Hidden Behind A Metaphor

Apollo Saunders smelled of vanilla and bad decisions. His skin was sunlit golden and anyone passing by could tell he belonged in an art museum. But his mind was a frenzy of crashing thoughts spiraling out of control. Maybe that's why wildflowers look a lot like him. Gorgeous but hard to tame. And it was just one day. My first day talking to him and then he was gone.

At school, his friends called him the space boy. I always assumed it might be because of a kinky obsession with astronomy. But that's before I discovered his poems.

It's how everything started in the first place.

Hauntingly beautiful analogies about the world. He had plucked out astronomical terms and grown them in his field of poetry. I guess his friends noticed the repeated use of spatial concepts and thus the infamous nickname got stuck.

The last time I saw Apollo he was wearing his favorite sun printed t-shirt all fashionably tucked in making him look like my school's very own e-boy. I remember the sound of his light footsteps while his soft curls bounced and drowned in the sunlight.

One thing about Apollo that most people should know starting from his name is that he really is a dashing Greek God walking among humans in this modern world. I won't be surprised if his body is an adequate source for ichor. There's just something magnetic and powerful about the way he carries himself.

What surprised me that particular day was my school's reputed e-boy abandoning his friends to talk to some tiny girl who absolutely hated tall dudes like him. That's me, I'm the tiny girl with a hidden agenda for tall people.

"Hey sunshine, would you like to join me for an evening ending with delicious sundaes?" He had confidently spoken to me as if the fact we ignored the existence of each other for years didn't bother him the least.

"Last time I looked in the mirror I was nowhere close to being actual sunshine. You can call me Lucy instead." I was trying really hard not to let out the high pitched scream manifesting inside my body.

Apollo has always been the town's sweet boy and that will always follow with a lot of cliche confessions such as nobody rejecting his invitations to parties. But this was no party he had invited me to. Is this what the kids call a date?

"I'm sorry but are you asking ME to hang out with YOU after school?"

He had laughed at my sudden outburst and confusion. That's when I became aware of his best friend Charlie watching our interaction from afar.

At that point my urge to run away from Apollo and avoid him for the rest of the day was increasing at alarming levels.

I really wish I was normal and batted my eyelashes at him as a mere exercise of seduction. Unlike my friend Angela I wasn't an ace at flirting or talking to the male species in general. But Apollo didn't seem to mind.

"Well I've also been practicing this in the mirror for months. I hope you don't let my brave efforts fall for nothing." Maybe he wanted me to die from a heart attack because I swear my heartbeat slowed down when I heard that.

If it still isn't that obvious, I had agreed to his charitable offer which felt like a donation to my non-existent popularity. But if it wasn't for that I wouldn't have met the real Apollo.

Back then I had just known of him but after school as I drove away and melted in to the horizons with him, I had realized why Charlie had worn a strange look on his face.

The end of that particular Thursday costed me of being Apollo's human suicide note.

Charlie confronted me the next day. Red flashes of anger spitting from his words. He woke up my parents and I at five in the morning with loud knocks on our front door.

I was very confused with his behavior at first. He kept on blaming me for something. His messy hair reflecting his blurry sentences. I had no clue of what he was talking about.

Finally after my Dad forcefully made him drink a glass of water, he started speaking like a normal human with proper grammar.

"Nobody has seen him and I can't reach him. You were the last person he was with. Do you have any idea where he could be?"

My Dad being the most impatient person ever refilled the empty glass and prompted Charlie to drink it again as if somehow that would solve everything.

"Boy, if you seek help from us at least be clear with what you're saying. Who are you looking for?"

Unlike my Dad I had already figured out who he was talking about.

Apollo.

Maybe he had planned it all out. Practiced everything in front of the mirror the way he had told me.

Weeks turned into months but there was still no news about him. The whole town was soaked in curiosity and sparked with farfetched rumours. As time passed by more people decided that he might not even be alive. Just like he had said they started losing hope.

Many people asked me about that day when Apollo and I were chasing the skylines. They poked and nudged at the memories I had made with the missing boy. Charlie had his suspicions from the start. But it all vanished when he saw it for himself.

Within the few hours I had spent with Apollo, he had given me his most prized possession. And that gave answers for everything. But the problem is what were the questions?