, I-”. She appeared in front of me with a smile that stretched from ear to ear. “Let’s go. We don’t want to sit around for too long and then miss the movie right?” she asked. I nodded then got up from the swing. Her hand reached out to mine again, and I accepted it. Then once again, we were on our way.
Despite the fact we left the park at Trisna’s guidance, we still got to the movie theater late. There was a line that stretched outside and around the building. Over the course of 20 minutes, the line shortened little by little. We were in the middle of the line when the ticket agent announced that the tickets to the movie that we wanted to watch were sold out for the next showing. “I can’t wait till the next showing” Trisna said sadly. “I’m supposed to be home by 5 and the next showing is at 3:30”. I would have said that we could just watch part of the movie and leave in the middle, but I knew she didn’t want that. I shoved my hand into my right pocket. I played with the small black box and thought to myself, contemplating what we should do now. Finally the light bulb above my head flickered on. “You wanna go for a walk?” I asked scratching my head. She quietly said, “Alright” and we walked away from the movie theater.
Honestly, I didn’t know where we were going at that point, and the fact that we were both silent didn’t help much. I had an idea of what we should’ve done, but I had no idea what was the point. She was already sad, and I wasn’t much of a comforter, so what was I supposed to do? I was in such a dilemma that I couldn’t think straight. What am I supposed to do?
As so many things went through my head, a familiar smell snuck its way into my nose. It was pizza. I turned my head to see a nice, small pizzeria. “Oh s***… We ain’t been here in a long time. You uh… remember when we first came here right?” I asked tapping her on the shoulder. She didn’t respond. I was so fixated on the sight of the pizzeria that I didn’t look to her for a nod. “I guess we could go inside and chill”.
I told her to sit down while I ordered two slices of pizza for the both of us. I felt like such a failure. Sure the movie theater wasn’t a grand date, but it was better than just coming to a pizzeria we always used to come to. I almost wanted to walk out myself. I felt like Trisna would’ve had a better time if I wasn’t there with her. But I couldn’t just leave her here. So I got the two slices of pizza and walked over to the table that she sat at.
We didn’t talk much while we were there. I was too ashamed to say a word, and I’m sure Trisna didn’t wanna comment about how lame this date was. We just ate our pizza. Eventually though, I don’t know why but I spoke. “Trisna, I… I’m sorry. This probably ain’t even fun for you. I just… I dunno… This ain’t the right way to… to spend a first date you know?”. She looked up at me with confused eyes. “What are you talking about?” she asked. “There’s nothing wrong with this. This was actually fun for me!” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. This wasn’t fun. Not at all. Was she sparing my emotions? I couldn’t understand.
But I guess Trisna understood very well. At least more than me, because she still knew what words to say. I just didn’t know what she meant. “I’m sorry Kendrick. I ruined today by feeling sad when in reality I’m just happy we're together today”. She lowered her head. “I’m sorry”. This doesn’t make sense. No sense at all.
Where was my response? Where was my reaction? She almost seemed sadder now. I reached into my right pocket. The black box was just clawing to break out of my pocket. I could feel its influence as it urged me to let it out and reveal itself. Was this the right time? The right place? In my time of confusion, I looked towards Trisna, only to see her head down sobbing as silent as she possibly could. She... She was...
I don't understand what came over me, but I finally made sense from the situation. I took my hand out of my pocket. I got up from my seat, walked to Trisna, and I… hugged her. I had never asked for a hug from anyone, nor did I ever ask to give one. Yet here I was, hugging Trisna, trying to comfort her. “Trisna” I said. “If you say you’re sorry, you’ll make me feel bad”. It was as I said that sentence that I realized something.
I helped her stand up from her seat, and I walked her outside. Honestly, I couldn’t be with Trisna. Even though it made us both happy, her happiness would always be greater than mine. She would be angrier than me. Sadder than me. Kinder than me. The fact is, Trisna, to me, is the perfect girl, and to someone as imperfect as me, it’s an injustice for God to fall in love with a sinner. But I guess it’s alright. Right now, Trisna’s happiness is the most important thing to me, and I don’t want to take that away from her. And I’m fine with that. There’s nothing to complain about. Even if I did, I sure as hell couldn’t complain to her. There was no point to, because God always had the answers.
As we stood outside in silence, she looked at me, and in return I smiled. “By the way” I said. “If you got too many friends… then I guess…” My hand reached out to hers. “I guess we could lose a couple friends and find… better friends”. She smiled and accepted my hand, almost giggling. “You think too slow” she said. “But your answer is nice. I like it”. I wasn’t sure how this story would unfold at the time, but I did know that I had Trisna, and Trisna had me. It was just me and Trisna. Or Trisna and I. Whichever sounds better.