The Spaces Between Us.
//
He watches out of the corner of his eye, calm and cool on the surface but boiling on the inside, churning and spitting fire as she greets his brothers with cheery waves and bright smiles and reserves for him a tentative scared smile that doesn't quite reach her sparkling brown eyes.
Her smiles for him never do actually. He always stop at her lips and sometimes the dimples peek but he can tell it never means anything because she smiles with her eyes like any special person does, but for him her smiles never reach her eyes.
She's special and lovely but he doesn't figure in her scheme of special things.
He's special but not to her. And it hurts and nags like an itch that won't go away.
//
Why won't she talk to him?
Why won't she laugh with him?
Why won't she smile at him?
//
Somehow all the excuses he makes never seem to be enough. They never give him enough answers or enough reasons as to why she wont do all of these things. Because she is like that only with him. With everyone else, she's like sunshine, sparkling and beaming. With him, it's as if her light has diminished, as if the sunbeams that emanate from her so brightly have become pale and weak.
It's depressing and it weighs on him because sometimes he's like a flower that needs the sun to grow and flourish.
//
Does she hate him?
Does she not like him?
//
But that's not possible is it. Because he's a part of JONAS and she's JONAS's number one fan. She loves them and the air they breathe and the music they make. She breathes it in, in great gulps of air and oxygen and lives it, absorbing every little note, every little nuance and she delights in loving them and idolizing them.
She puts them on a pedestal and see's a halo shining behind their curls and thinks—believes that they are capable of no wrong.
He doesn't know if she's right or wrong but he won't shake her beliefs. He'll try to be Superman just for her.
//
But it's JONAS the band she loves, the malicious little voice in his head trills. Nick of JONAS.
//
What about him? Nick Lucas, separate from JONAS the band.
Does she like him?
Does she love him?
//
He loves her. He has always loved her, even when he was running away from her unintentionally violent sports equipment and even when she accidentally or not so accidentally ripped half his clothes off. He loved her when she sang in an off-key voice and he loved her when she tried to dress up another boy as him.
He's always loved her. It was a subconscious action because deep down he knew, she was just the girl he was looking for, brown eyes and a sweet smile with smooth round cheeks.
Only it took him forever to realize and now she seems like a far away star, shining in the distance as he tries to reach out and hold on.
She's never near enough for him to inhale her essence of peaches and honey and she's never too near for him to mentally trace patterns on her smooth brown softsoft skin.
She seems like a butterfly fluttering about, always flitting out his grasp but making everyone else happy by just being there. He doesn't want to crush her wings and he doesn't want to wipe away the smile. He just wants her to stay near just so that he can bask in her sunshine too.
//
Does it seem like too much to ask?
//
But then again he's never asked for anything big. Except for that one time and for that one thing.
//
When he was seven, he saw a piano for the first time at this fancy hotel with cream armchairs that never were comfortable to sit in, even though they looked poufy and fluffy. He was fascinated by the black glossy sheen of the piano and the way the light from the big chandeliers bounced off it.
But more so, he was fascinated by the ivory keys, cool and hard under his skinny finger tips. They produced soft lilting notes when he pressed them. And he wondered how something so hard could be so beautiful and gentle. He fell a little in like. And then he fell a lot in like.
He wanted it so badly that for the first time in his life, he was no longer good boy Nick. He threw a tantrum and cried red angry tears. He pestered his parents until they brought him one. When it arrived, he stroked it reverently and worshipped it.
He loved it.
//
But he loves Macy more.
//
She's soft and warm and beautiful and there's not a trace of hardness. There's music in her moments, graceful and gentle and he loves her so much that sometimes he feels that he's a ticking time bomb of emotions waiting to explode.
Songs bleed from his pen's ink and stain paper and notes bleed from his fingertips and onto his piano and yet there's so much more feeling inside of him, welling up like a rising crescendo to the end of a song.
//
But she shies away from him elusive and vague and he feels lost and hollow.
//
He cannot replicate what she has with his brothers. It's what he wants and so much more but somehow there's a yawning distance he can't seem to bridge.
With him, it's never, "Hi Kevin! What you up to?"
With him, it's always, "Oh hi Nick, sorry to intrude, I'll go away."
And then he realizes, she's not the problem and nobody else is. He's the problem. He created the obstacles and he inspired the fear and reticence. Because he said so, because he implied so, she places a wide gaping distance between them.
Dejection and anger washes over him in waves and how could he have been so stupid and idiotic and ignorant. His need for perfection around him and his pride—his stupid pride, drove away the most perfectly imperfect thing he had ever laid his eyes upon.
Maybe there's still time.
Maybe it's not too late.
//
Within him resides the eternal dreamer and the forever optimist. Hope infuses everything it touches with a new life and the colour springs backs to his cheeks.
//
"I'm sorry, I'll go away," she says hurriedly, a little bit of sadness and fear cloaking her eyes when she chances upon him at the library, scribbling on a sheet of music.
"No, don't," he blurts out, equally hurriedly. He blushes and then adds, "Please stay."
He's always been bad at these things. Feelings are intensely personal and sometimes he doesn't know how to communicate them. And sometimes words or songs aren't enough to express them. They remain unsaid and hang in the air like thick clouds.
She smiles. He finds himself being showered with warmth that starts in his toes and travels all the way up and pooling in his stomach, settling like a warm comfortable weight.
She sits down and picks up her book and he sits back down and stares at his sheets. Everything is a jumble and he's not sure of what he's written but happiness overflows and he doesn't really care.
Once in a while, they share a smile and he looks back at his sheet and she looks back at her book because these smiles are shy and tentative.
He doesn't write anything and he should feel worried but he isn't and it doesn't matter because he's bridging the distance.
//
And for that he doesn't needs lyrics or songs.
So this was erm, kind of experimental seeing as I dreamt it and then forgot it and tried to remember it with not so much success. It would probably explain why everything is so disjointed and abrupt and extremely weird.