“She couldn’t bear the weight of his dream when hers was nowhere to be found.”
( This story is part of the Claire Romantic Series.)
All my life, I never really dreamt of meeting someone who would understand me by the heartbeat, warm my heart with just a smile; talk into it without words. But I met Phil. Phil was, everything that I was never ready for. Phil was, everything that my heart tried so hard to disprove. Phil was, perhaps, a different kind of flavor of my life. Bitter, sweet, and brief.
I remember the first time we met. It was the cold and damp month of November. It was that street in the city, that quiet and still street that will always turn busy and loud when the night came. I was strolling down that street, alone, looking for nothing, and I found Phil. Him, with his half finished painted canvas, his brush and palette, looking calm while he danced his brush on the canvas.
Phil was a street artist. When I stopped by to see his paintings that evening, he had his head down, eyes glued to his canvas. I didn’t think he saw me, but when I was about to leave, he introduced himself.
“I’m Philip,” he said, almost out of a sudden, startling me. I turned to him and nodded, trying to be polite. He looked at me as if anticipating me to say something. “I’m Claire”, I said, almost doubtful. He laughed softly, I probably looked funny to him that very moment. Seeing him laugh, I laughed with him. The momentary awkwardness between us suddenly disappeared. Like Phil had always said, the world had probably become ours even then.
“Do you like coffee?” he asked.
I chuckled. “My favorite,” I said.
He invited me for a coffee and we strolled that very street together the next day. I didn’t usually do that; accepting an invitation from a guy I met on the street. But there was something about him that made me say yes. Something in his eyes.
Coffee then became one of the things we both enjoyed together. I began to appreciate paintings and began to see every detail in them the way I never had before. To Phil, painting was his passion, his life. I could sometimes just sit quietly, watching Phil run around his brush on his canvas, eyes focused on only his canvas, till it became only him and his instruments; his brushes and his palette, and the colors of his creation in his canvas.
I had woken up one morning, in his apartment, in his bed, opening my eyes to the sight of him sketching on his canvas, while alternately looking at me. I had thought he was sketching me. I didn’t get up from the bed, just lying still, looking back at him, admiring his concentration. When he stopped and put down his charcoal, I asked him, “Can I move now?”. He smiled and nodded.
I got up and walked toward him to see what was on his canvas. But it was not me in his sketch. It was something that looked more like an open sea, the sun high above the sea, a harbor.
“OK, so which one is me?” I asked, joking.
He smiled and pointed to the sun in his sketch right away.
“You need to look at me to sketch that?” I giggled, half-teasing, half-curious. He laughed softly. But then he said he didn’t try to sketch me. He said he tried to sketch something in his head that became clearer when he looked at me. I turned to him and caressed his face, looking into his eyes. Phil always said things I never expected. Things I never heard from anybody before him. Truth was, there was not really anybody before him. He was something different. He was something I stumbled upon, not something I voluntarily looked for.
I remember the time when he told me how he felt about me. “I think I really, really like you,” he said. It was the same eyes that were glued to his canvas when he looked at me. That same passion. I did not say anything when he said that. It was different. It felt different. Different as if I had never heard those exact same words all my life. For the first time, I didn’t know what to say. We knew we had starting to develop feelings for each other. We knew we had beginning to love spending more time with each other. We knew the feelings. We just never said it out loud until that day.
It was not just once or twice Daryl said the exact same thing to me before. He even said ‘I love you’ a few times; something I hated hearing him say, something I always told him not to say. “Stop it, Daryl. You don’t even know what you’re saying”, I usually told him.
Daryl was a fling that I voluntarily looked for at the office where I worked. He was tall, handsome, and romantic. He made a nice fling. I didn’t need to know if he had a girlfriend, engaged, or if he was married. I only needed to know he was there when I needed someone to sip coffee with in the weekends. I only needed to know he was there listening to my stories anytime I wanted him to. I only needed to know he was there when I needed cuddles and kisses. Hugs and embraces.
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