Previously…

“Kris….” He struggled with the words, but they didn’t come. He shook his head and his eyes teared up as Kris reached over with her left hand and grabbed his; a gesture more suited to friends… close friends…than comrades in arms. Olivia looked at the woman’s hand and noticed a small but attractive ring. She looked up and Kris was staring at her; a sympathy she could do without even if well intended from a nice person.

“I know.”

Just like the sea
No one possesses you
And no one can go down to
The deepest side of you
Just like a tree
Decades and memories
Articulate and seal
Every one of your dreams
When I need you I secretly sing you this part of my soul

The Benedetto home…

Carlo was late for a group date at the local pizza place which promised to split off into a more intimate if entirely chaste time between him and his girlfriend. He walked into the kitchen where Olivia sat at the table. He kissed Olivia on the cheek and spoke softly.

“I love you sis. Mika and I will be thinking of you and maybe praying, okay?” He didn’t wait for the answer, but kissed her again in parting before running out the door.

“It hurts, Mom. I made a fool of myself!” Olivia manipulated a fork around a barely-touched portion of Shepherd’s Pie. Alicia poured two mugs of coffee and placed them on the table. Sitting down, she touched Olivia’s arm. The girl pulled her mother close and welcomed a hug.

“I know, honey. It really looked good for a while. It hurts more than you can even say, right?” She rubbed the girl’s arm.

“It felt like he really wanted to start something.” It really was all about feelings and senses and impressions, since they hardly had talked since they rediscovered each other. And now to find he was engaged? From her standpoint, it was more about assumptions and presumptions and foolish dreams. She began to cry softly; not a self-piteous wail, but more a deep regret for being vulnerable and willing to try, even when that had to be the way for her to live her life. What other choice did she have; do any of us really have other than put ourselves out.

“It felt like…I’m so stupid.” She shook her head and Alicia mirrored her expression in disagreement.

“No, honey…you’re just a girl…a human being, in fact.” Alicia remembered her own hopes and dreams with Tony Sr. and how building both him and the relationship up much greater than what either deserved while allowing him to pull her down. Matt certainly wasn’t treating Olivia that way, but the hurt was just as hurtful.

“I thought he was an angel, Mom….honest to God….it felt like he was sent….just for me. I’m so stupid.” She leaned closer to her mother and wept hard. Alicia felt so helpless; nothing she could say or do would take the pain away. She patted Olivia on the back and spoke softly.

“You’re my girl…shhhh…. Shhhh.

Why do I love
Why do I hate and die
Where do these things all lie
I don't know why I cry
When I need you I secretly sing you this part of my soul

Elsewhere…

Two figures almost huddled against the November cold; their bare bodies drawing warmth from each other just as their hearts drew similar strength. The younger was perhaps older than her years from the loss and grief and change she sustained. The older was likely younger because of the heart that beat optimistically from an unshakeable faith in spite of great pain.

“You okay? I hate when I hurt you like that,” she said, sighing heavily.

“You didn’t hurt me; and your touch reminded me that the hurt is temporary but love is forever.” The younger woman not only blushed at her lover’s words but began to cry; a relieved sobbing from being fulfilled and given hope from someone who had no right but every duty to hope.

“It’s okay. It’s going to happen, honey…. A lot, in fact, and you can’t do a thing about changing that. All we can do is live with it and maybe move along as much as we can.

“I feel so helpless.”

“You almost are; at least in this case, Erin.” Kristen pulled Erin’s right hand to her lips and kissed the palm; sending a shiver down the girl’s spine. Barely nineteen and lost in so many ways, the girl still knew from almost the time she was born that she knew that she knew, as some put it. She fought feelings of insecurity nearly every day, as so many girls her age and background feel; although Kristen could give her a run for her money in that regard. Words come to mind that describe the emotions she felt on a daily basis. Inauthentic. Unreal. Phony was especially tenacious.

But even though they started from two different kinds of beginnings, Kristen felt the same things almost as frequently. Where Erin felt incomplete and perhaps lacking because of her birth, Kristen felt almost the same way because of her life….or rather, the death she survived, in a way.

“I feel helpless all the time until I remember I have you.” Kristen said as she stroked the girl’s face.

“And then I realize that in you God gave me all the help I’d ever need.” She smiled at the girl; tears seemed to come painfully slow for her, but when they arrived they fell like a summer downpour. She looked at the girl; eyeing her up and down wasn’t so much a sensual experience as an inventory of the gifts the girl enjoyed even as she lacked in so many others.

“I hate myself.” The girl complained. She did. It wasn’t a simpering plaint for attention but rather a real expression of how she felt about herself. Nothing short of the change that was due soon would make a difference in the way she felt. But she had someone who gave her hope and help as well.

“I love your self,” Kristen mused. The whole person, ‘warts and all,’ as the old saying goes. The things that she still retained that she nearly despised even as they remained integral parts of whom Kristen had come to love. They hadn’t meant to fall in love, as many find on a nearly daily basis. If they had been different ages or different genders or different whatever, it would have been the same, since they were drawn together in an experience that seemed to hearken to the designs of a loving god.

“I don’t…. I can’t…” Even as Erin spoke her eyes cast downward to that part of her that made her almost cower in fear of never changing. The thing that made her what she wished to leave continued to remind her almost moment by moment; the product of thoughts that seemed to derive energy from some youth that remained. And when you don’t like yourself, it’s always hard to forget.

“The first day I saw you I fell in love with you.” Kristen said; stroking her chin almost like a mother might encourage a child. Maybe there was some of that in their relationship, but nothing is concrete when it comes to love other than perhaps the determination behind the love. Kristen was nearly ten years older than Erin, which might raise eyebrows even in an older-man/younger-woman pairing. And truth be told? If Erin came to her tomorrow and said she wasn’t going through with her surgery, it would have been just fine. But nothing she could say or do would change the way things were…not just how Erin felt or thought, but the deep-down core of her being that cried out for change.

“I don’t….I…” The voice was weak; almost a quiver. She looked at Kristen’s hand and then her own. Matching rings that spoke of commitment. Even that was hard for her, since as a student she had nothing but the clothes on her back and the love in her heart to bring to the relationship. She sighed heavily, wanting very much to cry. She held back a lot; feeling a need to not be an emotional burden to Kristen, but she could have cried her eyes out every night and it would have made no difference to the woman who loved her from the start.

“I do…” Kristen said as she began stroking the girl’s thigh. It was almost a frightening moment for the girl; that feeling of having to reciprocate in an identical manner that we all sometimes get. She reached out and went to stroke Kristen’s thigh and pulled her hand back with a start, as if it was she who had been shocked by the energy of the touch. She stared at Kristen’s leg, following the lines of the beautiful thigh to a very well-turned knee. Her gaze stopped abruptly at the sight of the beginning of scars that came to an end at the stump of Kristen’s left ankle.

“It’s alright.” Kristen said softly, pulling Erin’s hand gently back into place at the terminus.

“I’m so…..so…sorry.” For what? Sorry that Kristen had sacrificed part of herself? Sorry that she herself felt incapable of showing love without being somehow clumsy or insensitive? Or sorry that she was incomplete herself? The girl turned away and buried her head in the clump of sheets that had bunched up on the side of the bed.

She began to sob. It wasn’t too much to take in for the long run; times like these might repeat, but would have no hold on either of them as their love grew. But for that moment in time, it was indeed too much; an inconsolable feeling of guilt and shame that she wasn’t a woman, but she was never a man, either. Feelings that she believed disqualified her for the love she was destined to share with the woman who had saved her brother’s life.

Why do I love
Why do I hate and die
Where do these things all lie
I don't know why I cry
When I need you I secretly sing you this part of my soul

Starbucks, Mt. Hope, Avenue, a few days later…

Yeliel, my angel
Know that I can hear you
And every word you speak is holy
Wind caressing me

Yeliel, my angel
Know that I can see you
And when I fall I feel your arms around my destiny
Protecting me
I do believe
Some things are mysteries
The simple fact that we stand alive
that we breathe

Olivia tried very hard to avoid any public place on campus for fear of meeting Matt and his girlfriend. But life has a lovely and funny way of changing plans. A last minute change in venue brought her to the Starbucks just off campus for an impromptu support group meeting. She sipped her cocoa as she looked around for the other girls, and her eyes fell upon a trio sitting near the back.

Matt sat next to the girl and another girl, her back to Olivia’s gaze, seemed to be speaking with a great deal of animation. She went to turn away, but the girlfriend spotted her. Before she could feign missing the wave, the woman had stood up and was walking briskly toward her.

“Hi…I’m so surprised to see you.” Olivia looked at her and while the stare wouldn’t ‘kill’ anyone, neither would it impart any feelings of well-being.

“I’m sorry about the other day. You left before I could talk with you.” Olivia shook her head only slightly; was it her fault she discovered that the man she loved was engaged to be married? Was it her fault she ran away to hid her tears? In a smile that could only be taken in a good way, the woman’s expression seemed to assist her lift Olivia out of the chair and along the aisle back to where the other two sat. In a move that was both awkward and surprising, the woman helped her to her seat next to Matt. And then as if to make a second and more important point, she kissed Matt softly on the top of the head before turning her attention to the girl who sat across from Olivia.

“I think you three have some talking to do. I’ve got to get my dry-cleaning before they close. I’ll meet you at home. ‘Home,’ a word that warmed the hearts of each of them. She leaned closer and kissed the girl full on the lips, which startled her and surprised the hell out of Olivia. It was only then that she realized the ring she had seen many days before was a twin to the ring on the other girl’s hand. Her face began to grow hot; enough to give her cocoa competition as her cheeks grew red. A moment later the woman was gone.

“I’m sorry. I feel so bad.” The younger girl made a habit of feeling bad over which things she had little or no control.

“No.” Matt spoke up. His word wasn’t dismissive or final, but sounded exactly as it was meant to sound; an admission that the bad feelings were entirely his fault, even if they were justifiable. He turned to Olivia and put his hand on her arm; a tender, almost brotherly gesture.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to keep anything from you, but I didn’t know how to tell you.” He turned and faced the girl across the table.

“My sister Erin here told me to be open and honest, and she’s done her level best to avoid saying ‘I told you so.’” He smiled.

“You….you may not remember me, but we know each other.” Erin smiled at Olivia. The face might have been a bit familiar, but the name and the voice didn’t sound familiar at all. But the girl’s smile, coupled with an almost soft giggle, seemed entirely familiar. It came to her that she’d not only seen the girl with Matt but also in Resources office. Her eyes widened slowly; almost a reluctant recognition for who knows what reason. Erin smiled more broadly and giggled a bit louder and Olivia cocked her head in question.

“I teased you two a loooooong time ago, Olivia. I just didn’t look like…. This.” She cast her eyes downward to indicate her body.

“Oh shit…” The words came out and Olivia felt even more embarrassed, but her feelings of awkwardness were balanced by the recollection of a dear friend from the not so distant past.

“Aaron?” Erin nodded. Oddly enough; in trying to verify her suspicions, it would be the final time that Erin would hear that name time in her lifetime. Somehow where the true love of her brother and the dedication and love of her partner failed, the odd acceptance from someone just like her in a way helped to finally dispel most of the feelings of being unreal. The girl before her was real enough, and that would help it be enough for her.

“Well, I’ve got to go and you two need to talk. We can catch up on old times later, though there have been a lot of changes that sort of make those old times a very distant memory, you know. Anyway. I’ll see you, okay?” She stood and walked around the corner of the table and kissed Olivia on the cheek; an abrupt and totally unexpected but entirely welcomed gesture. She just waved to Matt before walking out of the store.

“Kristen saved my life. We both did rehab in the same hospital in Germany and then back in the states. And Erin… Well, I guess she knows better than anyone what you’ve gone through.” She frowned and put her head down but he continued.

“She was so taken by Kristen’s loyalty to me…the friendship we had found? It was almost…” Matt paused, not wanting to call attention to what he knew in his heart about Olivia’s devotion to him that spanned years without contact. Olivia spoke softly; barely above a whisper.

“I… Mom said it the other day…. The old ‘carrying a torch’ thing. What….” She grunted a very heavy sigh, remembering how she felt the exact same way for Matt.

“You have to understand… Back when we met. It was…” She looked down at her shoes, trying not to look at all at his face.

“When you kissed me the first time…before you knew? It was like heaven and hell all mushed together. I felt so… it was something so nice. But I felt like I was a liar… a fake. I was going to tell you…really. But Aaron…. You were so angry. I think you felt betrayed?” Matt’s expression didn’t quite answer her question, but neither did it argue with it.

“And then for you to come back at the end….to understand? It was like you changed me. Before we even talked, I thought about this….” She used her hand to indicate her body.

“I thought about just giving up. Like who was I to argue with God, you know? But then you changed it all by kissing me the second time. It was like being told that I was okay….I wasn’t something to hate…” Olivia bit her lip and shuddered at the sight of the tears running down Matt’s face.

“You… it was like you were an angel.” He whispered.

“I needed to change and you needed to change and he sent us to each other.”

“But it’s more than that. You can’t know how much…. How often…” She choked back a sob.

“I loved you. It was more than just you accepting me. It went beyond being put up with or just accepted. The look in your eye…” She choked back another sob as she saw he was looking at her in exactly the same way. He sighed.

“I know this sounds…” He paused. The idea of what he was about to say might be very shameful in a way, but if he knew her, she’d understand.

“I know you can’t… well, I’ll never be able to…” He put his head down and began to weep. She pulled him close. It wasn’t about function at all, but about the difference between feeling whole and feeling incomplete; something she was all too familiar with. She kissed him on the cheek.

“You…” Speaking words of hollow consolation was foolish, but she felt like she needed to say something.

“I….I love you, Matt. I’ve loved you from the moment I first met you, and I love you now more than ever. Will you please love me?” It wasn’t an invitation on her behalf so much as his. Could he let go enough to allow her in and love him? Could he…could both of them, for that matter, move past how they saw themselves and embrace what each saw in the other? After all, aren’t we all flawed and found wanting in some ways? Matt turned his head and faced her; a forced if necessary smile crossed his face.

“Yes?” The question was more for him than for her; another self-examination that he was able to pass with only a bit of effort as he repeated it once more, but this time as a statement of fact.

“Yes.”

So what started as a first kiss ended up being a very long series of kisses that, as far as I know, are continuing with increasing passion, understanding and love. And of course, hope. May it be so for all of us...

Yeliel (My Angel)
Words and Music by
the performer
Lara Fabian
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TeqU6T8jUEQ