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Please read and comment honestly. Comments are greatly appreciated! 3nodding
The first time Rex saw Gina, he was but the tender age of thirteen, and in the seventh grade. He walked into Mr. Rogan’s first period math class on the first day of school, pushing his plastic rimmed glasses farther up on his slender nose, and saw her sitting next to the desk with a small note card flung lazily on top of it that read: Rex Marco. He brushed his dark shaggy hair out of his face and took a seat next to her, trying his best not to stare, and failing with every passing second.
Right away, Rex noticed just how beautiful this young girl was. Her chestnut hair fell gently about her pale cheeks, as if she’d just been out on a long run, and hadn’t had enough time to put it back up into a tight ponytail before coming to class. But he liked how it fell about her face all the same. Rex also noticed how playful her emerald eyes were, similar to a Christmas puppy you’ve just hugged for the first time. To put it simply, Rex couldn’t find one thing about the girl that wasn’t absolutely gorgeous. He leaned over casually, without catching her attention, and looked quickly at the card on her desk, and found that it read: Gina Johansen. He returned to his original position and sighed. Gina Johansen. A beautiful name to match a beautiful girl.
“Hi,” she said quietly from beside him. Obviously he wasn’t as inconspicuous as he first thought. Rex felt his face growing hot and his mouth involuntarily working its way awkwardly into a crooked smile.
“Hey,” he replied uneasily.
“I’m Gina,” she said with a smile, and oh, what a smile! There was a pause in the over-lit room, when Rex forgot his own name, and tried desperately to remember it. Noticing the boy’s mind going blank, Gina reached over and took the card off his desk.
“Rex, huh? That’s an unusual name.”
“Yeah, I’m . . . Rex,” he spat finally, thinking for sure he’d made an idiot of himself. After all, who forgets their own name? Someone who happened to be looking into the eyes of the most beautiful girl in the world, that’s who. To Rex’s immense relief though, Gina only laughed easily and returned her attention to the front of the room, and he let a deep sigh escape through his lips. Rex failed math that year.
* * * *
The next year, Gina made sure to help Rex out with his math so he could graduate on time, but the pair did not share a math class. Gina was much smarter than Rex, even if he did pay an ounce of attention on his schoolwork rather than her, so she was placed in a class for the intellectually gifted, more commonly known as an honors class to the rest of the academic population. They quickly became close and began going out shortly after they became study partners. The day they began going out, Rex bought Gina a bouquet of 14 roses and brought them to her at school. He skipped his first period class to bring them to her in her first period class, which happened to be Honors Algebra. Mr. Stephens taught the class, and didn’t think the act was any bit of sweet, so Rex found himself with a detention for that Friday afternoon.
Gina couldn’t stop staring at the beautiful redness of the roses, even after Mr. Stephens began the lesson, and felt almost as if she might cry. Holding the flowers up to the edge of her nose, she inhaled deeply, taking in their sweet aroma. Within the delicate red petals, Gina found a small pink envelope with her name on it, written in the worst handwriting she’d ever seen.
When Mr. Stephens turned to write notes on the messy whiteboard at the front of the room, Gina quietly opened the envelope and pulled out a piece of notebook paper that had been folded over tightly many times. Mr. Stephens turned to face the class briefly, but returned to writing on the board again within moments, and Gina seized her opportunity to open the paper. Written in the same horrible handwriting as on the envelope, there was a small attempt at a poem on the paper, and, as Gina read it, she felt hot tears of undeniable happiness run down her cheeks.
* * * *
Three long, (yet not long enough), years later, Rex and Gina were still going strong in their love for each other, and were going to the Junior Prom together the second to last week of school. Both of them spent immense amounts of time thinking about their appearance at the dance, but were the absolute least shallow couple that would be attending.
“I just don’t want her to be embarrassed because of me Dad. I mean come on, I love her,” Rex told his father when they were out buying a suit for the affair. David Marco could only smile at his newly seventeen year old son, and remember when he himself was worried about what he looked like for the Prom. He put his large hand on the shoulder of his boy and looked at his eyes through the mirror Rex was examining himself in. They made eye contact and couldn’t have looked any more like the same person. Rex had purchased contacts at the end of his sophomore year, so he never had to look at anyone through glasses again.
“Son, I’ll tell you what my father told me when I went to the Prom. If she loves you as much as you love her, then it doesn’t matter at all what you wear. All she sees is you.” Rex forced a smile and stared at his father.
“I don’t know how true that is, but I’ll take your word for it Dad, thanks.”
As Rex’s father had said, it didn’t matter at all what he wore, because all Gina saw was him the entire evening, and all he saw, was her. They were completely engrossed in the mere essence of one another, and didn’t notice that another soul had been there that night, not even Rex’s best friend Jordan, who had not been but two steps from him the whole night through. It had been the best night the both of them had ever had.
When it came time for Rex to take Gina home, he escorted her to his car, opened and shut the door for her, climbed in himself, and after a few minutes of harmless kissing that could very well have not been so harmless, he drove her home. As they pulled into her driveway, Rex told Gina to wait for only a moment while he got something out of the back seat. Gently, he lay a bouquet of fourteen red roses on her lap, just as he had done in the eighth grade. Without question, Gina was beside herself as she plucked a small pink envelope from the petals. Just as it had the first time, it had her name written on it, (only this time the handwriting had improved greatly), and also just as it had the first time, it had the poem written on the piece of notebook paper that brought her to tears after reading it. He looked into her eyes with a passion that could ignite the stars, and quietly whispered:
“I mean every word.”
* * * *
Five years later, at their graduation from the University of Michigan, Rex proposed to Gina, and, with tears in her eyes, she said yes. Gina spoke shortly with a girl named Amanda that she had been friends with in college while Rex left to get his gift for Gina, and returned quickly. Behind his back, Rex held his gift gently behind his back and smiled as Gina tried to sneak a peek at what he was holding.
After a few moments of watching his new fiancée struggle at finding out what was behind his back, Rex handed Gina, yet another bouquet of fourteen roses with a little pink envelope tucked within the petals. Smiling and on the verge of tears, Gina opened the envelope to see a piece of notebook paper with the same poem she had seen two times before. Rex watched with pleasure as Gina read the poem and cried with happiness, just as she had both times before. After folding the paper back up and returning it to the envelope, Gina moved over to Rex and hugged him for a very long time and whispered in his ear,
“I will always love you.”
* * * *
Through the years, Rex learned that the way to his wife’s heart, was through fourteen red roses, and the small poem he’d written when he was young in the eighth grade. For every special occasion life brought them, that was Rex’s present to Gina. A bouquet of fourteen red roses and a poem sealed in a small pink envelope within the petals of the roses, was all she needed from him, so that’s what he gave her. He gave them to her for every Valentine’s Day, Christmas, Easter, Anniversary, New Year’s, and other occasions on their calendar. Rex gave her the gift when their twin boys Ian and Eli were born only two years after the couple wed, he gave it to her when their daughter Cassidy was born one year after Ian and Eli, and, when their youngest son Stephen was born three years after Cassidy, he gave it to her too.
The present was always amazing, and Gina cried every single time she read the poem, including the final time Rex gave it to her. They were old and gray, their children were grown and had children of their own that were almost grown as well, and both Rex and Gina were happy with the life they had led together. One afternoon, just weeks after Gina’s eighty-second birthday, she was sitting on her rocker, reading the latest from her favorite author, and had just finished the book when Rex walked in with a bouquet of fourteen roses for her. She opened the envelope one last time, read the poem one last time, and cried from sheer happiness, one last time.
Gina died in her sleep that night, and Rex died only a few days later from a broken heart. He told his children that he simply could not live without his Gina, and, though they did not understand, they respected their parents’ last wishes, and buried them together. Also regarding their parents’ last wishes, they found the pink envelope tucked within the petals of the roses, pulled out the poem, and placed it in the coffin between their parents. Before putting the poem with their parents forever though, the children read it through, as their parents had spoken of it many times, but no one other than them had ever seen it. Cassidy was the first to cry, such like her mother she was, while Ian and Eli tried their best not to let their guard down in a time of grief, but they were too much like their mother as well, and let the tears fall. Just like it had when Rex and Gina were in eighth grade, the poem read:
Today, I give you fourteen roses. Thirteen are real, one is fake, and I will love you until the last one dies.
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