About Falling in Love
Yaritza
Garcia
Copyright 2012 by Yaritza Garcia
Smashwords
Edition
****
“You can’t fall in love”, she said to me. “I’ve fallen before, it hurts.”
I looked into her big brown eyes. They were so dark they seemed pitch-black. I was wasting time, and I didn’t have anything better to do, so I humored her.
“Really? Did it hurt very badly?”
“Yup”, she replied, her face bright and glowing in the sun like any other four year old. She skipped around a few times in a hop-scotch motion, then turned back to me, “I scraped both my knees.”
“Ah”, I said, trying my best to seem impressed, and suppressing my giggles. She was too cute. I didn’t want her to think I was laughing at her.
Truth is, I had been on a binge the week before. Just your typical break-up scene from the latest rom-com. I was shoveling spoonfuls of fudge ice cream into my pie hole (speaking of pie, I had some blueberry slices, too).and watching romantic movies. And for the record, who said romantic movies help at all during a break up??? They so don’t…
“See??”
I realized she was showing me her scars. Her right knee had apparently been scraped up pretty good.
“I see, wow…” I replied. She hop-scotch-hopped around some more.
The day was amazingly beautiful. Something out of a romantic movie (dammit!). From the park bench where I sat, I could look up and see great big trees with bright green leaves breaking up a perfectly blue, cloudless sky. There was a scent of cherry blossom in the air. I would’ve loved it, if I wasn’t so sad.
I tried not to mope, for her sake.
This precious little Asian girl had skipped her way over to me. Her mom smiled widely and sincerely from where she sat at a slight distance. Her younger one, a boy of about maybe two, was taking up way too much of her time and attention. The big grin was an unspoken bond~ yes, I can be trusted to watch your little girl, my smile said in return.
Now, this tiny creature had taken a liking to me. Even asking me what was wrong. “I fell in love”, I had told her, and that’s all.
“Why did you fall?” she asked now.
“Well…”, I said. I’m 26, and have no children of my own. I’m the baby of the family. I’ve never been around many kids before. What could I say? “I couldn’t help it.”
“Couldn’t help it?!” She laughed out loud. Surely her sympathy was still developing…
“No, no I couldn’t”, I said defensively.
“But you can always be careful”, she said to me, “You have to pay attention.”
She sat down next to me for the first time since I sort of unwillingly started watching her. For free.
“Pay attention to what?”
“Signs.”
Wow. I did NOT expect that. Signs? Did this human that has only been alive for only four years know how to tell the signs of a bad relationship?! I’m a bit embarrassed to say, I had to ask.
“Um, what signs?” I shyly inquired.
“The street signs”, she replied simply. I simply felt stupid. “When you learn how to read, you can read Stop, Go, and the colors matter too!”
“Yeah?”, (sigh).
“Yup! That leaf is green, it means Go. The yellow like the bus means careful. The red is Stop. Oh and there’s crossing guards. And if you fall anyway you don’t have to worry.”
“Really? Why not?”
“Because you can always get up. And see?” she showed me her scar once more, “It hurts at first, but then it heals.”
So I learned about falling in love, and getting back up, from a four year old.
The
End
YG