Her father has accepted the fact we will be friends, and yes, I needed that sort of permission. However, he doesn’t know of my health issues. But Tris does. She knows, and she still persists. She feels it, too. She mentioned fate, and I have felt the same since the second I pulled her from Hugo’s direction and my lips touched hers.
So, here I stand, amongst the crowd, testing this theory of fate. If she sees me, if she’s drawn to me, I won’t deny her again. If she doesn’t, God help me, I will walk away … or at least try.
She thinks she’s a mess, but what a beautiful mess she is.
Just like the previous concerts, I am enthralled. Throughout the entire performance, I find myself entranced by her act, of her shyness, pain, sadness, and anger.
Knowing now that the emotions she radiates are real and deeply felt make it so much more than just a performance. Emotions I was once addicted to, the upsweep and the downpour that I want to even out for her, to help ease the pain that bore them, to drink from the serenity that comes while we lay entwined in each other’s arms, bodies touching, hearts beating together, two souls connected in a way in which I have never felt and, I know after meeting her, I never will again.
Not ever.
I know her show. I know that her last song is approaching, and the sadness of the reality that she hasn’t once looked to where I stand in wait, in desire, in need for it to happen, settles above me like a lightning bolt threatening to strike me dead. I look around and see her entire family … and him.
I have never hated before. Hate is born of ignorance. I have read a thousand books on all subjects that lure me to them so that I may understand and become knowledgeable about where hate derives from. Therefore, I understand that it’s wrong on more levels than the earth, the atmosphere, or the ocean itself. So, I will settle on: I do not hate this Marcello Effisto, but it does not make me happy to see him, standing a few rows back, with dozens of others I have seen or, as she said, stalked on social media, surrounding her family.
Having not been raised with religion and only finding it later in life, I feel ridiculous that I want to drop to my knees and pray for her to see me. Instead, I stand, eyes closed, knowing the hurt my soul will feel when the realization that this may possibly be just something I have secretly yearned for all my years and ignored until her, something I have manifested in recent weeks.
When the music ends and the crowd goes wild, I stand in a purgatory of my own making. I force my eyes to open so that I can watch the abolishment of the charade that I have construed, so that I can visually see its demise and be able to accept the reality that she was not a gift to my soul as I have allowed myself to believe.
I look at her frozen on stage, tension rolling off her in waves as she looks at him, at Marcello Effisto. Her eyes then shift in the general direction that I stand in until the moment they meet mine.
She smiles, and I release a breath. In the span of moments that feels like a lifetime, she is standing in front of me, looking up and waiting.
“Are you gonna kiss me or what?” She beams, eyes a rainbow of greens and yellows and browns, energy as white as snow and light as air.
“Yes, Tris.” I take her face between my hands. “And God help me, I can’t promise I will ever stop.”
She sweeps her tongue across her lips as I lean in and take them as she intends on giving them to me and making them mine.
Backstage, we hold hands and, even amongst the sea of glares and obvious discontent, the heavy doesn’t penetrate the feeling of wonder, peace, and belonging that surrounds us, just us.
Bodies facing one another, impervious to the negative energy, I feel peace at a different level than I have ever experienced.
“I’ve drawn and painted your face a dozen times since the day I met you. Your smile today is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
“Then you’ll draw it again and, while you’re doing that, I’m going to write hymns about how fast my heart beats when you’re close.” She laughs. “And totally fuck up the man-hating brand I’ve built.”
“I’m not sure how, but I’m going to have to get used to seeing an angel use vulgar language, aren’t I?”
She laughs louder now, and it’s from deep inside. “I’ll see if I can change that.”
“I’d rather you not change a thing.”
“Tris,” a not-so-happy voice booms from behind us. “You have a line of fans waiting for you a mile long.”
She looks around me. “Yet only one that I’m at all—”
“This is the last show on the European tour. You’re contractually obligated.”
“Really, Patrick?” she huffs.
“Go, greet the people whose hearts you touch in song.”
“But I—”
“If it were my nieces, I wouldn’t want them disappointed.”
“And you’ll be right here when I get back?”
“If I have to leave, I’ll message you.”
Her brows knit. “But my phone’s not charged.”
“Yes, let’s not allow that to continue hap—”
“You can charge it there, Tris. Come on.”
I turn and look back at Patrick. “I can promise that she will be loved.”
“And I can promise you she already fucking is,” he snaps.
“Patrick!” Tris yells at him in my defense.
“Please, don’t. He loves you. He’s being protective in the way your family—”
“As men protect people they love—family.” He’s angry, so very angry.
“Enough!” she yells at him. “No more!”
I take her face, turn it back toward me, and whisper, “Tris, go.” I kiss her forehead. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Her smile, a gift.
I want so much to say the words that easily fall from her lips, the word love. I feel it beyond my decaying heart, deeper than I have ever felt and ever will again.
“I have so much to tell you.”
“I’ll charge my phone, I’ll hurry, I’ll—”
“We have time.”
Her smile changes a bit, sadness in our reality, and I repeat, “We have time.”
Walking away, her band and her sister surrounding her, her cousin Patrick behind her, she is a vision.
I wish I had a sketchpad with me now. I wish that …
My thoughts are interrupted by a throat clearing, and I look beside me.
Her bodyguard is standing there, arms crossed, right next to me, looking at her. “You know what you’re getting yourself into?”
“I do.”
“And you think her family is going to allow this?” he asks, putting a wooden toothpick in his mouth.
“That is something she and I will handle together.”
“She’s seventeen; you get that, right?”
“I’m aware of her age in years; however, her soul—”
“Fucking piece of shit.”
The words come from behind me right before I feel fists upon my back, pushing me to the ground like some rabid animal.
I quickly stand and turn to face him.
“Marcello, that’s enough.” A man I assume to be his father grabs him and holds him back.