But only when you get close enough to catch their hurt will they be close enough to catch your love.
-John Ortberg
You were the type of girl I easily fancied (in a not sexually-attracted way). You were quiet, petite, and planned to take an Arts major. We were from the same foundation program but I didn't think that I'd get to talk to you a few more times since I never actually had a history of being real close to arts people even if I would love to. I would have to thank you for that smile you gave me during our first break that did give me hope of that and as Maths was ending earlier, I was already feeling a little giddy inside because we said we'd go to Commonwealth Bank together and I knew the way.
We didn't go though—not because you forgot or anything that sounds mean like that, but because you were hurting. I saw it myself in the wrinkle of your brows when you said your stomach hurt and your arms clenched around your waist. I felt it myself in the shaky tone you talked to your mom over the phone over stretches of waters, even if I couldn't understand a single word.
You said the pain was like waves crashing into your body, rhythmically sweeping up and down. I couldn't quite catch your every word as you made me less of a stranger but I'm certain that you told me twice that you hair was long before and you cut it when you had lost control of yourself because of that same pain and for a greater number of times that you just wanted to go back home, away from this environment that didn't suit you at all—no, maybe not yet—and be close to your mom and grandmother.
You are not an evergreen, are you? I have realised that you are a deciduous kind and for the past days, it has been autumn on your side of the world. I wonder if it got through you that I was glad to have been with you even if it was when everything around you was falling. You really didn't burden me as much as the question that keeps running in my head: will I see you tomorrow? Autumn may be the one that I love best, but it glimpsed my imagination how it would be to spend every season with you and that felt rather warm.