Waiting
Rating: Teen
Disclaimer: Roswell belongs to first to Melinda Metz, then to Jason Katims and 20th Century Fox. She created them; they killed them. I’m just borrowing them.
Author’s Note: This is the Eighth in my POV series, and it is from Kyle’s perspective. Thanks to TrueLovePooh for the banner
It seems like I have always loved her in some way. When we were in elementary school, I used to get this warm feeling in my chest whenever I looked at her. Of course at 9 years old, I didn’t have a clue what it meant, but I learned. Oh boy, did I learn.
I used to watch her on the playground. It was like she was two different people. Most of the time, she hung around with her brother and their friend, Michael. Nobody would ever dream of entering that inner sanctum. And other times, she was almost manic in her need to belong. If all the girls brought their Cabbage Patch Kids to school, there she was, with two of them. If jacks were the game of choice, she could do fivesies before anybody else.
But there were times when I saw her comforting a crying child, or befriending someone who stood against the school wall, watching the playing children with a sense of longing in their eyes. She didn’t like to see anybody suffer – ever.
In junior high, things started to really change. Cliques were starting to form, fashion started to matter. If you weren’t popular, you were nothing, and she decided she was going to be popular. She decided she was going to be popular, and mapped out her strategy as well as any general in the heat of battle. Because I was athletic, I was already assured my position in the in crowd. It wasn’t the same for her. She was beautiful, but beauty alone wasn’t enough. There were plenty of beautiful girls who lacked that certain spark that gains you entrée into the popular group.
I watched, amused as she planned her every move. She began to cultivate a persona with an icy veneer. Scathing comments feel from her lips and if you were below the radar of the in crowd, she wouldn’t even deign to look at you.
Later, it was different. I mean, she was there, and I always thought she was incredibly hot, but I never did anything about it. I could have, maybe I should have. We ran in the same crowd, and people were always hooking up. How hard would it have been for me to just walk up to her and ask her out? Nobody would have ever even thought anything about it.
But I didn’t, and she fell in love. Not just puppy love, but real, honest to goodness, I’m going to die love. Oh, she fought it. In fact, I’ve never seen anybody fight anything so hard in my life. But she, like the many others who fought so valiantly before her, fell like a ton of bricks. Unfortunately, it wasn’t with me.
It was then that she began to change, ever so subtly. She started to drift away from the in crowd, and that icy veneer she had worked so hard to cultivate began to crack. I suppose it was natural, I mean she was in love, and there was no way Alex Whitman would ever be considered part of the in crowd. Looking back now, I see how stupid that was. There was never anybody cooler than Alex.
A strange set of circumstances brought us back together within the same crowd. No, not the in crowd, we had both learned that life was too short to get caught up in the shallow trappings of popularity. How did we learn such an important lesson at such an early age? Well, for me, it was dying and being brought back to life by her brother. For her, well, for her, it was killing somebody. It was strictly in self-defense, a case of kill or be killed, but still these things have a habit of changing you. But Alex was right there for Isabel, helping her to be strong.
And then, tragedy struck and Alex died. I say died, but he was murdered, plain and simple by someone we all called our friend. What happened tore us all apart, and for a while, pitted us against each other as we struggled to come to terms with what happened, and then found out what we thought was reality was nothing more than a lie.
She was going to leave then. I came so close to losing her, but in the end, she decided she couldn’t leave. I know she didn’t stay for me, but in my heart, I rejoiced. Maybe someday, I’d be able to tell her how I felt about her.
I was just getting ready to let her know how I felt. I worked to build up my courage. And I was ready to tell her when it happened. She met someone. I couldn’t believe it. Who was this guy? At first, I though it was nothing but a summer fling; but the summer passed, and he didn’t go away.
What killed me more than anything was that she saw me as some kind of confidant. We had grown closer and closer since Alex died, so it was only natural for her to turn to me when she was unsure about this new relationship. He was older, out of school, and she didn’t know what to do. My instinct was to tell her to forget about him and open her eyes, but I didn’t. I said everything that she wanted to hear, no matter how hard it was.
And it worked. Isabel made her decision, and it wasn’t me. She chose him. He proposed, she accepted and now I’m sitting at her wedding. Watching. Imagining myself in his place. It should be me.
“If there is anyone here, who knows why this couple should not be wed, let him speak now or forever hold his piece,” the minister said.
Without warning, I jumped up from my seat.
“Isabel, don’t!” I shouted. “Jesse isn’t the right man for you. He doesn’t know you the way I do.”
I pushed past the others in my row and walked purposefully towards the flowered archway under which Isabel stood. She was a vision in white, the pristine snowiness of her gown matching her complexion as I made my way to her.
“Kyle, I,” she began.
“Don’t!” I said to her. “Isabel, I’ve loved you since before I knew who you really are. I watched you. All my life I watched you and I wondered if we could ever be together. When you found Alex, I willingly stepped aside because I knew he was perfect for you. He would help you find the real you that was hidden inside so many years ago. But Isabel, Alex is gone, and I’m right here. This guy he doesn’t know you. He doesn’t know what’s in your heart. I do. Isabel, I’m in your heart. Just look, and you’ll see.”
“I do love you Kyle. You are my best friend,” Isabel said. “I can’t imagine not having you in my life, forever.”
She reached out and took my hand, and we ran down the aisle while the audience watched in shocked amazement.
“Kyle. Kyle, snap out of it,” my dad said. “You’re missing the wedding.”
“Oh, uh, thanks, Dad. I guess I was just day dreaming.”
I focused my attention to the front, and watched as Isabel, pledged her love to another man.
“If there is anyone here, who knows why this couple should not be wed, let him speak now or forever hold his piece,” the minister said.
I wanted to speak up. But I couldn’t. Isabel made her choice, and it wasn’t me. But I’m not going anywhere, and someday, she’ll need me, again, and I’ll be right there waiting for her to let me in.