It Makes Me Happy
“Whenever things go wrong, I always cry. It’s weak to do so, I know that…I do know that, and yet I still...”
“Grandpa!”
I looked up. There she was, in all her unzipped jacket glory.
Rishi, the girl who was completely smitten with me.
Before I could even think, the bouncy fifteen year old tackled me with a giant hug. Quickly, I grabbed her arm and tried to pull Rishi away from me. Not working. Rishi can cling on to anything if she tries--which, in my case, is all the time, every single day.
After a few moments, with the help of a standby student--who seemed a bit weirded out-- I was able to pull the hyperactive teen off of me. Rishi grinned. “Heya!” she said, striking what she probably thought was a cool pose. Totally uncool.
“Hey,” I replied.
“You’re walking me home today, right?” Standard Rishi--not even bothering to ask about my day before asking me to do something.
“Sure,” I said. So what if I would be freezing my butt off for the ten minute walk from her house to mine? Rishi would cry until she got her way, so I may as well agree.
I sighed. I feel highly repetitive.
Rishi smiled.
I suddenly noticed it--her smile seemed a bit off. Come to think of it, today she ditched clubs about half-way through. Wonder what happened...
Apparently, someone has cursed me. I’m pretty sure of it--I walk my friend, who has a complete unrequited love for me, home every single day, and the bus decides to come twenty minutes later then every other single bus on the one day where wind chill makes the temperature about sixteen degrees.
As soon as I lug my twenty-pound backpack on the bus, Rishi decides to plop down next to me.
“You know, I really don’t have room for this.” I told Rishi.
“Suck it up.” She said, playfully sticking out her tongue.
I sighed. Yet another long, freezing bus ride with a hyperactive childish teenager.
Surprisingly, Rishi was quiet for a long time. She rested her head on my shoulder. I tried not to think about it, but she kept making sniffling sounds.
I sighed loudly. “Alright, what’s so wrong that’s making you cry?” I asked, looking down at Rishi.
The tiny teen looked at me and sniffed, big fat tears rolling out her light, blue-green eyes and down her face. “Nngh…” she muttered, wiping her eyes. Rishi wrapped her arms around her backpack, staring at the back of the bus seat in front of us. She was quiet for a long time until she finally spoke up. She mumbled, so I had to get closer to her face to hear her. If it would get her off my shoulder, I was happy to listen.
“What’d you say, Rishi?”
“I said that someone I know online got into a car accident...”
I looked at her. Her face was blotched, and her cheeks were red as she looked back up at me. She sniffled again as she continued.
“She pushed some little kid out of the way of a car, and…I-I didn’t know her that well, but I really loved her art, and I…I don’t know, it’s just that when I hear about something like that, I just…” Rishi sobbed again.
I honestly had no idea what to say. I simply hid behind my shaggy, hobo-like haircut and stared at her.
I let her sob for a few minutes until she wiped her eyes. “My mom…doesn’t know about this, so…I just gotta smile…a-and pretend…” She wiped her eyes and made a pathetic smile. “Does it look believable?”
Her eyes were red, and her face was blotched. If this was the middle of summer, it defiantly wouldn’t be believable.
Then again, it wasn’t the middle of summer, now was it?
“Yeah. It just looks like you’re cold.”
Rishi smiled. “Thanks, Grandpa.”
Ugh. That stupid nickname again. Oh well--in this case, I’ll let it go. I stared out the window in silence.
After a few moments, Rishi spoke up. “Hey, Gramps, how come you’re always so quiet, and stare off in the distance lots?”
“It makes me look wise and all-knowing. If you let people see you’re eyes too often, then they can see your soul.”
Rishi smiled and pushed her bangs away from her face. She chuckled. “Well, I guess that people can look into my soul really easy…I’m like an open book…I’m always crying and showing my feelings and everything…” she hiccupped. “I’m so weak. I hate it.” She sniffled, and then wiped her eyes rigorously again. “Whenever things go wrong, I always cry. It’s weak to do so, I know that…I do know that, and yet I still…”
I wiped my long bangs out of my eyes. “Well, you do cry often.” I admitted. “But I just think it’s because…you have a big heart.”
Rishi blinked. She defiantly hadn’t been expecting that from me, the guy who rejected her.
I continued. “You have empathy. It’s obvious that you care about everyone…even people you don’t know. You just…love everyone. You’ve got the biggest heart that I’ve ever seen. It’s almost unbelievable…although, you could tone your impulses down a bit.”
Rishi smiled again, a soft smile, not the one that she normally gives people. She turned so that her profile was facing me. “You know why I like to give hugs? It’s ‘cause I like to make people happy…or, at least…I think they’re happy when I give them hugs.” She glanced over at me tenderly. “Does it make you happy, Grandpa?”
I was silent for a moment. Rishi had never asked me something like this--I mean, not in this kind of situation, where she was delicate and fragile, like a china doll.
I thought about Rishi for a minute. Always smiling, grinning, hugging…she cries for others, and it makes her feel selfish, but…she really wasn’t selfish. There were plenty of people more selfish then her.
Rishi loved me, and Rishi knew that those feelings weren’t returned to her, and yet she still persists, like a stubborn child who wants a toy very badly. Rishi stays with me in my silence, and she persists when I tell her I’m having a bad day, trying to cheer me up, even going to the extent of poking fun at herself to get to that point where I give her a smug smile.
So how did that make me feel? How does she make me feel?
“Yeah. It makes me happy.”
Dedicated to TwoFacedLullaby, Rishi is praying for you to get better real soon.
