On a summer day, it was very hot. The temperature was more than ninety eight degrees Fahrenheit. I went to a beach party in Port-au-Prince. The beach was full of people, trees, and rocks. It was amazing and awesome. At the beach, I saw a young lady. I approached her. "What is your name?" I asked her.
She said, "My name is Mary."
Her voice was so amazing and beautiful. I presumably felt that it was the first time that I heard a beautiful voice like that. Her eyes were green. Her hair was dark, and the color of her skin was red. She was very tall and sexy.
Mary and I continued to talk to each other. We got to know each other a little bit, we exchange phone numbers, and we became friends. While we were talking to each other, we saw a black man. He was very tall and big. Mary pointed her finger at him. "His name is Jean," said Mary. "He is one of my best friends." She called him. She introduced him to me. I talked to him, exchanging phone numbers with him, and I became friends with him too.
It was getting dark. Mary, Jean, and I left the beach. While we were walking on the street, we continued to talk to each other. When we arrived at Rue de Champ-de-Mars, we said goodbye to each other. And we diverged.
When I arrived home, I laid down on my bed. I could feel within my heart that I got convinced that Mary seemed to be the kind of girl whom I had been looking for, but a part of me said no. I kept thinking about how I could better the relationship between me and Mary. After a couple of hours, I fell asleep.
The next day had come. I called Mary because I wanted to get to know her better. She told me that she was sixteen. She would be in eleventh grade. She planned to study medicine after she graduated high school. When I asked her, did she have a boyfriend? She responded, "No." She said that Raymond Pierre, her father, died in a car accident. He died when she was seven. She was raised by a single mother named Malucia Pierre. She went on to say that her mother was thirty-eight-years-old. She was a nurse. She had also studied finance at the Universite d'Etat d'Haiti.
She also told me that she did not have any sister or brother, but she had a niece named Jenny. Jenny, Mary mother's son's baby, was eleven-years-old, and she was in her last year in elementary school. Both her father and her mother died since she was three-years-old. They died in a motorcycle accident in Gonaives. Mary said that Jenny was raised by her mother, and they grew up together. As a result, she considered Jenny as her sister.
She went on to tell me that she liked and used to go to a field trip every year or every Valentine's Day. It always took place at a garden named the Garden of Paradise. This garden was where she and Jean met. She used to go there with her mother, and they used to sit by a statue, having great conversations about their personal experiences and problems or about their personal lives. The statue was one of a man named Jean Jacques Dessalines hugging with his wife named Marie-Claire Heureuse Félicité. "Last year, my niece went to the field trip with my mother and me," she said. "We had a great time together. My mother was so excited. However, we used to feel so lonely because we didn't have any intimate companionship or partner with us while almost all people in the field trip had their intimate partners with them; as a result, I used to feel that I was in need of a partner as my mother every time I went to the field trip."
I told Mary that I was seventeen. I would be a senior at Lycee Fabre Gefrard High School, and I planned to go to college to study accounting and business administration after I graduated. I did not have a girlfriend. I told her that my father also died. Renel Paulynice, my father, died of a heart attack since I was three-years- old. I was raised by a single mother. My mother was named Esperantha Aimable. She was forty-one-years-old. She was a math teacher at La Belle Souers Des Unis College. She had studied mathematics and education at the Universite D'etat D'Haiti.
"I don't have any sister or brother," I also told her.
I called Jean after a couple of days. He told me that he had already graduated high school. He was twenty-years-old. He currently studied biology at the University d'Etat d'Haiti. When I asked him to tell me a little bit about Mary, he responded that Mary was absolutely great. She was smart. She was in the top five percent of her class. She had a good reputation in high school for being respectful to everyone. "She is my best friend," he said.
For all my life, I had been everywhere looking for a smart and respectful girl, a girl who had a great vision as I did, but I could not find her. However, after Jean told me how Mary was smart and respectful, I realized that Mary was absolutely the kind of girl whom I had been looking for.
The relationship between me and Mary started getting better, but I wasn't brave. We called each other every day. Every weekend, we went to cinema, dinner, theater, museum, concert, or basketball game together. There were times that we spent times in a park called National History Park, which consisted of the Sans-Souci Palace, the Citadelle Laferrière, and the buildings of Ramiers, talking to each other about what we wanted to do with our lives or what type of person that we would like to date. Fortunately, our points of views were similar in many ways, and Mary seemed to have the majority of the qualities that I really wanted from a girl based on what she told me when we shared ideas together. Every time I was with her, I could feel that my heart was beating rapidly. It was hard for me to look at her deeply in her eyes. I could feel profoundly that there were some transformations that effectuated inside of me that I was incapable of describing, but telling her how I felt was my biggest weakness or problem. The most painful or the weakest thing that I could ever experience in my life was that I did not have enough bravery to let her know how I felt.
There were times that we went out with Jean. When we asked him about what type of girl that he liked to date, he used to respond comically, "I would like to date a very big fat tall lady like me." However, the most interesting part was that Jean wanted to date an educated girl, a girl who had a great vision as he did. Desperately, Jean always said that he thought that he would never find a girl who really liked him because most of his classmates kept calling him "big fat ugly tall man". In addition to that, he had been rejected by every girl that he talked to; as a result, he became afraid of expressing his feeling to any girl that he liked. We always said to Jean as a way of encouraging him, "Everyone was made to be loved by someone. But finding this person is not easy. It requires a lot of time, hope, or patience." He used to laugh out loudly every time we said that to him as he had the hope that he would find someone who loved him. Mary and I used to laugh out loudly too.
I used to talk to an old man named Jacques Pierre. Jacques Pierre, my neighbor, was seventy-years-old. He was the father or grandfather of more than thirty children. He was very short and had long white beard and white hair. He respected me as I was an old man like him because I really respected him, and I was known by everyone as a respectful young man. He considered me as his son. We used to joke, talking to each other about our personal experiences. Jacques was known by everyone as an experienced advisor because he liked to advise other people or told them about what he went through in life and what lessons that he learned from them so that others could also learn from them to avoid similar things that may happen to them in the future. One day, I called him and told him that I had a problem. I wanted his help.
"It is okay my son," he responded. "What do you need my advice about?"
I responded, "About relationship."
He said, "Okay."
"Are you home?" I asked him.
He said, "Yes."
"I am coming to see you," I responded to him.
He said, "I am waiting for you."
I walked quickly. When I arrived, I knocked on the door of Pierre's room. He opened
the door and said to me, "Hey son, how are you doing?"
"I am doing okay," I responded to him as I entered in his room.
Pierre's room was very large and long. It had two fans. One of the fans was in front of Pierre's bed, and the other one was in front of his radio. His room had only one radio and one TV. The radio was playing a love song titled "When you love someone" by Bryan Adams. The television was on the table and was playing a love movie titled Romeo and Juliet. The table had a lot of books and journal papers that Pierre liked to read. He learned a lot of life lessons from reading those books, and he liked to share those lessons with other people. The floor of his room was covered with a blue carpet, and the wall was painting with a beautiful blue paint. His bed was also covered with a blue blanket and had a white pillow on it. Beside the bed, there was a black chair.
"You can sit on this chair my son," Pierre said to me happily.
"Thank you Mr. Pierre," I responded to him as I grabbed the chair to place it somewhere that was more appropriate so that I could sit on it.
"What do you need my advice about?" he asked me.
I told Jacques Pierre, "there is a girl whom I really like, but I don't know how to approach her. I am afraid to tell her how I feel. I am afraid of rejection. The feeling starts getting stronger,
and I can't handle it. I don't know what to do."
"My son, when I was in your age, I used to be like that," he responded to me, "and I really know what you're talking about. This is my advice to you my son. It is better to tell someone how you feel instead of dying with a feeling in your heart because you never know how the other person feels. If you don't tell her how you feel, how will she know that you like her? Act like a man. It is your job. Be fearless. Don't be afraid of rejection. Tell her how you feel. The longer you hide this feeling secretly to yourself is the stronger that it becomes."
I responded to him, "Thank you so much daddy. I will."
I shook Jacques's hand, hugged him, and said goodbye to him.
He responded, "Bye."
When I arrived home, I lay down on my bed and took a deep breath. I said to myself, "It is better to tell someone how you feel instead of dying with a feeling in your heart because you never know how the other person feels. If you don't tell her how you feel, how will she know that you like her? "After a couple of seconds, I realized something, and I learned from it. I learned from what Jacques Pierre told me. I realized that I should tell Mary how I felt.
One day, I felt that I had a certain bravery, a bravery that I could not have before, the bravery to tell Mary how I felt about her. I made a decision. I made the decision to call Mary to tell her how I cared and felt about her. I called her. I told her how I cared and felt about her.
"I can't believe what you are saying," she said on the phone. "You can say what you really want to say."
"If I had to say what I really want to say," I responded, "I would say that I love you."
She sang on the phone. The way she sang made me realize that she was not really interested. I said goodbye to her. I hanged off the phone.
I called Jean, telling him that I had been calling Mary.
He said, "I have been calling her today too."
"That is great," I replied.
"I am doing something right now," he said, "so I am going to call you tonight."
"Okay," I responded to him.
The relationship between me and Mary did not fall apart even though she acted like she was not really interested in me. Every day, I called her, telling her how I loved her. She always said that she wasn't ready to be in a relationship. However, that did not stop me from continuing to tell her that I was ready to spend the rest of my life with her or that she was the only one that my heart and my soul wanted.
I always called Jean, my friend. And I always told him that I loved Mary. He used to tell me that Mary told him that she was not interested in me. Every time he said that to me, I felt so sad. However, I never felt so disheartened because there were other people who used to tell me that Mary told them that she loved me.
One day, I sat somewhere quietly, and I pondered how I could use some persuasive statements to write a letter to Mary in order to convince her. After a couple of minutes, I took a piece of paper and a pen. I started writing a letter. Fortunately, a lot of romantic and persuasive thoughts came to my mind, and it took me four hours to write this letter. While I was almost finishing writing the letter, I saw Mary walking on the street. I felt so happy. I quickly wrote the rest of the letter. I gave her the letter. She took it. She smiled at me, and I smiled at her too.
I said, "Thank you."
"You welcome," she said.
After two months, Mary wrote a letter to me. She mentioned in her letter that she did not love me. She wanted me to leave her alone. She went on to say that she wanted me to stop calling her.
After I read that letter, I was so stressed and pessimistic. I could not sleep. I could not study or do my homework. There were times that I talked to my mother, to Jean, and to other people, and I used to tell them that I would kill myself one day. Unfortunately, none of them knew what I meant when I said that. They always asked me if I was crazy. I always told them that I would do that for a reason. Unfortunately, they never took time to talk to me in order to advice me because most of them thought that I was playing.
One day, I felt so sad and uncomfortable. I called Jean. Unfortunately, Jean did not answer the phone. I tried to sleep, but I could not sleep. I tried to eat, but I could not eat. I tried to watch TV in order to entertain myself or to ease my pain, but nothing worked. I did not know what to do. I asked myself, "What should I do?" After a couple of minutes, "I don't know what to do," I said. "I am going to kill myself."
I walked silently in my room after a couple of seconds. My room contained a lot of things, and it was very large and long. The floor was covered with a black carpet. It had one door. On the right side of my room, there were two televisions, three radios, one refrigerator, four mirrors, and one table. On the left side of my room, there were two fans and one computer. My bed was in the middle of my room. In front of my bed, there was a bottle of arsenic used to kill rats. I took it, and I was tempted to drink it. While I was trying to put the bottle of arsenic in my mouth, my mother asked, "What are you doing?"
I furiously threw away the bottle of arsenic. I put my head down and said nothing to my mother.
My mother felt so confused. She asked, "What's wrong?"
"I don't know," I said.
"Are you crazy?" she questioned.
I answered, "No."
"Why did you try to drink the poison?" she asked.
"I thought that it was a beer," I said. "I did not know if it was a poison."
My mother said, "You are crazy."
I said nothing. She took the bottle of arsenic, and she put it in the garbage can.
After a couple of minutes, I told my mother the truth. I told her why I had tried to drink the arsenic.
She looked at me desperately. "How do you think that you are not crazy," she asked, "when you almost killed yourself, especially over something trivial like that?"
"Sometimes we do some crazy stuff when we love someone," I responded to my mother as I was crying, "but that doesn't mean that we are crazy. Love simply makes us blind, and we are unable to follow what we want. However, our hearts and our souls choose to follow what they want while our bodies are unable to resist or to control this feeling. Sometimes, even though the one that our hearts and our souls want hurts us, we still can't stay away from that person because our hearts and our souls don't give us the chance to do that, and our hearts and our souls say yes even though sometimes our mouths say no. The heart is what we need to survive. We are obligated to please it. The soul directs the body to where it wants it. There's nothing we can do."
I looked at my mother, and I could see in my mother's face a face of despair. She was more desperate after she heard that expression. Her eyes were watering as she could not believe that her only son had almost died.
"Sit down," she said to me with a voice full of pain. "I want to talk to you."
"Okay," I replied.
"Don't do something like that anymore," she said. " If you continue to believe in what you say, one day, you are going to kill yourself for trivial reason. Killing yourself for a girl whom you love is not what's going to make you have that girl. No one is worth your life. You should always make sure that you control your feeling. You have to love people who love you and learn to move on from those who don't. You have to sacrifice yourself for people who are ready to sacrifice themselves for you. You have to think before you do certain things in life. Remember that for the rest of your life."
I responded, " Okay."
I hugged my mother while I was crying as a way of saying sorry to her, and I said thank you to her for her advice.
"You welcome," she replied. " It's an obligation. It's my job to give you the best advice that I can."
"Okay," I responded to her.
"Let the bird go and fly because you love the bird," she said to me as a way of strengthening or consoling me while I was enveloping in her arms. "If the bird comes back or thinks about you or you have the chance to have that bird after you let it go and fly, it is because the bird loves you or you and the bird were destined to be together. If it is the contrary, it is because it wasn't meant to be."
"Okay," I said.
"Do you understand what I say?" she asked.
"Yea," I responded to her.
After my mother left my room, "Thank you Jesus," I said. "I almost killed myself." I laid down on my bed. I closed my eyes, and I thought about how I almost died. After a couple of minutes, I realized something, and I learned from it. I learned from what my mother told me. I realized that I should not tempt to kill myself for Mary.
After a couple of minutes, I called Jean. I told him that I had almost died.
"What's wrong?" he asked me.
I replied, "Nothing."
"Are you okay?" he interrogated me.
"I am good," I said. "If that did not happen, my mother would never teach me a lesson, and I would never learn from it."
He questioned, "Do you want to go on a field trip?"
"I want to go," I responded. "What date is the field trip?"
"The field trip is next month," he said. "I will pick you up."
I said, "Okay."
He replied, "Bye."
"Bye," I said.
I hanged off the phone and turned off the light in my room.
I said to my mother, "Good night."
She said, "You are a crazy boy."
"I am not a crazy boy," I responded.
She said, "Good night."
I replied, "Okay."
After a couple of days, I continued to learn from what my mother told me. I never called Mary. When I saw her, I acted like I did not see her. I never talked to her anymore.
On a Saturday morning, Jean, my friend, came to pick me up.
I asked him, "Where the field Trip is going to take place?"
"In a garden," he said.
I replied, "Let's go."
Quickly, we walked on the road. When we arrived, we sat in front of a table containing a lot of food and beer. We were talking to each other about our personal experiences and problems. Beside us, there were other people who were talking too, and we could not hear anything they said. In the back of us, there were two statues. Also, there were two men who played with a snake. In front of us, there were some children who sat in front of a river, and they played with their pets and other creatures that they found in the river. That place was peaceful. Jean and I could only hear the song of the birds singing their sweet melodies while we were talking. Also, it was exquisite and unbelievable. It contained a lot of flowers, trees, mountains, rivers, and animals. This place was known as Le Jardin de Paradis, which was situated in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. While Jean and I were talking to each other, he asked me, "How is Mary?"
I said, "I don't know."
"How you don't know?" he replied.
"Mary is not in my mind anymore," I said. "It's been two weeks since I saw her."
He responded, "That is not amazing."
After a couple of minutes, we sat quietly and looked at attentively the men who played with the snake and the children who sat in front of the river that contained a lot of animals. It was an amazing day. Many people took pleasure from hearing the sweet melodies of the birds in the garden. After a while, we went to sit in front of the river where the children played.
"You know that Mary loves you," said one of the children, a little girl.
I said, "You are playing with me."
"I am not playing with you," she replied.
Jean said, "That sounds amazing and interesting."
"Of course, it is," I responded to him.
"What is your name?" I asked the little girl.
She said, "My name is Jenny."
"How do you know that she loves me?" I asked Jenny.
She replied, "She told my grandmother and me that."
"Are you her niece?" I asked her.
She responded, " Yes, I am her niece."
"How do you know that I am the one that she used to talk to you and your grandmother about," I questioned her again.
She responded, "Sometimes, when you walked down the street, she used to point her finger at you and said to me ' This is Roldens Paulynice, the man whom I used to talk to you and my mother about. I love him. But I don't want to tell him that right now '. I used to laugh out loudly."
I said, "Okay."
"If you want to know if that is true," said Jenny, "go talk to her. She is in front of that statue."
I hugged Jenny. I gave her ten dollars, and I said thank you to her.
"I am going to ask Mary if she loves you," Jean, my friend, said.
"We should go together," I replied.
Jean and I went to sit in front of the statue where Jenny told us to go; unfortunately, we did not see Mary.
The statue was of a young man and a young lady hugging and kissing together. They were nude. Everyone could see everything on their bodies, but it was hard to see their breasts and their private parts because they were hugging too tightly. The man was pretty tall, and the lady was pretty short. Her hair was long. The statue was in the middle of a water jet. We took pleasure from playing with the water that came out in the water jet. In front of the statue, there was a white board. When I looked at the board, I saw La Saint Valentin, fête de l'amour, which was the name of the statue, written with a blue paint on the board.
While Jean and I were talking to each other, we heard Mary talking to her mother, but we did not know where she was exactly.
After a couple of seconds, we remained quietly and listened attentively to what they said.
"You know that I love Roldens," Mary said to her mother. "I am going to tell him how I feel."
Her mother replied, "Don't do that right now."
"I am going to say that to him," she said to her mother again. "My feeling for him starts getting stronger."
"I am going to say that to you again," her mother said. "In order for you to know if a guy really loves you, you have to take some time to carefully analyze him."
"I have been analyzing him for one year and a half," she said to her mother. "Right now, I should give him my heart."
"Don't do that right now," replied her mother. "Continue to analyze him."
"I am going to continue to analyze him," she responded.
"Jenny didn't lie," I said to Jean. "It's true that Mary loves me."
"That is true," he replied.
I said, "Let's go."
While Jean and I were walking in the garden, we saw Mary and her mother. They talked to each other about me, but they did not see me.
"I can't wait to give Roldens my heart," Mary said to her mother. "I love him."
Her mother said, "You have to take some time... "
As I stepped in, "Are you serious?" I curiously and suddenly asked Mary as I interrupted her conversation with her mother. "Why you never tell me how you feel?"
Mary put her head down and said nothing.
"Please talk to me," I said to Mary.
"I love you Roldens," replied Mary.
"Why you did not tell me that?" I said. "You should tell me that when you wrote the letter to me instead of telling me something that almost made me commit suicide. Your letter caused me so much pain."
"I did not tell you that," she replied as she was crying, "because I was trying to analyze you. I just wanted to know if you really loved me."
"Love is what the heart feels," I responded to her. "Once you love somebody who loves you, you have to let your heart decide. Do what your heart wants you to do. That's why my heart convinces me deep down inside that I am in love with you. Don't ever force yourself to do something that your heart doesn't really mean, especially hiding your feeling for someone whom you really love. The longer you hide your feeling for someone is the longer that you make your heart suffer or the stronger that this feeling becomes. I love you so much Mary, and I am ready to do whatever it takes to fight for our love. I am ready to show you what love is all about."
She closed her eyes. She thought about something. After a couple of minutes, she hugged me and kissed me. She said nothing, but she cried while she was kissing me.
Jean said desperately, " I hope that I will find my girl one day." But he smiled suspiciously, and he looked at Mary and me attentively.
After a couple of hours, Jean told me that Mary used to tell him everything, but he could not tell me the truth because Mary did not want him to tell me that.
Roldens Paulynice was born in December 24 1990 in Gonaives, Haity. He has published many short stories and essays, especially about relationship or love, literature review, education, and politics. Think Before You Act and What Causes Many College Students to Fail or Drop out are two of his works that he likes the most. Fortunately, in February 2009, he had the chance to come to the United States, attended Glade Central High School, and graduated in may 2010 with a 3.08 GPA. In may 8, 2012, he graduated from Palm Beach State College with an Associate in Arts Degree. Right now, he is attending Florida Atlantic University, pursuing his BS in accounting and business administration. In the near future, he wants to become a CPA. Being a writer is something that he has a certain zeal to become in his life, but right now, he is trying, hoping to become a famous one one day. He is the author of Teenage Marriages Are Likely to End Unhappily, Think Before You Act, What Causes Many College Students to Fail or Dropout, Many People Get Married for Foolish Reasons, An Essay about the Tell-Tale-Heart and The Black Cat, and many other works.
