Timeless

She held the letter in her hand, eager to tear it open and read it.
The power of these words.
There was nothing in comparison to it and the magic of which he had the capability to evoke it for her. She was not sure even why it was only Vic had that power with her, that power to make her feel alive.
There was infinity in his words.
A certain quality that only Vic has the power of harnessing. A power that broke through her world of darkness and silence to teach her the joy of living.

Born deaf and blind, Rosa never knew what the world around her was really like. Due to her condition, she had always led a sheltered life far beyond everything. The youngest daughter of a wealthy vineyard owner, she was never short of wanting anything but what was there to want… she never knew.

Until Vic came into her life.
Vivacious, lively Vic, the son to the vineyard’s new court master.

They first met when she was eight and he was ten. He had found her sitting by the fountain by the side of the main farm house and with the instinct of any mischievous little boy he pushed her into the fountain.

She had not reacted the way he had expected her too. Instead of screaming, there had been utter silence, silence except for the splashing of the water as she floundered in the fountain completely disoriented. The water was not that deep, for a small girl it might have reached her waist but she was not coming out, almost as though she was completely incapable of comprehending what had happened.

“Let me help you!!” he had shouted, jumping into the water, hauling her to her feet as she gasped and sputtered.
Still not a single sound came from her as her hands flayed wildly, grabbing him and holding him in an almost deathly grip. That was when Vic realised she was not looking at him either though her eyes darted wildly around, she focused on nothing. He was still gaping at the strange girl when he heard a loud voice bellow behind him.

“What the hell happened!!!??”

It was the eldest son of the vineyard whom Vic had already met once earlier. The young man made a mad dash and grabbed the girl from Vic, carrying the girl, smoothing her hair back as she clutched him, crying her soundless tears.
The man looked at Vic angrily.

“How dare you?!” he shouted at the young boy. Before Vic could say anything, the man was already turning around, storming back to the main house with the girl still weeping silently in his arms.

It was only after he got the worst trashing of his life that night did Vic find out who the girl was and the fact that she was blind and deaf. Guilt overcoming the young boy due to his action Vic sought her out the very next day, wanting to tell her he was sorry.
But when he found her sitting on the porch, he discovered he had no way of communicating with her. She couldn’t hear him, couldn’t see him and finally when he worked up the courage to touch her, she recoiled from his touch in apparent terror.

“Who are you?” the womanly voice that spoke to him made Vic turn to find a woman looking at him.

“No, no!” he spoke up immediately, “I wasn’t doing anything, I only wanted to apologise to her for what I did yesterday. I… I didn’t know that she…”

The lady chuckled, “Ah, so you were the young man who gave our Rosa a ducking yesterday. Not a very bright idea.”

He hung his head, face turning red from the lady’s chiding.

“Come,” the woman said, walking up to Rosa and taking the young girl’s hand in her own. She then took Vic’s hand and showed him how to shape his fingers in the open palm of the girl, signing to her, “I am sorry.”

Rosa snatched her hand away, turning her back to him, but Vic was enthralled. He had not expected that there would be a way to talk to her. For the rest of the day, he sat there watching as the woman, whom he found out was Rosa’s tutor, sat with Rosa for her lessons that day.

From that day forth, Vic sat with her when her tutor came, begging the kind lady to teach him sign language and Braille as well. He studied diligently and then set about to the task of being her friend.

In the beginning she had resisted his overture of friendships but he persisted.
Everyday he would bring her a flower and then talk to her, firmly grasping her hand in his as he signed into her hand, telling her things.
Telling her about the beauty of the vineyard they lived in.
About the first time he worked in the stables with the horses, how big and magnificent they were. About the glorious sunset and sunrise that coloured their valley and the butterflies that danced over the flowers draped so festively around the main farmhouse.

Slowly, almost like those butterflies itself, peeking out of its cocoon for the first time, Rosa began responding to him as well. Soon, the two of them spent countless hours together, his talking to her and showing her the world. She found courage to go beyond the farmhouse, walking with him around the vineyard, touching these things he had spoken to her about.

She laughed soundlessly as the horses gently nuzzled her hand, and her face lit up in joy at the scratching feet of the grasshopper that he had caught for her. He showed her all the things that made him happy and with him, Rosa blossomed.
As the years passed, they became the best of friends, living in their own little world far from any worries.

Until one day, their time together came to abrupt end when Vic’s parents decided to send him to boarding school overseas. He was sixteen and she was fourteen.
Rosa had cried for days, refusing to talk to anyone after Vic’s departure.
When his first letter arrived she had locked herself in her room, running her hand over the Braille savouring the stories of his new school.
She read and reread the letter until it was dog eared and creased from her hands.

When he returned home for the holidays, she found contentment again, smiling once more as she had not done in the time he was not around, then the tears and tantrum when he had to return to the school, seeking solace from the letters again.

She was twenty now, and Vic, after boarding school had then continued his studies to university. His letters never stopped though and without fail every month he would write to her.
Just like this month when one of the yard girls had placed the letter in her hand. She had hurried up to her room, half stumbling on the steps in her eagerness to read the letter.

Rosa kissed it once, and then slit the envelope open, pulling out the crisp paper. Flattening it out on her reading desk she ran her fingers over it and began to read.

“Hey princess” he wrote. She had ceased to remember when was it he started calling her that but it had become her nickname from him.

“Hey princess. How has the season been for you? I heard from my father that the harvest this year will be amazing and I can’t wait to sample the new vintage. They’ve also sent for new seedlings apparently. You should ask your father or your brothers to explain all this; I can’t waste precious paper when there is some other things I need to talk to you about.

Hey princess, you know, I feel it’s high time I tell you this and since you’re my best friend I want you to be the first to know. I think I’m in love.”

Rosa’s hands faltered on the paper. Did she read that right? He was telling her that he was in love…
She touched it again, finding the sentence.
No mistake.

“I think I’m in love. It’s been a while but I just could never find the courage to admit it to myself but I figured that my graduation is drawing near and it’s time for me to make another step in my life. I feel this is the first time in my life I need to ask your advice.

When I first met her, I was never really sure what her opinion was of me. She’s the most stubborn girl I had ever met and it took me a long time before she would even let me talk to her without her turning away. Yet, just somehow we managed to become friends. I felt like I could tell her everything.
Why is it friendship changes without you even realising it?
I need your help Rosa. Tell me, how do I tell her I love her? How do I say to her everything that has been locked in my heart all this while?
You’re a girl, you ought to know…”

Rosa couldn’t bring herself to read the letter anymore. She swept the letter from her table, sending it to the floor as she buried her face in the crook of her arm and began to cry.
She had lost him.

Why was it all this time she had not realised all this time what her own feelings for him were? That she loved him? That he was her entire world…
Why had she not told him?

But… how could she?
He had his entire life ahead of him and she, cut out from the world as she was, had no right to claim him. She knew that it would come to this sooner or later.
One day her Vic would surely step beyond their precious childhood boundary to live his own life. Rosa cried, her body shuddering with each sob that wrecked her.

Until she felt the gentle, familiar touch on her shoulder.
Vic!

Rosa’s head jerk up abruptly as she felt the warm kiss on her cheek. She reached for him, her fingers tracing the familiar contour of his face as he hugged her like he normally did whenever he returned home.
He didn’t tell her he was coming home.
She was so glad to be in his arms again that for the longest time she merely stood there, etching the touch and sense of him in her mind. The feel of his broad shoulders, his smell, the feel of his hair through her fingers… it was longer than she remembered last time.

A moment later, his strong fingers traced her arm lightly to take her wrist, opening her palm up so he could sign on her open palm.

“Why were you crying Rosa?” Vic asked her.

She shook her head, pulling her hand away and signing to him.
“You just tell her you idiot. Just tell her you love her.”

He took her hand again.
“And if she says no?” came his reply against her palm, “I’m afraid I won’t be able to take the rejection easily…”

“She can’t say no. She won’t say no. She’d be worst then me then, blind and deaf, because she would also be stupid.”

Nothing.
She held her hand out to him, waiting for a reply. He took it, but instead of saying something to her, he brought it to him, pressing it to his chest. She was confused for a minute at the trembling under her palm, until she realised why it was so.
He was laughing.

“Why are you laughing?” she asked him.

“Because my princess, I’m amused you still haven’t figured out who she is.”

“How am I suppose to know?” she replied obstinately.

“Well, because I never thought you were stupid,” he told her as he bent down and this time, pressed his lips against hers.

Rosa’s entire body tensed up as his arms slipped around her waist, pulling her out of the chair so that he could pull her tightly into his embrace. Time stopped for her at the feeling of his strong arms holding her, his warm lips seeking hers out eagerly.
The kisses tasted sweet and reassuring. It was a long time before they broke away from one another.

He took her hand, pressing her palm to his lips and mouthed the words.
“I love you.”

She buried her face in the nape of his neck, not able to stop the tears from flowing.
Vic.
Vic.
Since she met him, all he had done is make her cry, but this time, for the first time, the tears were tears of gladness, of happiness.

He traced his fingers on her face, tracing the edges of her smile. She pulled back slightly, doing the same thing to him before, slowly, hesitantly asking him.

“Vic, I… I can give you nothing. You have your entire life ahead of you, why saddle yourself with a person like me? A person who would only take up so much of your time…”

He stilled her hands, wrapping them around his waist so he could drop gentle kisses on her forehead.
She brought her hand back up and this time he caught it around the wrist gently to tell her.

“Because I have all the time in the world for you. Because what we have is timeless isn’t it Rosa? You know that, you’ve always known that.”

She nodded, not questioning it anymore.
What he said was the truth and they both agreed to it.
This.
The feeling of being in his arms, the knowledge of his love. The kind of feeling that was timeless.
Timeless…