Page 37 of Fervency Love

“What’s up, bro?” he asks.

“You fooling around with my girl?” Finally, my Ve is back. He’s poking fun at Stan.

“Sure thing, bro. I told you she’s my favorite friend,” Stan retorts with a grin.

“I’m right here, gentlemen. Forgot about me?” I chuckle. “I’m not fooling around with anyone, and it’s not going to change anytime soon.”

A few moments of quipping and Ve’s pulling me away by the arm, saying goodbye to our friend.

“Everything alright? Where were you coming from?” I ask when we’re alone.

“I went to Ted’s. Helped out with the car. What were you two doing anyway?” he asks. Do I hear envy in his voice?

“I had to get out for some air after the unwanted and unannounced visit from a kid I never felt anything special for and who I don’t intend to return to. He got under my skin. Especially the moment I discovered you sent him to me. I was just walking around the block when I met Stan.” I send Ve a bitter look. For a while, he stays silent. Then, he takes my face in his hands and leaves a wet kiss on my lips. “I’m not going to let this go, Ve!”

“He pissed me off. I heard what he was saying about you. I made him go and apologize. If he didn’t, I was going to kick his head in. I thought it was a great idea until the moment I realized I didn’t want him to go anywhere close to you. So I got mad at myself for making him do it, and I took it out on you.”

“I understand. Thank you for telling me this. But I’m not really interested in what people say about me. In most cases they’re wrong. I’m used to it. Boys who won’t ever have me always say the worst things. Girls jealous of me for spending so much time with boys also tend to have some stories about me. I just don’t care. I used to, maybe, but I got past it.”

Someone must have hurt him badly. I’m no expert in psychology, but he hasn’t opened himself up to me like that before. I still don’t understand much. Still, I think it has to be something deeper. Behavior like that always stems from a lack of self-confidence. More elements are clicking into place.Despite everything, I’m discovering more things that we have in common or had in common long before we met.

A month has passed today since the day Ve told me I was his. I’m going to him now. Conflicting emotions are clashing in my head. I don’t know what I feel anymore. I hate being in this condition. I loathe the childish acting out on his part, and there’s been more of that lately. There are so many dissonant elements to him—uncertainty and confidence at the same time. I’m a simple, open girl. I tell him everything, but it’s as if he still can’t believe I don’t want to double-cross, disappoint, or hurt him. He doesn’t seem to accept the thought that he can be important to someone, that somebody really cares for him. I have never seen myself as anything special. On the contrary—for quite some time I had seen myself as a worthless, ugly, fat girl who would never catch the eye of any boy. This changed somewhat when various boys started to make passes at me. But there haven’t been many. I really only dated a guy I met on vacation, and the fling ended with the holiday break too. We wrote to each other for some more time, but that was it. I used to like that other boy, too, but that came to nothing. That’s for the best, anyway. He overdosed on acid and went completely batshit. He grew strange, a bit crazy in a bad way. For some time in primary school, I dated a boy named Ben. Then there was Charles, but that was just kids horsing around. Then came Roger—my first real love, though I fell for him mainly because of the way he looked at me, the way he cared. He was a romantic and looked after me. The way he treated me made me feel special and beautiful. After that, I was with Ralph. We started dating because I wanted to. I got it into my head to be with the guy. None of those “relationships” survived. I’m still not sure if they were supposed to pull me outof the mire of negative thoughts I had about myself, and I used to be stuck in it neck deep. Thanks to those boys I finally felt pretty. But none of it was meant to last. Nevertheless, Ralph was the last one. I was completely in the dumps after we broke up. Maybe Ve is afraid something is still going on between us. But that’s simply not the case. I’m over him. I have been since I met Matt. I had an enormous crush on him, but that wasn’t it either. Besides, he was the reason I started thinking bad things about myself again—seeing myself as useless. It was only Ve that made me feel pretty again. He accepted me for who I am. No. That’s not the word. He adores everything about me, even the parts of me I feel self-conscious about, like my toes. I’ve always been ashamed of the way they looked, and he loves them. So I started to believe they were okay, beautiful even. I had no choice and fell in love with them like he did. The thought makes me smile.

I stop by Ve’s door and knock.

“Hello, my gorgeous.” He opens the door wider and invites me inside.

“Good morning,” his dad calls. Before I can reply, Ve grabs me by the hand and pulls me towards his room. He shuts the door, faces me, and offers me a red rose. I sense his nervousness, his unease. I smell the beautiful flower and hear his words: “I care about you so much. I think I fell in love with you.”

I raise my brows. My eyes are wide with shock. I don’t know what to say to that. It took me completely by surprise. I cannot say the same, though. It’s great, hearing this. He’s a great guy. I really want to tell him the same, but I still need some time. My trust in other people isn’t what it used to be. Before I give my heart away, I need to be sure the person I offer it to won’t leave me and stomp it into the ground. Or maybe I’m only trying to convince myself that I don’t reciprocate his feelings? Otherwise, why would that magical force keep pulling me to him time and time again?

Without any clear idea of what to say, and not wanting to leave him hanging, I put the flower down and hug Ve closely. He pulls away and fixes me with a long look.

“I thought… I’ve made a fool of myself, haven’t I? Too early? I scared you.”

“Ve, calm down. I’m glad you said that. I just can’t explain to you what I’m feeling yet. I’m less trusting than I used to be. I know one thing for certain, though: I adore you and I love spending all the time with you. It’s just that… your mood swings make me afraid. I’m afraid that you’ll hurt me and leave. I’d like to understand you, but you just tell me so little.”

“That’s good enough. ‘Adore’ is what I wanted to hear!”

Ve sits down on his bed and pulls me with him. I land in his lap. He looks me in the eyes and brushes a strand of hair from my brow, leaning in and kissing me on the lips. I return it, and my tongue slips through my lips. It wants more. Ve doesn’t need much. He presses against my lips, leaving them wet and chafing after an instant.

“You’re trying to take my attention off your mood swings,” I say, taking a breath. “Tell me more about them.”

He doesn’t reply, instead pushing me to the bed and climbing atop me, pressing his entire body to mine and finding a place between my legs. So that’s what it’s going to be. No answer. How am I supposed to trust him? I’m utterly lost as to his motivations when he’s so conflicted. But I do like these moments we spend together. We can sit and talk for hours. I can have a bad day, and it’s enough that he shows up and the world disappears magically. He’s my remedy for everything. Not sure how this works, but we just jell. It’s natural. However, my approach to life is very different to his. Ve’s always smiling, laughing at me for believing in things he sees as stupid and unreal. I know that. The things I heard participating in meetings in my parents’ companies resonate with me. The examples described by Tony Robinson orJoseph Murphy speak louder than the words of priests at church or teachers at school. I have a conviction that though Ve’s mind is more rational than mine, deep inside he knows I’m right. Especially that magic happens in my life. I get something in my head, imagine it, and the thing comes true. I have vision boards. In our young relationship, he’s earth and I’m water. He plants his feet firmly on the ground, while I’m in the clouds, going with the flow. Connor and I are a bit like yin and yang—one cannot exist without the other, like the day cannot exist without the night, light without the darkness, and death without life. The two primal, opposing but complementary forces.

Ve gets up to grab us something to drink. He puts on some music. Tede’s catchy song booms from the speakers. I like hip-hop. The next song, 50 Cent, ends when Carla appears at the door.

“Hi, Abigail,” she chirps.

“Hey, what’s up?”

Carla is Ve’s younger sister. She’s very nice, though I can sense a kind of extreme energy from her. I haven’t had the time to take a closer look at it, so I don’t know what extreme she represents and what direction she’s following. Who knows, maybe we’ll become friends?

“Everything’s fine. I just popped by to say hi,” she says quickly and disappears.

Ve returns with two mugs of tea. I take a sip. It’s perfect.

“How did you become interested in hip-hop?” I ask.

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