The Modern Hades and Persephone. Part 2.
Spring
There was a boy with long, curly dark hair seated at one of the picnic tables at the park by the house. It was the exact table at which I sat with my book and plastic Starbucks coffee cup while I enjoyed the brisk spring afternoon a few days ago. He was dressed in black, baggy clothes with colourful braided bracelets circling his wrists and had his features crunched into a slight frown as he stared at something on his phone. A black bike leaned against the tree closest to the table. At the sight of him, sitting there in the sun, my stomach seemed to drop a few degrees lower in my belly. No longer is he just a smiling picture on V's phone, but a real person--who may or may not have expectations of me.
"Hey, Ray!" V yelled as we trod over the newly budding grass to where he was sitting. My heart did a small flip-flop in my chest as I anticipated the conversation to come in a few short seconds.
Hey, how are you? I'm Helen.
Nice to meet you, Helen. I'm Ray. *shakes my hand*
*smiles awkwardly*
*smiles awkwardly*
I know I'm not the most skilled at talking to strangers, much less cute ones. And Ray was cute, in that shaggy, skater boy kind of way. To be honest, he looked kind of like a lost, confused puppy--but of course, I wasn't about to tell him that. He looked up as V finished yelling and smiled. I noticed that his eyes crinkled at the corners and immediately felt a strange sort of softening of my insides.
"Hi, I'm Helen. Nice to meet you." I offered him my hand to shake, as I do with every new person I meet. He smiled and grasped my hand. His handshake was soft and gentle, almost limp, and for some reason I couldn't yet understand, I felt disappointment settle in my stomach.
"Nice to meet you." Ray mercifully let go of my hand and directed his attention to V, who was already hopping on to the table. She settled comfortably on the wooden seat and immediately started berating Ray on the length of his hair. From the ease of her body language and loudness of her voice, I discerned that they were pretty close friends, closer than I originally thought.
"...But I wish you would just cut it," V complained while she reached out and tugged on a lock of his curls. "It would look so much better. I'm not bullshitting you."
Ray yanked his head back and his hair escaped V's fingers. "Come on, V, let it go." Abruptly, he laughed. "You know I'm never gonna cut it." His voice was deep and smooth, yet still held a tinge of boyish lightness. It was a pleasant sound, but I didn't feel any butterflies fluttering in my stomach. Didn't feel any part of my body bleat in recognition or attraction. Some distant part of my brain was telling me that there's no chemistry here, no puzzle pieces falling into place, yet the larger, part of it that was drowning in loneliness wanted to keep pushing on. So, I smiled and began my polite barrage of small-talk in hopes of getting him to warm to me.
*
What felt like a solid thirty minutes later, Ray proclaimed his need to be someplace else and hopped up from the table we were gathered around. He walked over to where his bike was parked next to the tree and glanced back at V. He didn't look at me.
"Well, guess I'll see you around, V. It was good to see you. Text me, we should actually hang out and catch up sometime," he said, as he strapped on his backpack. A distant part of me that always notices details wondered why he insisted on having all his possessions a muddy-looking black. Maybe it was just from all the dirt kicked up from the bike? A beat later, Ray finally deigned to make eye contact with me. He met my gaze that was already trained on him, looked away, and did a quick salute. "It was nice to meet you, again."
The disappointment that was settling gradually deeper into my stomach for the past thirty minutes while Ray and V bantered and talked about their mutual friends coalesced into a truth I could no longer ignore. I couldn't deny the lack of interest on his end, couldn't dismiss his nonchalance as shyness or awkwardness, although he seemed to be a bit of both. I hadn't had anything to contribute to their conversation since I didn't know any of the names they dropped and my skills at talking to new people are mediocre to begin with. Instead, I did what I always do: watch and listen. After the first five minutes, I'd already noticed three things: Ray was as uncomfortable around me as I was around him, he was hiding a deep pain, and he had the kind of laugh that would inevitably become annoying. And indeed it did, after the first three times he laughed at something V said; his laugh sounded slightly like the braying of a nervous young donkey. I could tell he was hiding a similar sadness as me, however. I could see it in the way he laughed a little too much and too easily and the way he always looked down every so often. I knew because I had the same mannerisms.
All of these thoughts and realizations happened in the span of a few seconds, but once I snapped out of my internal musings, I realized I'd been staring at him. "Right. Nice to meet you too. See you around." Not likely. It was disappointing he didn't turn out to be The One, but really, he didn't stand much of a chance. It was a blind shot in the dark at finding what I was looking for, and I knew it. Yet something about him, about this meeting, struck a slim internal chord in my soul. It was the barest touch of something. I just didn't know what.
There was a boy with long, curly dark hair seated at one of the picnic tables at the park by the house. It was the exact table at which I sat with my book and plastic Starbucks coffee cup while I enjoyed the brisk spring afternoon a few days ago. He was dressed in black, baggy clothes with colourful braided bracelets circling his wrists and had his features crunched into a slight frown as he stared at something on his phone. A black bike leaned against the tree closest to the table. At the sight of him, sitting there in the sun, my stomach seemed to drop a few degrees lower in my belly. No longer is he just a smiling picture on V's phone, but a real person--who may or may not have expectations of me.
"Hey, Ray!" V yelled as we trod over the newly budding grass to where he was sitting. My heart did a small flip-flop in my chest as I anticipated the conversation to come in a few short seconds.
Hey, how are you? I'm Helen.
Nice to meet you, Helen. I'm Ray. *shakes my hand*
*smiles awkwardly*
*smiles awkwardly*
I know I'm not the most skilled at talking to strangers, much less cute ones. And Ray was cute, in that shaggy, skater boy kind of way. To be honest, he looked kind of like a lost, confused puppy--but of course, I wasn't about to tell him that. He looked up as V finished yelling and smiled. I noticed that his eyes crinkled at the corners and immediately felt a strange sort of softening of my insides.
"Hi, I'm Helen. Nice to meet you." I offered him my hand to shake, as I do with every new person I meet. He smiled and grasped my hand. His handshake was soft and gentle, almost limp, and for some reason I couldn't yet understand, I felt disappointment settle in my stomach.
"Nice to meet you." Ray mercifully let go of my hand and directed his attention to V, who was already hopping on to the table. She settled comfortably on the wooden seat and immediately started berating Ray on the length of his hair. From the ease of her body language and loudness of her voice, I discerned that they were pretty close friends, closer than I originally thought.
"...But I wish you would just cut it," V complained while she reached out and tugged on a lock of his curls. "It would look so much better. I'm not bullshitting you."
Ray yanked his head back and his hair escaped V's fingers. "Come on, V, let it go." Abruptly, he laughed. "You know I'm never gonna cut it." His voice was deep and smooth, yet still held a tinge of boyish lightness. It was a pleasant sound, but I didn't feel any butterflies fluttering in my stomach. Didn't feel any part of my body bleat in recognition or attraction. Some distant part of my brain was telling me that there's no chemistry here, no puzzle pieces falling into place, yet the larger, part of it that was drowning in loneliness wanted to keep pushing on. So, I smiled and began my polite barrage of small-talk in hopes of getting him to warm to me.
*
What felt like a solid thirty minutes later, Ray proclaimed his need to be someplace else and hopped up from the table we were gathered around. He walked over to where his bike was parked next to the tree and glanced back at V. He didn't look at me.
"Well, guess I'll see you around, V. It was good to see you. Text me, we should actually hang out and catch up sometime," he said, as he strapped on his backpack. A distant part of me that always notices details wondered why he insisted on having all his possessions a muddy-looking black. Maybe it was just from all the dirt kicked up from the bike? A beat later, Ray finally deigned to make eye contact with me. He met my gaze that was already trained on him, looked away, and did a quick salute. "It was nice to meet you, again."
The disappointment that was settling gradually deeper into my stomach for the past thirty minutes while Ray and V bantered and talked about their mutual friends coalesced into a truth I could no longer ignore. I couldn't deny the lack of interest on his end, couldn't dismiss his nonchalance as shyness or awkwardness, although he seemed to be a bit of both. I hadn't had anything to contribute to their conversation since I didn't know any of the names they dropped and my skills at talking to new people are mediocre to begin with. Instead, I did what I always do: watch and listen. After the first five minutes, I'd already noticed three things: Ray was as uncomfortable around me as I was around him, he was hiding a deep pain, and he had the kind of laugh that would inevitably become annoying. And indeed it did, after the first three times he laughed at something V said; his laugh sounded slightly like the braying of a nervous young donkey. I could tell he was hiding a similar sadness as me, however. I could see it in the way he laughed a little too much and too easily and the way he always looked down every so often. I knew because I had the same mannerisms.
All of these thoughts and realizations happened in the span of a few seconds, but once I snapped out of my internal musings, I realized I'd been staring at him. "Right. Nice to meet you too. See you around." Not likely. It was disappointing he didn't turn out to be The One, but really, he didn't stand much of a chance. It was a blind shot in the dark at finding what I was looking for, and I knew it. Yet something about him, about this meeting, struck a slim internal chord in my soul. It was the barest touch of something. I just didn't know what.
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