I Watched Him Standing There So PERFECT And Yet So IMPERFECT

• Ruby Fieldhouse, Grade 9
• Short Story
• 2022

I watched him standing there so perfect and yet so imperfect. I walked up to him every day and just stood watching the lake and how the sun hit the water in different ways, no words were ever spoken, they were never needed. We weren't there for conversation, just company and the presence of the other, in any weather, clear skies or snow, it was a comfort knowing that someone else needed an escape from what I presumed was their own isolation. The lockdowns had shown me what true loneliness was like, all my friends had fallen away, and I didn’t even know where to look for new friends anymore. With my family in a different country, I truly had no one to fall back on when things got worse, but somehow he made it all better without saying a single word.
Every single day at the same time she would come and stand next to me no matter the weather. No words were ever spoken but I liked it that way; I needed the silence. Somehow her silence drowned out the constant yelling and stress in my head from work and the fact that I had debt owed that I couldn’t pay and the debt wasn’t normal either, because when you couldn’t pay this debt things went downhill for you. Your family was also left with the eternal pain of not knowing the truth and thinking that you were just in the wrong place and the wrong time.
Walking down to the pier became a part of what I did each and every day, when she got there first, I just stood behind her and admired her, occasionally I would imagine a crown made of glass with the beautiful pieces of life woven into the crown, and she was just standing there waiting for someone to place it on her head.
Normally he would be there first and so I would stop and get to admire him instead of it being the other way around. I would often imagine us running in the sunset away from whatever responsibilities we both had and even though we had never spoken a word to each other I felt like I knew a thousand things about him. One day he stood stone still, as walked closer he seemed to fade away like he was just there in my imagination, the closer I walked the more true it became until I reached the edge of the pier, where his shoes sat. They were all alone, then I knew he was not to return to the lake again.
That day I properly screamed for the first time, I disturbed birds and the people walking on the path heard me. People in their houses covered their children's ears for fear it would come again which it did. But from that day forward I always went back to the lake at the same time every day and each time. I watched him standing there so perfect yet so imperfect.