The Balcony

Wind silences as the white candle accompanies me onto the balcony in the city starlight. With a small creak, the door lightly taps to close the barrier of inside and out. I light the candle and sit it on the ground.

   “I just was telling you,” talking to the visible stars in the city skylight, “about my date with him, I just got home and I think I found the love you and grandma had.”

   My grandfather on my mom’s side passed last year. He’d been with my grandma since they were fourteen years of age and married since they were twenty. Through everything, they stuck together and I...well, over a year ago, I watched a home I built with someone get dismantled from the inside out. 

   We met in a college literature class (though he was a philosopher)-- a beginner’s class if you will. My college didn’t transfer this credit and that, forever, changed my life. He chased me, he told everybody I would stare at him in class; this is false, I stared at the cute boy wearing the Smiths t-shirt, yet I digress as that is unimportant in this balcony scene. He kept flirting with me and kept adamantly attempting to hang out with me. I cannot deny that I reciprocated these feelings, as it was nice having somebody want me. 

Throughout this whole thing, I began the fall. He thought it was weird that I was close to my family, so I obliged and allowed him to isolate me from them, because, hey who needs a family that’s raised you and has always been there and loved you?  

He began our time coexisting as the hero saving me from my horrid family. I was away from my Grandparents too. I hadn’t spoken to them. He didn’t want me calling them. But I snuck in a few phone calls, I deleted it on my caller ID. 

I watched him fall in love with somebody else. Have you ever seen it? Around Thanksgiving, we sat with our friends, he began talking about how brilliant this girl was. Suddenly I wasn’t there. Everything about her, described deliberately perfect as my body faded in clouds of particles. Around a week later he went to my favorite opera with her after ignoring my pleas for us to go as a pair. He told me he told me but he didn’t tell me. But I’m crazy anyway. Around Christmas his phone made its way into my hands and I read each message he sent her as confirmations spat fires to my insides. I threw the phone at him. 

One day I gave him an ultimatum. For two weeks after the incident I cannot recollect much except that I gained a nicotine habit and my childhood best friend would rather trust a boyfriend she’s known for a small amount of time and abandon his recent ex girlfriend because she’s so psychotic. 

Everything up until this very night, before coming onto my balcony, left and was no longer who I was. My white candle sits beside me. 

We met at work. I overheard a conversation I needed to dodge yet was dragged into while using the bathroom. He looked about nineteen-- too young for me. After this encounter, I passed his department in the store hoping to gain another encounter. Several months passed yet his face and voice populated the back of my brain. 

Throughout months of nothing I interviewed at an office job and debated leaving the company I worked for. I remained though. I never left. On a day I closed I bumped into him. I didn’t catch his name last time nor did I catch his name this time. He and I exchanged pleasantries and I noticed he changed departments and he wasn’t nineteen, he was a year older than me.The conversation left my brain as his eyes caught me and his smile caused my heart to beat quicker than normal. Unfortunately I was in the midst of ending things with a 32 year-old stoner failure so I could not start anything-- thus I rushed away whenever I heard the boy from work’s voice. 

We reconvened after months of him doing reshops near my department and me stopping at the service desk hoping to gain attention. That day my best friend warned he looking for me. Every nerve inside of my body grew tense as I saw him at the desk. Every step towards him felt magical. Later on he came by. My friend left me alone when he came around and his voice shook along with my hands. Conversation felt natural but I wanted to date him. I didn’t have his number and at some point I figured he wanted it.

Have you ever watched someone simultaneously fall in love with you as you fell in love with them? We walked through the boardwalk the night of our date. Conversation came easy and it felt like I knew him. As we walked, there was an area overlooking Canada. As I stood there I felt him resist the urge to hold my hand-- as I fought the urge to go in for a small kiss. 

Throughout the night the city stood still, allowing us to linger. I forgot there were more than two people existing. I remember his black short sleeve shirt, short brown hair, it happened such a short time ago. His brown eyes glimmered in the starlight as every urge not to be a dork and kiss him too soon riddled through me. I profusely apologized for having nothing planned and then he told me it doesn’t matter and he’s with me. 

At some point we made our way to the park. Overlooking the lake, on a bench, he put his arm around me as though the spot on his shoulder waited for my head to lie where it belonged. We fiddled around, wracked nerves filled my body. Basically, every feeling I never knew existed filled each inch of my body. He looked so handsome in the starlight. As I looked up to the stars shining upon his face, I told him I knew he liked me. I also liked him back. Fireworks filled the sky in the opening of July. And then I jumped, took his hand and dragged him to the trees. Once confirmed it wasn’t a gunshot, we awkwardly finangled our way into mentioning kissing. And after that on our walk home, he kissed me at least one hundred times. 

I hold the white candle as I stand. Laments of the previous years left with every kiss I got earlier tonight. The moon looks so full. After months of begging for a sign, the flame flickers out. Staring at the moon, I bow my head in thanks. The stars gather in a haze above me as the stillness develops softly into the wind, not enough to blow anything around, enough to hug me congratulations.