Waiting

He was a college student taking up nursing and he was waiting.

He was sitting inside the classroom, listening to the lecturer, as he fought the sleep far off his consciousness. He was waiting for the time to strike noon when lunch would come, inviting. He was writing notes onto a page of his notebook, inscribing things that would remind him of the important things that he needed to remember. He was jotting down, waiting for his memory to serve him well and help him instill the things that he wrote into his learning. Unconsciously, his thoughts were freeing themselves from the confines of the four-cornered classroom, seeking the face of the girl running around his brain among the beige colored hallways of his university. He was waiting for her to leave his head as he tried to cruise through the topic on complications that could arise from intravenous insertions. He was waiting for her to leave him alone.

And at lunch, when seat works were passed and food started to come into mind, he coolly left the classroom and let his feet carry him to where he usually ate his lunch. He had his eyes spontaneously moving around but not necessarily looking at anything. He prayed, he deeply prayed that she would not cross his path. He prayed for no confrontation. He prayed for no contact, none of hers at the very least.

But he waited still, that at some point he would have even a moment’s glance of her.

His breath was slowly progressing and steadily deepening. He could feel his heart in tachycardia, racing, and pacing fast. He did not know why but for some peculiar reason he was anticipating. He was waiting for the moment when words of anger that he kept inside would be allowed to flow and be screamed out loud. He wanted her to know that she hurt him then, and he is hurting still.

He ravaged the food he bought, which he thought was always a little too salty. And as the oily viand slip effortlessly into his lips, he knew that he there was only one way to keep that girl from running around his tired thoughts. He had to find something else to compete with her relentless talk, with her perfectly soft and long black hair, with her smooth and fair complexion, with everything about her. And good thing there was this one thing that would, the party at the quadrangle tonight.

So he put his iPod on and listened to the music he had to master. And with the loud tearing of the riff by the great sound made by his idolized rhythm guitarist, he slowly flew into the music, with every slide, the hammerings, the strums endless. While the excitement started to build, he waited for the hour when he and his band would play. He waited for the moment of their musical glory, but all the while he too waited for her to disappear from inside him, and try though he might, there was her face that still lingered. He waited in vain.

Lecture passed, and he got his guitar and wore on his change of clothes. He waited and lounged in the council room, wanting to savor the triumph of their set. But as life always does, and as life always is, the thing he did not wait for came.

“Hi James,” the one who filled his thoughts came in.

And he just sat there, with the memories of a love that has passed, with remnants still resonating, crept through his veins, the hands held together, the careless whispers of “I love you”, the kisses shared. He just sat there. His eyes were intent upon hers; he could say nothing for he was waiting for her apology. He wanted to say that she was sorry that she was untrue; he wanted her to beg him to have her back. He waited. All she gave for his waiting was a smile and a whisk of her hair as she grabbed her lyrics and then she headed for the stage. “Our band is next James. Let’s go,” that is all she gave.

He played his rhythm guitar, he sung second to the voice of the girl who caused him much pain. The lights upon him didn’t matter as he glanced incessantly at the girl who lead the band with her glorious singing, the woman he waited for, whose back was turned to him as she delivered the music that they long practiced. He could recall, when the “us” of him and the girl he loved was still the truth, that at one line of this song they were playing, she would leave the audience sight and she would turn around, look at him and sing to him the lines that he knew was meant for him. He waited to hear “and I would never change for I am yours, I am yours, forever yours”. His heart once again in tachycardia, and he waited.

He waited but she never looked back at him. All his waiting was rewarded only by a tear that he shed as he strummed his guitar.