The Secret and Its Stubborn Persistence (3)

Her Perspective

The brush of her long flowing hair against her bare back was the only thing comforting her. Sweat is trickling down her limbs and every part of her body ramrod straight, solely betrayed by her quivering lips. Everything in her life was complicated these days - as if saying, no, thinking this is going to make what little remained of her life more complex. Her nightgown was then whisked by the gentle wind taking her train of thought along with it. She hears a low groan from behind, he is awake. The woman turns, seeing the silhouette of a man and just like that her heart skipped a beat. In the past, her mother said that one day she would love someone able and vulnerable, the woman shrugged, knowing that such a thing isn't possible.

The man was hugging her from behind; she feels every fiber of his muscular arms trying to encase her. She once believed that the capability of loving one person more than herself is impossible and preposterous, something that she would never do but he proved her wrong. 'I was young' she thought, 'young and foolish.' She could always blame her age and innocence for surrendering herself to him but it was only just that, an excuse.

Bearing enough wits and intelligence, the woman was believed to be a good judge of character. He was the first and last to prove that wrong. She met this frivolous man at a bookshop, the one place she makes sure to visit at least once a week, her ticket out of boredom and redundancy. He seemed to be a free spirit, someone who goes with the flow. If she be honest with herself, she thought he was a self-satisfied prig who lives off old money. There it is, her first mistake. She judged him not considering the fact that one, she did meet him at a bookstore and two, he was reading The Beautiful and the Damned - in their case he was beautiful, and she was damned.

It was nothing short of a miracle that their friendship lasted, being as it is that she was very much attached to her masculine side. She liked hanging out with books more than people, music and words the only luxury she allowed herself to have. For her, learning was unending and appearance is overrated, something not to be fussed with. The woman did everything with an air of nonchalance but was easily fascinated by the most peculiarly random things completely unaware that she was coined as a tomboy and considered a geek in every sense of the word. She was the typical bullied high school student with the highest grades that is until he came along.

He glided through everything without even lifting a finger, the talk of the school when he enrolled, easily being the most popular student. And then everybody knew that he was friends with her. The woman thought that this would lead them to leave him alone but the opposite happened. She was invited into his circle, the next thing she knew every guy in the school was asking her out albeit being completely covered up unlike the other girls in her class. Everything was changing, and she did not know if that was for the better. So she ran. She withdrew from society, farther from where she was before he happened. The man broke the cycle. She was living a dreary life, something she considered normal, and then he had to happen and mess things up.

Once rational thinking inhabited her body again, feeling crept in and she had the sudden urge to see him. For once in her life she acted on impulse only to find him writing her a love letter on that board. She was starting to think that everything was a product of her own imagination when he suddenly moved towards her and hugged her. In her mind, there was an alternate reality, one where he hates her with all he has. But the woman could feel the heat radiating from both their bodies and to her that was proof enough that in that fraction of time, everything was right in the world. That was the first time she told him how she really feels, and for reasons still unknown to her, he reciprocated them.

His Perspective

Born to a rich family with anything less than a comely appearance, I grew up in completely identical, controlled, and symmetrical surroundings, having a couple of nannies and staff act as my parents. Monochromatic colors dictated by ancient chivalry as morally decent on every wall instead of a kaleidoscope like a child's mind. Everything has to be ordered, poised, and by the book. But pretending to be something, even honing a juvenile soul into a respectable young man at the snap of a finger is an impossible thing to do, as the one who sired me would learn, hopeless and unattainable - even for a team of professional tutors.

To me, everything has been done before, seen before, heard before. It seemed as if I have been living a life already planned out for me even before I was born, a pre-recorded film doomed to finish simultaneously with my fair share of eternity. A wearying loop of normalcy presiding over an individual, bound by the shackles of a prominent last name. But alas! Tortured and excruciatingly boring persona was not to be. Young me was gearing towards the person everyone expects me to be, some robot of a man considered proper by the obscene standards of society. And then she happened.

I feel light as air whenever I am with her. Spontaneity and mirth becomes me. Never in my life have I felt so free and happy. She made herself be known to my world thirty years ago, appearing out of nowhere at a bookshop I frequent, as stunning as they come. Socially awkward but a warm and wondrous personality to those who actually know her. Stalking might be too strong a word for my thorough and tedious obsession with knowing everything about her. It appeared as if my world was revolving around this girl I barely knew, oblivious at the time of the fact that she was the one who started it spinning in the first place. Her gentle and delicate demeanor shining through her stoic, and almost passive approach. It was as if a hole was dug onto my very core, getting deeper the longer I go on with my life without seeing her just for a moment, a fraction of the lifetime I intended to spend with her.

Epiphany

I only realize it now. That is when I really fell in love with her. She has this knowing humor in her eyes, I am overcome by intoxicating numbness whenever I think of going without her. Oddly enough, my usually strict father approved of me taking a break from my duties and when I asked him the reason after my wife passed away, he told me the real story.

It turns out my father had already run a background check on her prior to my rebelliously asking for a freedom I did not have. He thought she was a commoner, someone who is not of the royal bloodline, but he got the shock of his life when he discovered she was the first princess of the very kingdom my mother was from, a princess who chose to explore the world before settling down inside the confines of a castle. So he allowed me to woo her, allowed me to act as a commoner and live the life of the common folk. I would have been mad if he answered this when I asked a couple of years back, but my father adored my wife and loved my daughter, and for that I forgave him.

There was a visible change in my father's actions and reactions. He smiled more, laughed more, and ultimately became kind again to everyone. My concierge said that this was the man he knew when my mother was still alive. A part of my father died along with my mother, he said. The both of us may be cursed with a sobering fact of losing our first loves, but I was luckier than him in more ways than one. For our daughter, I will always be grateful. She kept her troubled father and grandfather in line, and brought joy to everyone around her. And there was my wife's letter, which ten years after her demise still bears her scent.

My father said you know you are truly in love with a person when you are afraid to love beyond what you can lose. I had that with my wife. My memory might be clouded over time, but loss lives longer. I will hold on to the pain of not being with her but we will meet each other again. Someday.

The Letter

To the best husband in the world,

The secret is a stubborn and persistent thing that will be with you, to haunt you and accompany you, for the rest of your life. You ready to be in on the secret sweetheart? Not yet? Well let me make this easy for the both of us by saying that you are already in on the secret. Your guess is as good as mine, love. The secret is love. My love. And it will guide you and our darling girl even after this earth takes the both of you away from me, even after my body is withered and lifeless. I will be watching over you so don't think for a minute that your deviousness, you rascal, will escape my notice.

Pursuing the lighter note of my previous sentence, I want you to know the sweetest of the numerous ways you expressed your love for me. I may mock you for being over the top but those were the only things anchoring me to the ground because otherwise I would have fluttered off into space, thinking that I was delusional for imagining that someone passionate, funny, vulnerable, and extraordinary like you would fall in love with a rather plain one like me. Enough with the theatrics, I feel like I have indulged myself too much and like light your soul might flutter out of our solar system. I have never been much of a romantic, but on the rare times I allowed myself to loosen up and be truthful to the mumbo jumbo of things inside my head and my heart, you blushed like a high school girl and bawled like a baby. If I continue with the mocking I may never get to what I intended to say.

Do you remember what happened on August 23, 1985? Four years after we became friends. I was on my second year in medical school, you were on your second year in law school. After three years of being together, I still had a hard time telling you that I am in love with you. And there we were, lying under a blanket of stars, lost in each other's eyes. I broke the silence, and then I said it. Finally. Your tough act broken by a traitor tear falling down from your eyes. Do you remember your reply?

"I know."

You were very cocky then, my love. Can you believe we were just 21 years old back then? So young, yet we already found love. To be honest with you, love, I never really realized how deeply troubled I was until then. I never really realized how my heart has been earnestly attached to yours. And I thought I said this would be lighter than saying goodbye to you.

It's coming for me, love. Death. Waiting in the wings for a moment of weakness, and I am afraid that it might take me along with it tonight. If this is the end, then I would like to tell you for the last time in this lifetime. I love you, you stubborn, handsome man. Fate might think that it has outwitted our love, but we will meet again. In another lifetime, under different circumstances. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. And I will keep on telling you I love you until I die... maybe even then.

Take care of our daughter for me. Shower her with as much love as I should have.

I love you,
Your wife.
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----Their daughter's name was Annabel Francesca de la Costa. And this is her story----

P.S. I cannot think of any names suitable for a guy lead in this story. Care to help me a little bit?