Blog # 23 Final Fourth Draft- Beyond

Beyond-

I sat back at ease in my seat, anticipating what was to come. The plane was probably now over the Atlantic ocean. My CD player was on with playing music from a CD that reminded me of him. It could have been of any genre. Love often has that effect on someone to turn the simplist things in a rembrance of the person you love. The butterflies in my stomach spread open their wings and flew around carelessly. I closed my eyes and gave in to letting the moving pictures in my head return to the previous summer. Did we really meet over a year ago? I laughed silently to myself. Fate is spread around the world purposely by everyone in hope that it really exsits. Andrea came here for English lessons and stayed at my Uncles's house in Tacoma Park, Maryland. He, without my awareness, was related to my uncle's wife. This was the first time my mother and I visited there in years. Andrea walked in the door while I stood up from the couch to greet him, aware of my cold hands from the soda can I was holding. His efforts to talk to me in his ruffled english made me talk in sentences i think he could easily understand. Eventually, our conversation came on its own without practice, into long explorations into each other's lives- being dragged in unexpectedly by a mapped out love soon to turn virtual.

"Can I kiss you," he asked quietly in his italian accent, just two days later while we sat downstairs on the pull out bed. My shaky reply eventually caused me to move in close to his lips to expreince my first kiss. His moist lips turned into an over abundance of saliva forming around my mouth. My lips slightly in disbelief but my stomach froze in anxiousness and excitment. My body tingly and my face, a burning sensation but a shade lighter like a pregnant woman from absolute happiness. We then both heard everyone calling us from upstairs. My mother wanted to take a group picure. I sat next to him on the couch in the living room, my exposed heated face, visibly seen now. My smile wide. The only evidence of what was really felt behind those large, glassy eyes, warm face, and plump, pink lips. The picture was taken.

All year of phone calls, emails- those I received and sent out everyday; the ones I anticipated all day in school, and ran in the house for onto the computer as if he was waiting there with his arms spread open. It was me who asked him to be my boyfriend. I already had an email waiting for me in my inbox and a phone call from him the next day I returned home. Puppy love my mother called it, aware of my love sickness that followed days after our visit. But the kind you talk about, admire, and long for and allow to take over. The newness and fresh ingredients of love replaced ordinary and into a mixture of possibility, never before experienced in glorious wait for the first taste.
...

I sat by the dark colored salt water pool just so my feet can feel the coolness of the water, giving me an idea of the temperature while I, transfixed at the ocean waves washing in and out. Only this wasn't the ocean. It was the sea and my pupils in full focus dilated a little more staring at the island they never seen before. I took off my shirt, revealing a bathing suit underneath, and after deciding to go into the water threw it on the nearest rock behind me. It barely made it onto the rock. As soon as it fell to the ground, an Italian man picked it up and waked over to me. He spoke in Italian obviously but I didn't understand a word. It didn't matter. I smiled and decided to lay out on one of the lounge chairs instead. The sun beat down on my face- oh so hot yet rejuvenating- warming my body and any thought that could have disturbed the moment. But the sun couldn't even find anything wrong either. I wasn't alone for long and my mind still consumed by my heart kept me from seeing past those three short weeks in Italy.

The sky was a light shade of blue so pure and full of life, holding clouds with peculiar shapes. The air smells so fresh- of sunblock and life- far away from even the remembrance of a pollutant. Laughter all around me, child and adult a like. The converging of Italian forming a separate language of it's own- one so soothing and delightful. Water builds up in my already squinting eyes from staring at the sky for so long but I don't want my sunglasses changing this picture to a different shade. Andrea remained a thought in my head, a image to form my lips into an automatic smile. My body, almost a separate being felt his presence nearby. The sensations all around me began to dwindle from the highest form to a degree or two under. I soak in my aloneness slightly more , an importance when it is permanent, stand up, gather my belongings and walk up the pathway towards the villas to great my Italian boyfriend coming to find me. He stood at the steps close to his villa, a towel in his hand, his face drooping in guilt and sadness from sleeping in later. We both held on to each other as if the time we had left was ending at that moment. The picture was complete again. A constant temperature, like a wanted summer heat wave. But there is always the season after to break through and shiver any remains away.

The island at night was uninhabited- giving way to a time of solitide. We stuck off a lot at night. It was almost as if the night was created for us. His parents advising him not to and my aunt and uncle telling me of his parents concern didn't make any difference to our decision making. One night a plan was determined. He told me to wait for him when we walked up the stairs that led to a walkway to his house late at night. He went inside to lay down for a while in his bed so he parents would think he was asleep. He told me he would sneek out. I sat on the walkway by myself, my eyes glaring at the door to open like a cat hearing every noise and observing everything around me. I peered behind the bushes like a spy. My body, in pure anticipation turned to uptight edge when I didn't see the door open. I slowly turned back then sat on the steps closer to my villa, still in the same direction as before but further away. A couple minutes more. That's it. I walked the pathway that led to my own villa, slowly opened the door, crept to my suitcase to get out my pajamas and went to bed.

His touch startled me and my eyes not yet adjusting to his presence saw a blurry image. "What are you doing here?" I asked him thinking it was several hours later. I followed him outside tiptoeing to the door which he opened slowly staring into the room where my Aunt and Uncle were sleeping adjacent to where we were. My heart started to race when I thought I heard a noise coming from their room but when we left the villa, my hand instantly grabbed his and my eyes returned back to normal- My body feeling the welcomed anxiousness of the night before us.

The sky lit up in complete decoration to celebrate the night- giving way to a color so visible and luminescent all around us, although, my face was already lit up holding onto his hand. We sat on one of the lounge chairs by the sea where I was just recently by myself. The sea hiding in the dark, only revealing itself by sound and once again the waves were heard pushing against the rocks careful not to disturb the night. I smell the air and let out a small sigh. I could even smell the sweet, saltiness of the sea. Its aroma filled the air. My body almost under a spell, wrapped up in its own mediation. A powerful serenity- enough to be absorbed, giving off an intense aurora to anyone sitting near me. Andrea motioned to me that he saw a metear stream across the sky. I then fixed my eyes on the starry sky in wait. When another one revealed itself, I closed my eyes to make a wish and shifted my eyes toward Andrea, wondering if his wish was the same. The night kept us there begging us to stay longer. We sat like magnets taking advantage of the idleness around us and giving a silent prayer of gratitude. When chills started to make my body aware of discomfort from the slight breeze, I looked to Andrea only as if he had a quite remedy. The sky seemed to appear a little lighter and my eyes roamed around a bit telling me I should return back. But my mind, counting ahead of time, didn't seem to worry yet about my trip back to America.

I felt the coolness of the balcony on my hands as I turned my body away from him. I stared at the scenes before me in a different view- eyes not fixed on the images around me but of the upcoming scenes in my head. I noticed a small array of goosebumps on my skin from a breeze in the air or perhaps imaginary. The sun, not as visible anymore- hiding behind several clouds in the sky, setting up the dramatic scene for us. I stared at his eyes I always compared to the sea- now looking at them from a greater distance even though I was only two feet away. He stood before me, promising he would never leave me. The silence around us from nature, overhearing our words was given to us in hope of us staying together but secretly knowing differently. The rest of the time there was pushed to fast forward.

The real end of the vacation took place in Rome where he lived, the last night to soak it all in. All the people walking past me, a familar scene like New York City where shops lined up on either side of the street. He took me into an abandoned building and I, carefully followed him up several flights of stairs past pieces of wood and occasional shards of glass; my hand resting in his. When on the top, I stared at a painting before me and my eyes tried to capture it all at once. The sunset glistened over the top of every building around us giving it an orangey contrast. The grundy, old buildings we past just moments ago on the train ride over, almost completely covered over by foreign graffiti disappeared. Andrea moved closer to me, and put his arms around my body. It was at that moment a separate beauty was created from what was seen around me and what was felt inside me. The two united into one and I then remembered where I was.

The dream played for a while longer until the middle of the night held our return. Andrea slowly opened the door, and we both crept slowly to his room. Mostly in silence we sat on his bed and kissed. I layed with him for quite some time after and mistakenly drifted to sleep. The knots started forming in my stomach, wakening me, and I opened my eyes. I held him tightly in my arms and he watched as I went in the next room over to sleep for a while longer before my Uncle would wake me in the early morning to leave. I heard my name not long after and my eyes adjusting to the morning light and my body like impulse raced to see Andrea. The morning was solemn. I walked to serve myself breakfast with the rest of my family in the kitchen. Slowly, I got my belongings together. The cars could be heard outside, driving up and down the street, still continuing its usual everyday pattern of life. I left my lipglass on the couch for him to find after I left where my lips had recently been.

We walked to the elevator to take us to the first floor of his apartment building. I was the last to follow- stalling and dragging behind. The doors to the elevator separated two worlds- the one which would soon be the past and the one of the future. As the doors slowly closed, I managed to see a tear coming down from his face. Almost shut now, I could still see his penetrated eyes, so focused and lifeless. The door shut and the dagger went in to my chest. I said my real goodbye to the world around me through teary eyes. I stared out the window of the cab on the way to the airport. My uncle sat next to me and saw the tears flowing down my face- the drops I refused to brush away. His reassurance and caring words I don't remember. I was alone again but this time I wouldn't find him waiting for me. The once beautiful city around me became instantly distorted and now into a foggy mist from my leaking eyes. I was still there, a dream world I so fantasized about all year. But now, I was home before I had a chance to leave.

I started my senior year in high school one month later. We were no longer together . I had to eventually take off the taped pictures of him on my locker of unrealistic hope I held on to for over a year. I stared at them as I slowly took off one by one, re-imagining each memory I now placed in my heart. I slip the pictures into my bookbag to return home. I was without him. We escaped from the virtual world into a three week dream. The dream ended with a sickness that stayed dormant inside, waiting for me to let go. The bats flew around in my stomach with their wings getting tangled and entwined. I look around and I start to see my reality looking back at me. My friends start walking towards me and I close my locker, swing my book bag over my shoulder, and wait to greet them.