We never know

We never know.

                  I remember that day, my mother and I had just moved into the neighborhood. We were unloading the boxes, when that person came towards me with that basket full of apples.

              “Um..hello” she greeted “ I am Rose. I live three blocks from here.”

              “Oh yeah, hi, I am Chad” I introduced myself.

              “These are for you. My Mother wanted to give it to your family”  she blushed and handed me the apples

                “Thanks.” I took the apples and just then, mom came into sight.

        “Well, well you already made new friends” she cried out excited. I looked at mom, and rolled my eyes.

          “Hi, I am Nina, Chad’s mom” she introduced herself to Rose.

          “Hi, I am Rose” Rose smiled.

            “What a lovely name!” Mom clapped her hands as she said that, “And you’re just as lovely as your name sounds.”  I noticed Rose blushed as mom complimented her. I thought, seriously mom, she does not.  I kept unloading as mom and Rose were having some girl talks.

          Now that I think back, I have not really noticed Rose. That first encounter with her was just like meeting those ordinary people. Some few weeks later, I started school and mom with her work. I made some new friends who lived around the same neighborhood and we would always go play football or some video games. I rarely saw Rose and when I did, she would give me a quick hello and walk off; I wondered why she was always that withdrawn.

          Time passed by and I was no longer the new kid, I had a normal childhood as every 13 year old boy would. So was my teen years, mom and I had most of our fights during those times. Somehow, we survived and when I had finally graduated, I went into college.

                  Mom cried a lot when I was moving out. It almost seemed to me like she was crying because I was dead. My college was not even an hour drive from home. I do not get women and why they get so worked up about small things.

          College was exciting, I liked my independent life, no grounding or doing chores, I woke up whenever I wanted and lazed around all the time.

                I was finding a place in the library to sleep because my roommate had just invited his girlfriend over. I don’t know why he can’t just go to the girl’s room. When you have a girl, you have to bow down to all of her words and treat her like a princess.

            As far as I had known,there never was a single couple among my friends who acted normal. Everyone goes guchi-guchi-goo when in love. Then again, do they even have the slightest idea of love?

              At the far end of the library there was a girl seated. I went towards her because that was the only place with less people around and it was right at the corner.

      “Excuse me?” I say, the girl looks up and she stays motionless for almost a minute. “Hello?” I wave my hand at her. The girl shakes her head.

        “Chad?!” She says my name, “Oh my god it’s me!?”

        “Um,” I am confused. Who is she? “Yeah? Do we know each other?”

          “Well of course!”

          “I am sorry I don’t rem- “

        “I am Rose!” she cuts me off. The name slowly comes in my head. Rose. Rose.

          “Ah, Rose, I remember, neighbors, weren’t we?”

        “Yes” she nods.

          “Wow you have grown up,” I tell her not knowing what else to say. I really want to sleep and cut the conversations short but it would seem rude if I ask her to give me her seat so that I could sleep. Would it?

        “So, how have you been?” She asks me. Uh oh there goes the start of never ending conversation. Just then, the library attendant Mrs. Kim comes stomping towards us.

          “Excuse me.” she says in a very stern voice, “if you want to talk please go outside”

        “No that’s o-“

        “Okay we will go out” Rose interrupts me and eyes me to go out with her. I really want to sleep but I reluctantly go out. When we reach outside the library she smiles at me, she was definitely not the Rose who was always withdrawn and would who just say Hi then following with the next word bye. It is amusing how people change.

          “Do you want to go grab a bite?” She asks. Sensing I am broke for almost a week now, I shake my head.

          “No, I just ate” I make an excuse.

          “Aww come on, the treat is on me!” She jumps pleadingly. Knowing that I have not ate the whole day; the thought of getting food for free makes my head automatically nod okay.

          “Where do you want to go?” she asks.

          “Wherever.”

          “Okay lets walk around and find a good restaurant,” she suggest, the thought of walking in the street, finding a good restaurant and eventually leading to more conversations wears me out instantly.

          “I know a good place, just out of the campus and a few blocks away,” I quickly tell her. She laughs and nods her head.

We walk to the restaurant, with Rose asking me questions and a lot of them.

          “So, how is your mom?” Rose ask

            “She is good, never changes” Rose laughs aloud at my understatement.

          “What happened?” I ask confused.

          “You are still the same” She tells me. I raise one of my brows.

          “Yeah we were very close, weren’t we?”  I hit her with sarcasm, not even thinking for a moment that she would be offended.

          “Well no, but I do” she says, and I feel a little weird, “I mean you were popular. And girls usually dig up information about you.” I give her an odd look obviously showing her and making her feel weird about herself.

            “Not that I was checking up information’s about you, I knew it mostly from the girls talking” She says defending herself.

          “Well I don’t care; people have nothing to do, then to talk” I am not sure if I heard it right but I think Rose cuss at me with the word, ass. We walk most of our time in silence. And I was more happy without having to talk.

          “Fine Diner!” I cry out the name of the restaurant, “Here we are.”

          “Okay” Rose says, her enthusiasm lost. We take a seat at the corner when the waiter brings the menu.

          “Pancakes and an apple juice for me” Rose gives her order.

        “I will take the same,” I tell the waiter, feeling rather too lazy to check the menu.

          “You like pancakes?” Rose asks excited.

          “All food is same for me” I reply.

        “Oh” her excitement falls.

        “Say Rose, where do you live now?” I ask her, “I mean we haven’t seen each other since high school”

          “I still live three blocks down from your house.” Rose speaks.  I feel awkward that maybe all these years I was just ignorant of her.

          “But you lived somewhere else with your aunt or someone?” I ask her hoping she would say yes.

        “No, I live there” she says, “I guess you didn’t see me as much as I saw you,” I am lost with words. Just then, the food arrives. And I thank god for saving me from whatever that I just felt now. Guilt.

          “This looks delicious” Rose looks excited again and thanks the waiter.

            “Would you like to take up any other orders,” The waiter asks. Rose looks at me and I shake my head no.

          “No, thank you. That will be it.” She smiles at the waiter. I could see that person blush, who seemed like he is in high school. Rose takes a moment to do her prayers. I am stunned. Seriously? Well since she is treating me I stay quiet and wait about two minutes. I look outside the window, my face in the palm of my hands.

        “Shall we eat then?” Rose asks smiling and my heart skips two beats. Her smile is beautiful. I shake my head to snap out of this stupid thinking.  I look at her while we are eating away the food. What was that earlier that I felt? Each time I look at her, she seemed to become prettier. The head is playing nasty tricks on me and I do not like it.

          “Don’t tell me you think I have grown beautiful?” Rose suddenly catches me off guard.

        “What? If that was the case I would have mentioned it earlier when I saw you,” I say denying that yes she looked more beautiful the more I look at her, strangely.

        “Yeah I know” she says, “ I was just kidding, you were looking at me rather intensely so I just, you know.”

                “No, I was thinking you were always so withdrawn back then, would not even utter a word for all I remember and strangely walk all  by yourself without a friend. You seemed so weird back then and now look at you, you are like a parrot”

        “Withdrawn?! Strange?! Without a friend!?A parrot!?” Rose almost yells, her eyes wide, “wow you are too blunt, aren’t you?”

      “Well, I am just saying what I was thinking” I say. Rose gets redder every time I say another word.

          “Yeah, what do you know about me?” She protest standing up from the table, “You hardly saw me, where as you were always riding bikes, playing soccer, disturbing the neighbors, I am not even sure how many times you broke our house’s windows! and how many times I had to take blame for your mischief whenever dad came back in the evening asking me about the window glasses!.” 

          I was blank; were there any insults for me in those words she just uttered? Rose was taking sharp breaths, her eyes glaring at me.

        “Did you have a crush on me?” I ask Rose. Rose blushes and looks around the table.

            “I have to go” she loses her tone and runs off.

      “Wait!” I shout “What about the bills!?”

          I look around and see the waiter give me a what-an-ass look.  I was seriously broke, not even a dollar. I stayed in the diner for three hours hoping for Rose to come back, but she never did and I eventually ended up washing the dishes the whole night.

              I have a sore back when I wake up in the morning; my roommate has left a message for me on the table.

            “Out on a trip with ma boo. Be back in too days!”

              That idiot misspelled the word two. That would mean I could sleep in my room for the next two days without being disturbed.  My phone suddenly rings.

                “Hello?” I say.

                  “Chad?” I hear mom’s voice at the other end, “Oh my god honey are you still sleeping!?. Do you know what time it is!? It is 3 o’clock in the afternoon!!!” She shouts at the other end of the phone and I have to draw the phone away.

              “Mom relax, we have a week break.”

              “Then why aren’t you home!!!!???”  Mom starts shouting again, “Come home this instant. Don’t you miss your mom, leaving her home alone!”

          “Geez mom” I say annoyed, “quit it with the drama. I will come in about an hour, okay?” I agree knowing I will not be able to win her on this, because of her persistent nature.

          “Muah,” Mom kisses and I draw the phone away one more time, “I will make you your favorite dishes” and she hangs up. Just when I thought I had the room all to myself.

                Luckily, my car has enough fuel to get me home. On the road, I see a girl asking for a ride, her thumbs lifted up pointing towards the right direction where I am headed.  I wonder why they travel when they don’t even have a ride. Idiocy at its best. Or if it’s about their ride being broken at least take the gears to get it fixed. I ride away right infront  of that person when from the corner of my eyes I notice that this person was actually Rose. I stop my car and pull back towards her.

            “Need a ride?”I call her. Rose folds her arm reluctant at first, then slowly picks her baggage, throws it in the trunk, and hops on at the front seat.

              “Headed home?” I ask. Rose nods her head, “Hey, I am sorry for being too blunt okay, but you know I was speaking out my thoughts, maybe you are not what I thought, so you should explain it to me”

          Rose who was looking away from me suddenly turns her head around, she is about to say something, opens her mouth but shuts it again.

            “Whatever” she says after a while.

              “Okay I was an ass” I tell her “But I did think you looked prettier every time I looked at you.”

              I could see Rose blush but somehow seeing her happy made me feel good. Maybe I was starting to like Rose.

            “Hey, Rose?”

            “Yeah,” she says gloomily, “if it’s another one of your blunt statement then stop bothering”

              “No” I say, “it’s another one of my blunt questions.” Rose looks confused. Then her face changes into a embarrassed look. She probably thought it was the question from yesterday.

        “No, No,” I explain, “That’s not what I want to ask you” Rose looks away from me staring out the window.

        “Then what is it?” she says.

      “Will you go out with me?” I ask her, for a split second I feel a weird kind of nervousness, one which I have never felt in my entire life, of course I had asked girls out, dated for a few weeks, and the mere thought of maybe with Rose it would last the same was awful.

              Rose is awfully silent. I take her silence as a no.

          “Forget I said that.” I tell her hiding my embarrassed tone.

              “Yes” Rose says. “Yes, let’s go out”

She takes me by surprise; I thought she hated me after what I said to her yesterday.

            “Cool” I smile.

        During that weeks break we spent doing everything together, my mom was happy about hearing my new relationship with her. After the holidays were over, when we were back in college, we did almost everything together.

        With Rose weeks turned into month and then the months turned years. Some of my friends were surprised with Rose being my girlfriend but they gradually accepted, were quickly fond of her because of her sense of humor and more because knowing what a wonderful person she was. We were always guchi-guchi-goo with each other, now I know I was judgmental, and of course we were not normal as well but that was the best part of loving someone.

          Over the time I was so in love with her. Do I know what is love? Well I am hoping this is pretty much it and when we finally graduated I popped out the question if she wanted to marry me. And thankfully she said, ”Yes!”

                  Every moment of happiness added to beautiful memories, our first born, our second and our third. They all grew beautifully. All three of them girls, they had the personality of their mother and the bluntness of their father and the handsome features as well of course, but most of my friends would not agree on that.

                  I couldn’t be any more proud to have them as my daughters and my loving wife who I once thought or who was merely a weird girl turns out to be the greatest gift of god, my angel, my unconditional faith. Maybe I was in love with her the first time I had seen her, when she came up to me with that basket full of apples. I just didn’t know it.

          Every day with her is an adventure. Though I have never told her about the dishes that I had to do, that one time in the restaurant when she left angrily, after saying it was her treat and never did I get the answer to my question, “Did you have a crush on me?”

            Life is unpredictable. That person, who has just crossed you by,who knows could be the person you might would spend the rest of your life with. Give faith sometime because we never know.

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