And suddenly he couldn’t stand it anymore, not really knowing her, not knowing anything. He wanted to ask her every single question that seeped into his thoughts like a drop of ink spreading in a glass of clear water, he wanted to unravel her secrets like the spider web they were, keeping him glued in place until they eventually ate him up from the inside. He wanted to know why she always wore the same silver necklace and what it meant to her, wanted to know why her favourite colour was blue and why she hated red, and why she’d dyed her hair the shade of a raging fire two years ago when she could’ve turned it the colour of the ocean or the sky. Why she preferred winter to summer, why she was always upset in the middle of August and why she never went to bed early when her eyes were always bloodshot. He wondered how she could stare at people like they were art when so much in this world went wrong and how she could write about friends who had abandoned her and boys who had broken her heart like they were a lesson she gladly accepted. How she could compare that vile boy next door to thunder and coffee and flowers and whole galaxies while she seemed so lost in a dimension only known to her. And most of all he wanted to know why she kept so many secrets and why she didn’t trust him enough to unburden her heart, worry for worry, secret for secret. But he guessed that was just part of her, a part he would never fully comprehend: some mysteries weren’t meant to be understood. They were meant to be seen and examined and admired. She was one of them.

She was a mystery
n.j.