Beneath the Smile

When all everybody could see was her smile her eyes asked me to look deeper. And so, I did.

…

I was instantly smitten by her smile. It had a sense of purity in it. She had a smile that could infuse a feeling of delight in anyone.

The first time I saw her, she seemed attractive. I didn’t however, care much for it. After all, the beauty we see with our eyes is just skin deep or, so I thought. She was one of the few girls I knew who always seemed to be on the loud and cheerful side. She wore her heart on her sleeve and many people didn’t like her because of that. True to her nature, she didn’t care about it. I couldn’t help but notice how she was bursting with life. “Energetic," “smiling," “laughing," “singing," “screaming” weren’t just words for her. They were part of who she was. She was like a ray of sunshine, lighting up people’s lives as she came in contact with them. She did intrigue me, but I didn’t let myself delve too much into it. I silently appreciated the person she was and continued to move on in life.

Surprisingly, destiny had something else in mind. A year later I found our lives converging once again. I remembered the positive aura she had about her when we last crossed paths. Although we barely knew each other, I felt happy finding her in my surroundings again. This time around things progressed a little. We talked to each other this time around. I wouldn’t say there was an instant click but as I said, she was a Ray of happiness. Even when a conversation would seem to die out she would instill a new life into it out of nowhere. I would be lying if I said that I wasn’t getting drawn towards her. But I took great care to control myself. I chose to value the friendship I had with her over any other feelings.

Days passed, we talked. We began to converse much more regularly. Things were off to a good start. We both shared our views on things, discussed our interests and favorites and competed to crack the best lame jokes. I really enjoyed her company. I didn’t know where all this was going and didn’t want to either. Instead, I preferred to experience it all as it came.

Without much trouble, it was easy to see that we were getting close. Even in group environments, we would talk to each other the most. It was this proximity between us that made me see something else. Something that I hadn’t expected.

Now that we were close I began to see beyond the lighthearted attitude. At first, there wasn’t much. However, things slowly started coming to my attention. I was finally starting to sense a mystery that lay inside her. Social gatherings, group activities, work, conversations and even during just basic activities I began to notice patches of grey in what I thought was a world of black and white. I contemplated whether I should ignore them. On the exterior, she was the same person I had met for the first time. But now I could see something different. When all everybody could see was her smile her eyes asked me to look deeper. And so, I did. I dived in and what I saw changed things forever.

At first, I wasn’t able to equate it. Everything was going past me. I had entered a world that I didn’t know existed. A world so dark and filled with pain. Nothing seemed to make sense. The pain was so much that I didn’t have the senses to even understand it. It caught me off guard and shackled my sagacity. The deeper I went the harder the pain. To say it felt traumatic would be an understatement. I thought I knew agony. But that was before I let myself fall into this never-ending loop of distress. It was chaotic yet systematic. It was as if this dark world had worked into defining her. Without its presence, she wouldn’t be the same. Yet, I didn’t understand how she was what she was with its presence either. The feel of grief was starting to get onto me. It was creeping into my system creating cracks that would lead to breaking me. I immediately stopped. I stopped diving. I realized that if I had let myself go deeper I would be in pieces by now. But she wasn’t breaking. Not any time soon. In fact, she was living with it, day in and day out. “What is she?” I wondered. In front, of me was a smiling girl who’s always loud and cheerful. “Then what was that on the inside?” I asked myself again.

It took me a while. I was finally seeing it all. They say the saddest people have the brightest smile. From that day I began to believe it. If anything, it drew me closer to her. I began to admire her for the person she truly was. She spread happiness because she knew the true value of it. She spread it so that nobody else would have to survive this world with something so gruesome inside them. She spread it because she knew what it was to be without it.

To this day I am instantly smitten by her smile. It has a sense of purity in it. She has a smile that can infuse a feeling of delight in anyone. But more than anything I now know what lies beneath it.