"We're all damaged in our own way,
Nobody's perfect"
—Johnny Depp

To readers who have already read till chapter 6,
you don't need to read this chapter.
I've only edited this.

C H A P T E R  0 2| Through The New Boy

During our one year relationship, I used to bring Andrew with me to the park sometimes. However, I cannot say he quite loved the place as much as I did.

The only reason he liked it here was maybe because we could spend hours here without worrying about the world. We could chat as long as we wanted, eat as much potato chips and drink coke as we wanted, laugh till it brought tears to our eyes. The mood was a lot lighter and merrier here than at any restaurant.

Sometimes he would pull me close to him, touch my hands, and say beautiful things to me. He could do that without an effort, which particularly touched my heart every time. 

He did not just say things, he meant them.

With him gone, the bench had become lonely all over again. Not that I didn't enjoy solitude, away from all the complaints and chatters of people everyday, but sometimes I missed the warmth.

Maybe that was what brought me to tears today. I must have been missing all of it pretty badly, because I started crying terribly.

The whimpering noises should have been pretty loud too because soon a figure came up and sat next to me.

The place was getting quite dark, so I couldn't see his features clearly. But the first thing I noticed was that he was terribly skinny. His hands appeared unusually thin, sticking out of his half-sleeved blue t-shirt rather awkwardly. Then I noticed he was also quite tall. In thick, chestnut hair and flickering eyes, the color of which I could not decipher in the dark, he was quite the unusual sight in a crowd; whom you could always recognize easily.   

That was the first time somebody sat next to me in the bench in all these months, I also noted.

"I know it must be something personal, but would you mind some help?" He spoke up after a while.

I look up at the owner of the voice, probably with red, puffy eyes, and brown hair falling all over my face. His lean hand was holding out a tissue.

"No," I tried not to sound croaky. Clearing my voice, I first refused the tissue, then said, "I'll be fine, thanks."

"Sure."

A few minutes passed silently, enough for me to pull myself together. It gets very awkward to cry in front of people, to reveal to them how weak and fallen you really are. Because we are all trying to pretend to be strong and having fun in this world, right?

And to cry in front of a passer by or a stranger, that felt even more embarrassing. They didn't know who I was, or what my life was like. But for some reason, there was at least this relief that they didn't know you, so they couldn't judge you. 

Between rubbing my face and sniffling, I caught him opening his mouth to say something at least twice, but he chose to shut it everytime.

So I tried to help. "You know, you don't have to feel all nervous about what to say to me. I'm okay, and I will be."

"No, I am actually looking for the best words to comfort you."

It sounded very cheesy, but forced me to crack a smile anyway. "What if we all quit trying to be heroes?" 

He stared at me, perplexed. "Trying not to say the perfect words to people, not to be the perfect person?" I raised an eyebrow. "And definitely not try to crave so hard for perfect first impressions."

He gave out an awkward laugh. "Wow, I mean...you really are sad today."

The darkness had turned to the consuming type by now, where it all felt to be grasping you within it, and everything around looked surprisingly unusual and mysterious, like you didn't know the place at all. And sitting there with someone I didn't know, well, it just felt to be in sync.

"Or are you generally like that?" He wondered after a while. There was something about his voice, it was more consuming than the darkness in a way. You couldn't help but pay attention to him.

"You mean sad?" 

"No," he said, his eyes fixated on the river, noticing the flow of water intently. "Are you generally this much upset about the world and human race?"

"No. Why would I be?"

"Just saying."

"We are like seasons, you know. We keep changing throughout the span."

"You must be the monsoon, then." He smirked.

His words didn't anger me, rather provoked to argue. "What are you, then? Warm sunshine?"

"Haha. Do I look like sunshine?" I shook my head. You look like a skinny dead lizard, I wanted to point out.

"I must be the winter, I'm not really a warm person."

"But you seem so," I commented.

Few stars were starting to come out now, red and orange were fading out from the sky, making space for dark blue. I noticed how he gazed at things. It was not the usual; he had a tendency of getting lost into things while staring.

"This is just the sun shining in a winter morning. It will soon get cold." He didn't bother to look at me while answering. He was too busy observing I-have-no-idea-what.

"I haven't seen you in this town before, Mr. Winter."

"That's because I'm quite the introvert. I don't get out of the house often."

"No, you are lying." Islaire was a small town, if you got to live here as long as I had, you'd know everybody. "I'd know if you were from here. You are new, I am sure."

Finally he admitted. "Yeah, we moved here a week ago."

A week ago, Andrew left. The heavy rock settled down in my chest again.

"My grandparents used to live here. This is my mother's hometown."

Grandparents. I sigh. Way to go, Eloine. 

"Did I say something wrong?" He looked at me concerned. His hands were out of his pockets now, and he had shifted his weight a little towards me.

"No, I'm okay." I cleared my throat for the second time in front of him. Something started making its way up my throat, and all the way up to my eyes, making them feel hot and glistening. Tears for sure.

"That's the thing. Neither do you have to be a hero to me. You can spit it out if you are not okay."

My eyes searched for any humor in his facial expressions, but they were still and hard. In that moment the urge was very strong for me to cry and tell him everything, and worse, look for some sympathy. No matter how much we pretended, we all looked for the soothing, the sympathy, the people who could hold us tight and promise everything was going to be okay.

But we could choose to be strong too. 

I chose the latter, in this moment at least. "Said I'm fine."

"It's getting late, I'll be going, then." I stood up from the bench, stretching my legs, which felt numb from sitting in the same position for so long.

"Yeah, it is." He stood up as well. "But wait, I didn't get to say the best words yet."

He said it so casually, yet so innocently, that it kind of warmed my insides. Every girl liked hearing nice words once in a while.

"You already did say some nice things, thank you..." then I remembered I didn't know his name. "Sorry, didn't catch your name."

"I thought you were different!" He put out dramatically, like they said in the movies. "I mean, we promised we would not be the usual heroes. And here we are asking each others names!"

I put my hands on either sides of my waist, and raised a brow, trying to say oh-seriously? He mirrored my expressions, and we broke out laughing. Not laughing actually, we broke out into a small smile.

"Okay, let us be unusual heroes," I said. He nodded, agreeing.

"I'm Picasso," he stretched out his hand. I rolled my eyes.

"You?"

"Umm..." I pretended to think, but I could not think of anything because my mind was blank in that moment. So I said the most unexpected. "I'm Lady Gaga."

We laughed out loud. A real LOL moment, actually. Then we shook hands.

I started walking out of the Riverside Park in slow, small steps, and he didn't follow. Kind of to my relief.

Only when I was near the gate, I heard him calling me from behind.

"In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on."

Quoting Robert Frost. Obviously.

*****

Hi guys..so I understand it has been like, forever. Life has been extremely busy, and I dropped out of Wattpad for long. But I realize that writing is way too dear to me. So I am back, hope you guys can give me the chance again.

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