Broken Glass, Broken Hearts part 77

Jake suggested that we all go down to the creek. I figured he was probably just trying to impress Milly by being a nature lover, but I agreed anyway. Tyler and I walked behind Jake and Milly as the sky started to darken and the fog grew thicker. When we got to the creek, Jake and Milly immediately removed their shoes and started wading in the freezing water, splashing each other and laughing. I smiled as I watched them, sitting on a rock next to Tyler, who was sitting on the ground. "Dustin," he started, and I immediately turned to look at his face. He bit his lip, "What was she like?" I smiled, my eyes softening as I looked back out at the water. "She was incredible," I said, "I mean, totally the opposite of me. She was loud, and outgoing, and she always listened to loud music and wore bright colors. She spoke her mind, and she was nice to everyone and could always kill an awkward silence. Teachers hated her, because she was always talking in class but she was also very smart, so they couldn't really get to mad at her, since she was their best student." I laughed looking down at the leaves and the little rocks, and noticing a small footprint- raccoon, it looked like- in the dirt. I smiled and looked over at Tyler, "She was my other half." Tyler mouth wasn't smiling, exactly, but it wasn't frowning. His eyes were very still, very focused, watching me with an intensity that made me feel slightly unsettled, and I bit my lip and looked back down at the little footprint. It was silent for a moment, and then he suddenly said, "I remember when we would stop at gas stations, Milly and I would always complain that the cash register guys made us feel awkward, we would always beg my mom to go inside and pay for the gas, rather than having us do it." He grinned, looking away from me for a moment, "But she would always say that awkwardness wasn't real, that we only created awkwardness in our minds. She said that people only ever feel awkward because they think the other person feels awkward." He laughed, shaking his head, "She said that as long as we portrayed to the person that we were perfectly comfortable with the situation, they wouldn't feel awkward, and so neither would we. And I watched her carry it out, too, many times. We would stop somewhere, and people would take one look at her and immediately feel awkward, uncomfortable, not sure how to hide the judgement of their faces. But then she would just step right up to them, smile at them with her biggest smile, and make sweet small talk. There faces would just settle, the uncomfortableness would fall away, and pretty soon the two of them would be laughing." He grinned, "I remember I always used to wish I could do that. But that doesn't seem to be a talent that I inherited from her." He grinned at me and grinned back, and we both looked back out at Milly and Jake, who were stepping out of the water now, and our memories, the pains that we kept locked up for only us to occasionally admire, lay there, out in the open, stretching their wings, so happy to finally get the chance to take flight.

© 2010