I can only hold on to the things I want to lose, I'm thinking of the day we met, I saw her approaching when she was still far away, I was fifteen, she was seventeen, we sat together on the grass while our fathers spoke inside, how could we have been younger?
We talked about nothing in particular, but it felt like we were talking about the most important things. We looked at each other until it felt like everything would burst into flames. She laughed and said, "You don't understand yourself," I said, "Of course I do," she said, "Of course," I said, "I do!" She said, "There's nothing wrong with not understanding yourself," she saw through the shell of me into the center of me.
She went home with her father, the center of me followed her, but I was left with the shell of me, I needed to see her again, I couldn't explain my need to myself, and that's why it was such a beautiful need, there's nothing wrong with not understanding yourself.
The next day, I walked half an hour to her house, I was too ashamed or embarrassed to make myself known to her, I looked for her all day but didn't see her, I promised myself I would stay until I found her, but as night began to come in, I knew I had to go home, I hated myself for going, why couldn't I be the kind of person who stays?
I couldn't stop thinking about her even though I hardly knew her, I didn't know what good would come over going to see her, but I knew that I needed to be near her, it occurred to me, as I walked back to her the next day with my head down, that she might not be thinking of me. I had to go home, and then the next day, I had to go back to her.
I waited all day, did she go on some sort of trip, was she on an errand, was she hiding from me? The harder I tried not to think about her, the more I thought about her, the more impossible it became to explain, I went back to her house, I walked the road between our two neighborhoods with my head down, she wasn't there again. I went again the next day, with each step I further convinced myself that she had thought badly of me, or worse, that she hadn't thought of me at all.
In between our two villages, on the verge of losing everything, I bumped into something and was knocked to the ground, at first I thought it was a tree, but then that tree became a person, who was also on the ground, and I saw that it was her, and she saw that it was me, "Hello," I said, brushing myself off, "Hello," she said. "Where are you going?" I asked. "Just for a walk," she said, "and you?" "Just for a walk." "That's not true," I said, not knowing what the next words out of my mouth would be, but wanting, more than I'd ever wanted anything, to express the center of me and be understood. "I was walking to see you." I told her, "I've come to your house each of the last six days. For some reason I needed to see you again."
She was silent, I had made a fool of myself, there's nothing wrong with not understanding yourself, and she started laughing, and then I started laughing out of the most deep and complete shame. She laughed and laughed, "That explains it," she said when she was able to speak. "It?" "That explains why, each of the last six days, you weren't at your house." We stopped laughing, I took the world into me, rearranged it, and sent it back out as a question: "Do you like me?"
-- Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
