Lovesong

“Write me a lovesong”, he said.

I waited for some hint of amusement to appear on his face; some indication that he was joking. But he wasn’t.

“What? You love writing, don’t you? You’re so good at it even. This should be a piece of cake. Write me one.”

Well, I did tell him I would do whatever he asked me to. Labouring to earn his forgiveness and all that. But what did he want a lovesong for? Did boys really care for corny stuff like that?

Neither of us spoke about it for the rest of the evening. When I leaned in to kiss him goodnight outside my door, I noticed his eyes twinkling with some secret mischief.

“I’ll be waiting to hear it. Write me a good one.”

And instead of the steady, lingering kiss that we’d normally share at the end of every date, he gave me a little peck on my forehead and left.

I felt like a kid who had skipped school to avoid a test, only to be told the next day by an overly enthusiastic teacher that the test had been postponed.

The fight had ended, I had apologized, and I had assumed (rather optimistically) that everything was copacetic between us. But here he was, expecting me to make it up to him. Which was fine, by the way. The demand for the lovesong, though, had thrown me off balance.

***

It was a restless night that I spent, with the clock on my laptop screen beseeching me to go to sleep. I hadn’t written a word. So much for that “writer” ambition, I cursed. But I was desperate to return things back to normal. A haphazard attempt would just have to do.

His face lit up like a kid’s on Christmas morning when I placed a folded sheet of paper before him on the table. I knew he expected the turnaround time on his demand to be slightly more. But he was excited nonetheless.

“I honestly don’t know what you were expecting but I hope you like it.”

It wasn’t the first time I had written something for someone special, but this was different. I hadn’t figured him out yet. Maybe that’s why we fought? I didn’t care anymore. I wanted it to be the most perfect apology ever.

That subtle smile playing on his lips was such a tease. I followed his eyes as they glided over one word after the other, taking longer than usual in some places while cruising through some others. And… he was done.

“Thank you. I loved it. You were very…umm… thorough.”

Thorough? Thorough? Did he even know what “thorough” meant? It definitely was not an apt word to describe a painstakingly written declaration of love! Okay, so maybe not painstaking. But it was an ode to him! Of course it was thorough!

The rest of the evening was spent in silence about this matter. I “thoroughly” made sure of that.

In the days that followed, things began returning to normal. Or so I desperately wanted to believe. He was still distant; I could sense him holding himself back when he held my hand or kissed me. None of us brought up the bizarre request for the lovesong again. I spent each night analysing his every little gesture, trying to keep panic at bay when I realised how alien all of it felt.

***

I was surprised he managed to locate the car parked two streets across in his… condition. I had rarely seen him drink so liberally; he had more rum in him than a pirate. It had started to rain, but he waited patiently by the passenger door as I made my way through the mucky street in my high heels. Nobody rushes the designated driver.

He refused to climb into the car till I put on some music. By the time I strapped him in his seat and returned to mine, the weather grew vicious. Some would call these rains romantic. I never imagined one of those “some” would be him. Before I could realise, he was out of the car and in the rain. I love the rains, but when you have a sloshed boyfriend to babysit, not so much.

I should have been upset about my frizzy hair or the puddles I had stepped into to get him back into the car. But nothing could make me take my eyes off of him. He was smiling, somewhere between an embarrassed blush and a sly grin, and calling out to me.

“Last one for the day?”

As we slow-danced in the rain that we were trying to escape from, he hummed in my ear….

“And when you speak, angels sing from above

Everyday words seem to turn into lovesongs…”

***

The exceptionally “thorough” song I wrote for him is pinned to a board above his desk at home. And he still claims he loves it. But I know it’s the second one that he keeps tucked in his little black book that makes him truly smile; a smile reminiscent of that night in the rain. I remember the way he kissed me after he finished reading that one, assuring me that everything was back to normal. Rather, life was la vie en rose….

 

 Dedicated to my most favourite lovesong ever… La Vie En Rose.