Our Love Was Meant to Be Till the End of Time: Prologue
By G.C. Lizzy, Year 11
Our Love Was Meant to Be Till the End of Time
PROLOGUE
December 2006
When I was a child, I believed that you grow up and meet the one – the person who understands you in everything and is there no matter what. I shoved at the heavy wooden door that led to a darkened hall, with the tables off to the side, like white polka dots.
The main spotlight that had been shining on the happy couple all day, got even brighter when the M.C. sang into the microphone for their first dance.
They began their descent down the stairs, hand in hand.
Probably looking down on us all. Looking down on us for not being as happy as them. I made my way over to table seven and began removing the mostly emptied plates.
The couple held each other and glided into the centre of the dance floor, my eyes felt like they might burn a hole between them. You guys are proving my theory. You don’t have to throw it in my face. I started stacking the plates against my chest.
‘So This is Love’ by Ilene Woods and Mike Douglas boomed through the speakers and I nearly let the shaking feeling consume me and let me fall to my knees.
Our song.
I took a deep breath as I became one with the crowd.
Became one with everyone else on the outside of their little bubble.
I felt like I was punched in the face. Our song! Is this a sign?
As the cheers died down and the tidal wave of colourful outfits made its way to join the happy couple, I found myself in the parking lot, two hours too early than I should have been.
I set off to find my missing piece.
I had to take my opportunity.
I know everything will be ok. If only I am in her gaze.
Do we exist to find the one or do we live to die with no one around us at all? I could hear the heels of my dress shoes clipping on the uneven pavement as I stumbled on and off the sidewalk.
I was hot on the trail to find my missing piece.
I could tell the roof had been fixed because it now lacked its quirky birdhouse features. Now it just blurred in with all the other houses I could have missed.
Approaching the dark-yellow picket fence, it was one of the few changes I could view from the outside of the house. This close, I could see the topcoat had chipped away to the original white undercoat, showing itself at the tips of each sanded down peak, as I pushed the gate open.
I quietly ran up the steps to the house.
My heart was in my hand, it still thumped with the same passion I felt the first time I picked her up here.
I could see myself in the glass panels either side of the door, my black tuxedo and trench coat were perfectly camouflaged, the only visible clothing were the white button-down shirt and the red tie that accompanied the ensemble.
Peering into the glass, I could have screamed when I saw the photos that lined her narrow hallway.
I knew it! I knew I would find her.
My hand made a pathetic attempt to calm me, as it covered my gaping mouth.
Footsteps.
Oh shit!
A blonde girl swung the door open.
Malvina.
The same blonde girl I loved no more than two years ago.
“Richard, did you get…”, her eyes went wide when she finally looked at me.
“Tim! What are you doing here?”
I am sorry, who is Richard?
My eyes spotted the same photo I just saw through the glass – now with the open door, I can see the full picture: her in a loving embrace with another man.
His dark hair brought weight to the photo and his blue eyes stung with a hidden darkness that chipped at my heart.
That is the same way I used to hold her.
The sight of another man holding her sent a white rage through me that translated to my clenched fists.
The only other time I remember feeling this way was when I found the same exact photo of her with another man at their formal.
Over two years ago, searching around her room, in the very house I now stand in front of, I stumbled upon another photo of her with a guy that had light blond hair and the bluest eyes you have ever seen. He looked like he belonged in an American teen drama – letterman jacket included.
The only thing that set him apart was a black stripe through his right eye, as if he was fatally struck there in another life.
Most people would hide it – I would, if I was him.
Studying that blond-haired boy that moment I found it – the way his smile took up his whole face as he held a straight back, arms wrapped around her, proudly showing off. His smugness radiated off the page.
The photo that hangs in her hallway brought back the same haunting feeling of smug superiority that radiated out of the wooden frame, commanding attention the same way the boy with the striped right eye brought to the page.
Where have I seen those eyes before?
This thought was interrupted with the growing realisation.
How could this have happened?
I have carried everything we went through.
Everything we did together.
Will she remember as well?
I could only say “I am sorry! Who is Richard?”
This piece is an excerpt from Our Love Was Meant to Be Till the End of Time, a novella written by G.C. Lizzy in Story Factory’s Year of the Novella program. In this program, young people commit to attending workshops for a year and write their very own poetry collection, which is professionally edited, published and launched into the Sydney literary landscape.