The Color of Heartache

If you had known what it was like to fall in love for the very first time and have had your heart broken so badly, I just want you to know that you are not alone. Even if you can't help but feel lonely as you are trying your best to survive through the pain, the truth remains that such an experience happens to other people, too. Not always, yes, but nonetheless common.

Fairy tales always turn out to be overwrought novels requiring several chapters of heartbreak prior to reaching that sought-after ending: "And they lived happily ever after." Unfortunately for some of us, we are only alerted of how tedious our individual fairy tales is once we are already immersed in it. Mine has been stretching on for soooo long that I have lost count of the many nights I've spent lamenting my loneliness and wallowing in my pain. Again, for some of us, the fairy tales of our lives turn out to be as thick as encyclopedias--marked by so many chapters, some of which will find us getting killed over and over again before we could finally reach the blissful conclusion we so deserve.

But of the many pitfalls I've had, none could probably be as memorable and/or unforgettable as the very first time...Perfection incarnate in beauty he was sublime.

When I first saw Francois, his shirt was the one that immediately arrested my attention.

Standing in front of the infirmary by himself, he stood out among the other freshman students milling about him in their civilian clothing simply because he had chosen to wear the most horrid of all colors: apple green. Tucked neatly in loose fitting denims, the brightness of his top was almost iridescent under the midday sun. Not that I have anything against green or it was an unflattering color for him to start with, but I found it especially unusual for a guy to wear a particular shade of green as lurid as that.

Most of the other guys passing him by wore typical blues, browns, whites, blacks, beiges, or even hunter greens. Usually dark, sober,typical male colors, if anything, but nowhere near the confusingly tinged(with what?) cheeriness of the shade he was donning. I guess if I had known he borrowed it from his sister, I wouldn't have been the least bit surprised, let alone disgusted. There was something about apple green that I find striking and repulsive at the same time. A pretentious cheeriness tinged by something...Something I still can't put a finger on that is both awkwardly sweet and cryptically mad at once.

As he stood next to the post of the covered walk leading to the infirmary, he shifted from one leg to another while fanning himself with a manila envelope. He turned his attention to anyone and everything that passed by, darting his gaze back and forth, as though he was on the verge of losing his patience after waiting for someone for so long. Even if we were distanced from each other by a narrow street, I could clearly see how emotionally transparent those large, puppy-dog eyes were. Sweating profusely with bushy brows knotted at the center of his forehead, something about him uncannily reminded me of a lost child.

Despite the crabby expression etched all over his already reddened face, there was no denying that soft vulnerable spot lurking beneath that fair 17-year-old body. I don't know how I'm able to sense these things in people. The only thing I am sure of is that powerful sense of viability(gut feelings?)when they hit me. Though purely abstract, they are beyond questioning or reason. Thus, for me they are just as real and undeniable as anything tangible.

Having this kind of sensitivity did not spare me from the pain though. Heck, it did not even give me so much as the slightest notice that as I was sitting there across from the infirmary with my attention on the guy wearing that disgusting apple green shirt, I was already being inducted to the insane world of hopeless romantic love. The latest addition to the throng of pathetic hopeless romantics who would play the role of always-the-broken-hearted one with utmost grace, dignity, and perfection.