Yizi_m - One the Road-Revised Draft lyrics

On the road Opened her eyes and looked out of the window of her bedroom, even though it was raining, Mae smiled and said: “Wow, I am alive! What a nice day!” It was the same thing and the first thing she did every morning when Mae got up. She had been saying this for a long time. Longer than she could remember. Mae had been being afraid of dying of heart attacks. And she thought every day feeling alive was a gift for her. Mae A. White was diagnosed congenital heart disease when she was born. Because of her heart, she was really weak. So her parents as well as her friends would not let her do anything which might require labor work. She took a bottle of medicine with her wherever she went in case of heart attacks. She had heart attacks for a few time during cla**es, so all of her cla**mates knew that. Mae could still remember what happened the first time she tried doing some energetic activities. There was a fine summer morning. The sun was shining and the wind was gentle, soft, and warm. She just couldn't help running into the sun. She circled and run in front of her house for no more than five minutes and was stopped by her mom when her mom surprised to see her there. She felt so wronged when she was dragged down by her mom. She almost cried: “Mom! I really love today's weather, it's sooo nice! Why can't I just run for a while? I will be fine!” However, it was too late. She had a terrible fever that afternoon and missed cla**es for a couple of days. Since then, Mae never tried any vigorous activities. Mae never had any PE cla**es. All she could do was sitting by the window of the library which faced to a tennis court, raptly watching people yelling, jumping, and enjoying sweating. She wanted to join them so badly. But she knew she couldn't, and whoever knew about her disease would not let her. Mae was thin and looked pale. But her eyes were big, beautiful, and conveying the message: naive, pure, and kind. Mae knew it was hard to have heart diseases, and she wanted to help as much as she could. She had been volunteering at a hospital for a few years, leading patients to the place where they should go from the admission. When Ebola outspread last year, her parents strongly against her volunteering at that hospital, she insisted going and she did. She had dreams, lots of. One of the dreams she desired most was to go Africa and help local children. Even though she did not know how and what to do to be of help, Mae still wanted to go. However, she had been putting this dream away because she had never left the town she was born and worried about her heart. Mae was born in Broken Arrow, a very small city in Oklahoma. With a total population of roughly 100,000. Both her parents were farmers. Both her parents were really hard working, so their living were not bad. They got along very well with each other. To her family, it seems, her disease was their only concern. Back all the way to when Mae was born, she was taken too good care of. Even though her heart was not that bad, only a few heart attacks a year, her parents helped her do almost everything and did not allow her to try any sports. However, Mae managed to persuade her parents to teach her driving. Mae spent most of her childhood on the swing in their yard reading books to her loyal friend, her dog, Dan. Mae decided to pursue a bachelor degree in Biology when she was admitted to the Northeastern State University, because she wanted to cure heart diseases, if possible. When she entered college, she decided not to tell anyone she had heart disease. For the first year of her college, she did not have heart attach for a single time for the whole year. She got so delightful and decided to learn swimming. Because she met a girl, Zoe, who was also a Biology student who was two years older than her and was really good at swimming. They had many major courses together and became best friends. *** Mae stared at one of the drawings hanging on the wall for long. All those drawings were girls: in different clothing, with different postures, showing different expressions. But none of them failed to convey the message of feeling coziness and show their grace. Lynn, is leaving. Setting off to Los Angeles. A week before her departure, she invited some of her friends, mostly are students there. Mae was invited to her apartment for the farewell party. It was her first time for her to visit this apartment. Mae was so fascinated by the wall of girls vividly standing on the yellowish sketch paper. Literally, they were not friends yet. Because they just made their first acquaintance a few days ago, and they do not know much about each other yet. Mae just happened to know that Lynn is leaving and holding a farewell party. When one day Zoe and Mae were walking on campus, heading to the next cla**room, they came across Lynn. Zoe knew Lynn, she was a Biology PhD candidate. They were in the same group in an upper level course. When they came across on the campus, Lynn told Zoe that she was moving to Los Angeles, for a better salary. Looking at Mae who was standing beside Zoe, Lynn also said Mae was welcomed. Mae nodded and smiled. Mae was exploring everything she could see, but for that moment, all she saw are those drawings. It took a while for Mae to carefully appreciate all the girls. “Did you draw all these!” Mae asked. Lynn did not answer, not even looked up, cooking a dish for the party. “Do not take it seriously! I am just exclaiming the beautiful girls!” Mae consoled herself. *** It was not Mae did not care about being ignored, but she already got used to it. She did not have many friends, partly because of her disease. Reading books helped her overcome loneliness. And she got pretty good at dealing with being ignored or even shunted aside. Mae's motto was “love like never been hurt; trust like never been treated.” She also tried her best to do so. Mae was quite shy. Only people who knew her well could tell that she was really kind and warm hearted. *** Almost everyone came, except for one----Ken, who called and said his car broke on the way there and would show up later. So they started the dinner. Most of the people invited, except for Zoe, are new to Mae. Mae just quietly ate, barely looked up, nor joined the talk. When Ken arrived, they have already finished eating and started playing card games. “Hey Lynn, sorry I am late. My car broke down on the way. I mistakenly filled diesel in my car and the car stopped on the road. The car is on its way to a body shop, and I asked a friend to bring me here.” Ken explained, “But don't worry, it should be fine, and my friend can also pick me up later.” Then he joined the game, it was poker. Even when they were playing the card game, Mae did not speak much, though she seems enjoyed it. Radioactive suddenly started to play. It was someone's phone. “I am sorry!” Ken said, and picked up his phone. The one on the other side could be heard now and then. “Sorry dude, I don't…pick…at … defi … body shop…row…don't…Math…due tonight. Sorry! ...” Ken frowned as he hung up the phone. Then Ken started to go over his contact on the phone. Everyone just look at him but said nothing. “Excuse me?” Mae asked carefully in a very low voice, “I am sorry I heard your talk.” Paused, “Bu…but maybe I can send you home if you want.” It was almost the first sentence Mae said that night. “Wow! That would be awesome!” Ken's face lighted up, “Will it be convenient for you? It's totally fine, I can ask my other friends if it is not.” “Where do you live?” “I still live on campus.” “Yes. I would pa** our campus on my way home.” “Oh, thank you! I appreciate it! Really!” Mae smiled and lowered her head. *** The party was over, it was not bad. Mae led Ken to her car. A white Chevrolet Sonic. Mae felt much better after walking out of that apartment. She liked that apartment, especially those girls on the wall. Mae liked appreciating hand drawings even though she was not good at drawing at all. Because Mae believed a picture was a special way that the drawers communicated with others, and it also represented the drawer's character. She just got super nervous whenever being around with a big group of people. Ken thanked Mae again as he got on Mae's car. For a few minutes, nobody talked. “Look! A deer!” It was Mae who broke the awkward quiet. “Really! A deer? Where!” Ken looked up. “Ha-ha! Look at that sign on your right.” They were on a road beside a forest, so there was a deer crossing sign at the edge of the road. Mae giggled. Then, so did Ken. *** They arrived at their university, of course, Ken thanked Mae again and headed to his dorm. Making sure he turned at a corner of a building and could not see her anymore, Mae made a U turn at the next cross. She went the opposite direction to go back home. It is Mae. She would lie or suffer losses only if she can help somebody. However, what she did not know was a kind of person who would like to see others off as far as he could without letting them know. Ken saw all that: Mae stayed there until he turned. He also saw she made a U turn indicating that the campus was not on her way home. He felt grateful and sorry. Not having Mae's number, Ken was not able to say anything to Mae. *** Ken recognized Mae when both of them were coming out of the music building. “Hey, Mae!” Ken yelled, looking at the case Mae was carrying, “What do you play? A violin?” Looking back, Mae recognized Ken. “Yes, I am just practicing.” “You good at it?” “Well, I won't say that.” “You wanna, like, try some duet? With a piano?” Mae smiled, turned her head a bit to the left, and raised her eyebrow simultaneously, “Sounds like a good idea. You play the piano?” “Yeah, I do. You wanna try sometime?” “Okay~” said as Mae nodded, “but not today.” “Yep, absolutely.” They exchanged their numbers and both left. *** Mae got a cold and did not recover after a full month. So she decided to go to the health center. As usual, she went through some general checks. She almost cried when she learned that her heart beat was 87 times a minute. It used to be over 120 beats. She thought it was swimming which helped. So regularly asked Zoe to swim together. Of course, Mae did not tell her parents that she learned swimming and decided to keep swimming regularly, because she knew her parents would not let her. Mae was sure that her heart got stronger after she regularly swam. *** One day when Mae was chatting with Lynn on the Facebook, Lynn learned Mae had taken a course about Perl programming. Perl was the language Lynn just started to use to an*lyze data. Lynn asked if she could help her debug a script. Mae happily agreed. Mae spent a whole afternoon to debug the over 200 lines' script and sent it back to Lynn. Together with all the course material she had when she took the Perl course. Lynn appreciated it and sent a thank you card to Mae. Mae never expected that, so she was overjoyed when she received the card. *** As she kept swimming, Mae felt better and better. More and more energetic as time went by, and the fear of d**h eliminated a bit. For the first time, she saw hope on herself and feel alive, and for the first time, she wanted to pursue what she wanted for her life. She started to look for more volunteering opportunities. One post caught her attention. It was a volunteer opportunity to Africa. This one was exactly the same as the one she dreamed for years, to teach African children. Mae hesitated for a while and finally filled in the application. Days later, she got a mail said she was approved and all the volunteers will set off together at Will Rogers World Airport. *** One day, Mae just showed up with a very bad face in front of Zoe's apartment and called Zoe to open up the door. The moment Zoe opened her door, Mae embraced Zoe tightly. No more than three seconds, Mae started to sob, then cried. Petting gently on her back, Zoe said: “Oh dear little poor! It's okay! Everything will be fine!” Even though Zoe did not know what happened. “I trusted so much! I helped with all what I can! But she just don't !” Buried her head on Zoe's shoulder, Mae yelled incoherently as she cried. Mae has been crying for a few minutes and Zoe just kept petting Mae's head and back. Suddenly choked and began to pant. Zoe knew it was her heart attack. So she held Mae with one of her hands and used the other to search in Mae's shirt's pocket. Finding a little yellow bottle on her left shirt pocket, Zoe unscrewed with one arm rounding Mae's neck and used that hand, the one on Mae's neck, to shake two pills out. Gave her the two pills, Zoe felt that Mae has laid all herself on her. “Come on! You got heavier!” Zoe said to herself as she tried hard to hand Mae to the nearest chair from the door. Almost half an hour later, Mae's breath began to stable. Mae felt sorry for causing her friend so much trouble. But that guilty face, in no more than a second, took place by a cold one. Mae said in a desperate voice: “It's not fair! I can't just even cry when my heart is breaking into pieces!” she wanted to start to cry again as she said this. But she knew her heart would not let her so she tried hard to hold it back. Zoe frowned and felt sorry for Mae. “What happened to you?” Zoe can tell Mae tried to start talking about what happened for a few times, but her face looked worse and worse and almost start to cry again. “Wait! Wait! Wait! You don't have to say that if you don't want to! I don't want to hurt you!” Mae took a deep breath and sighed, still with that big frown on her small face. “Mae, listen to me!” Zoe continued, “You have to learn to say no. Or others will not take your help a big thing and take it for granted. And you cannot trust anyone like me. Not even if you think you know them.” Mae stared at her sadly. “I know it's hard, but you have to learn all that!” Just then, Mae's phone rang. “Hey Mae! How's everything going?” Mae picked up the phone, it was Ken. “I'm doing great! How about you?” Mae tried to speak in a very calm voice like nothing happened even though it sounds weak. “Yeah, pretty well. You wanna go and play some music together someday?” “Oh, that sounds good. When?” “Will tomorrow work for you? How about 3 tomorrow?” “Yep, absolutely.” “Sweet! See you then!” “Good! See you!” “I Am Doing Great!” Mae hung up the phone and Zoe repeated Mae's words in a weird way. Mae looked up at Zoe and smiled embarra**edly. *** “No hurry, I am at 329. Just come in when you arrived.” Mae got there a couple of minutes earlier. About three minutes later, Ken arrived. They greeted each other. “The flowers looks great!” Ken said. “Yep, I love this room because of this. The view from the window is always amazing.” Mae replied as she grinned. Ken was suddenly got in some way by Mae's side face of Mae as she grinning and looking out of the window. Mae turned to Ken and asked: “what do you want to play?” “Wha, whatever is fine.” He was pulled back when Mae asked him this question. *** Ken and Mae were meeting regularly after they met at the music building to play some duets together. Ken found out that Mae not only played very well but also have great learning on musicians, and that's also Ken's favorite. So it did not take long before they become really close, and they started talking not only about music, about almost everything. One Sunday, Mae got a text for Ken, asked her whether she wanted to out for a walk to k** some time on that fine Sunday afternoon. “Yes.” Mae texted back. They decided to meet at a state park at 2 p.m. In case, Mae also brought her violin. Both of them showed up on time at the gate. It was a hot summer day. The wind took away some heat, so it was not that terrible. It just rained a day before, so there was not much cloud and the sky was azure. But it was cool when you were in the shadow. They went to play paddle boat. Sitting right next to each other, they rode to a shadow, created by a huge tree near the lake. They stopped there and enjoyed the cool. Mae thanked Ken in heart silently for asking her out for a walk. The view was so great. Mae love green, light green, gra** green, and dark green, all kinds of greens, you name it. Mae started looking around, enjoyed the view a lot. Mae was grinning as she enjoyed the view around her. She even chuckled a bit at some points. However, she did not know Ken had been watching her viewing the view. When she turned her head to Ken, because she spotted a nest on the tree, they looked into each other right through their eyes. Mae's expression fixed at the moment they looked into each other. “Wha… what's wrong?” asked Mae. “Mae, I like you. Can you be my girlfriend?” Ken continued, “One minute is not long, but I would love to spend 59 seconds of it with you. I know I don't have much money, but can spend most of it on you.” Mae was so surprised, it was her first time. “I don't care about your heart disease.” Ken witnessed once they were playing La Campanella, by Franz Liszt, together. “Could you give me the chance to take care of you?” After a long pause, she was still so surprised that did not know what to say. “I think I fell in love with you the first or second time when we played duet together.” Ken added as he reached into his pocket and took out a necklace he prepared, “Will you take this, and be my girlfriend?” It was totally blank in Mae's head, she was still in the expression the moment she turned to Ken and wanted to show him the nest she found. “I can't Ken, I'm sorry.” Mae started coming back, “I've been treating you as my best friend.” Mae looked sad and continued: “You know I can't fall in love with anyone. My heart disease may k** me at any moment and I do not want to hurt the other one when I die.” “But I don't care!” “You are a very good man.” Mae interrupted him, “And that's exactly the reason I don't wanna hurt you. I'm sorry. Really.” On the way home, tears went down through Mae's cheek. She tried to hold her emotions from outspread because she knew she can't afford a heart attack while driving alone. Mae said to herself: “Mae, you don't hurt anybody, especially for the one you like.” *** “Wow, I am alive! What a nice day!” as usually, Mae said this in one morning as she stretched out. Mae got super excited because it was the day she scheduled for the training for the volunteering in Africa. Mae's parents insisted to drive her to the airport but Mae refused. Finally her parents gave in. It is because Mae's heart really became stronger over all these years, so is they think it is time to let her go and face something on her own. Mae started the engine and headed to Will Rogers World Airport. It would take almost an hour drive, but she was happy. “Finally!” Mae said to herself, “I will be fine!” she nodded. It was a lovely day, pretty much liked the day Ken said he liked Mae. It was really green along the highway. When she came across the deer crossing sign, she smiled, recalling that night, when she and Ken first met and lifted Ken school. Then Mae felt she started missing Ken. So she called Zoe through the Bluetooth on her car and talked almost everything about Ken. “Mae! Just go for it!” the voice from the other side of the phone sounds super excited, “You are such a good girl and you definitely deserve it!” “Exit at 330 toward downtown, then your destination will be on the right” the GPS stopped their talk. “Okay I will think about it, I gotta go, I almost there.” Mae rashly hung up the phone even though she still don't want to hurt Ken and did not tend to start a relation yet. *** Mae dragged her luggage to the gate of the airport and recognized a really familiar figure. It was Ken. Ken noticed Mae as Mae recognized Ken. “What are you doing up here?” Mae asked in surprise. “I know you are going to Africa to volunteer. So I also applied, and got proved. And now I'm here and I am going with you.” Ken looked at Mae, sincerely. There's already tears in Mae's beautiful eyes. “Mae, will you be my girlfriend?” Ken said slowly, word by word. Mae did not say anything but made on step to Ken and kissed him, right in front of the crowd, at the gate of the airport.