A Scorching Volcano

Every person that passed by seemed like it was him. Tall, tan, and constant with his expression of disappointment towards the world. Always so moody, he would be. My eyes darted everywhere, filled with anticipation as to what was going to happen today.

The sun was up. Contrary to the rainy morning, the afternoon heat was blazing as a few beads of sweat would trickle down my nape. Was I too early? Was I too excited? Who knows? I was too much in a daze that nobody would expect a sensible answer from me.

Sporting a pair of black skinny jeans, with a plain white tee tucked underneath a beige cardigan with its sleeves folded up to below my elbow, I looked up to my bangs as I fiddled with them for the umpteenth time before hiding my hands once again behind my back as I closed my eyes and took yet another deep breath. Hair I am again, being so conscious.

I laughed out loud due to my own joke.

What should I tell him first when he arrives? I read on a book once that it takes a decade for a volcano to erupt, that’s some hot and steamy development right there if you ask me.

I was a weirdo giggling at myself in the middle of a park.

I pressed my hand onto my chest as I awkwardly smiled to myself. I need to calm down. The azure sight of water dancing in the fountain had always been relaxing. In the distance were children playing beneath the shade of soaring trees. I bet they’re having such a fruitful time.

I couldn’t stop my smiles.

My gaze wandering as aimlessly as my thoughts were. They ended up onto my feet.

“Maybe I should have worn pumps?” I giggled at the thought of being taller than him.

I was underneath the sun, beside the artificial cascade which I adored, and yet it was the shade who came to me.

“You’re late!”

He wore jeans and a t-shirt.

“We didn’t exactly decide on a time.”

“Well, I was here first so that makes you late!”

He sighed, already having second thoughts about his decision to come here. Suspiciously he looked at me as I walked around him, sniffing the masculine fragrance which swamped him.

“What’s this?” I asked, acting like a detective, “Valentine, the nerd, is wearing perfume!”

He scowled at me.

“This doesn’t make any scents!” He rolled his eyes at me as I continued hopping around him.

I lost my balance with one wrong step and came tumbling down, but what fell wasn’t a clumsy girl and instead an opened sapphire umbrella. Standing beside it was a man who caught a girl with his arm. Was he ever that tall? I didn’t want to move, to stand up and get back on my own feet. I felt safe in the comfort of his warm embrace and yet I felt unease.

“You’re too excited.” He subtly smirked as I felt his rough hand still on my back, his cologne wafting in the air. He stared directly at me with his somber brown eyes. “It wouldn’t be nice to have your get-up ruined right off the bat, right?”

My chest tightened as I lost thought of what to say next.

“That wouldn’t be a home run, at all.” Be casual.

He let me fall to the floor. I winced from the pain and yet I was laughing more than usual.

“What a kind gentleman you are, Mr. Valentine,” I gleefully mocked him.

“And what a fine lady you are, Ms. Ivory,” he accordingly replied as he offered his hand out. “Let’s try this again.”

We walked towards a destination we did not plan of, connected by a single umbrella dyed with the color of the ocean. It was supposed to hide us from the rays of the sun, and yet underneath it we felt warmth belonging to that of the sands of the beach in the middle of a summer blaze.

Before we had noticed it, the moon had already ascended with daylight nowhere to be seen. The skies had grown dim and perhaps that was why the person before me shone brightly. How long has it been since I started feeling this way?

Was it when he caught me in the morning? When he held my hand? Was it when he brought me to all my favorite places? Was it when we were at the bay no one would visit? The school campus when no one was present? Maybe it was when we ate at the rundown restaurant by the end of the street?

Was it when he beat me in the exams?

No. It was further than that.

I read on a book once that it takes a decade for a volcano to erupt. It takes time for all that magma to pile up until they eventually turn into lava. I met him in the summer of my childhood. Alone in a park similar to this one where we were currently gazing at stars, resting our feet. I was lost, staring at a fountain.

A boy with ruffled up hair and dorky glasses approached me.

“Why do you think the sea is blue?”

I was dumbfounded, tears still fresh on my cheeks and instead of asking me what was wrong, this person had asked me a complicated question. But as a child who did nothing but study, of course I knew the answer.

“It’s because of the light being reflected from the sun only shows that color.” Despite my runny nose, I gave a clear answer.

But looking all smug, he waved his finger at me telling me it was wrong.

“It’s because if you ask a fish, it’ll say blu-blu-blu-blu!”

The sound of the fountain splashing all around was drowned by the laugh this boy made along with the tension I felt when I thought I had been abandoned.

“Valentine,” I took a deep breath as I called him. “Today was a wonderful day, but it wouldn’t just sit well with me if I didn’t end it with a pun.”

I stood up from the bench, asking him to close his eyes.

“Can you pretend that it’s really hot right now?” There was a tremor in my voice.

“How hot?”

“Like you’re in a hot steamy sauna or a scorching volcano about to erupt!” I dramatized.

“Ah, I’m burning alive.”

“What moving acting, Mr. Valentine.”

He laughed the same old laugh.

“Hey, Val?”

“Yeah?”

“I like you. It wouldn’t even be a stretch to say that I–” I laughed. “–lava you.”