“That’s not what I think. You did it on purpose, Peter. You are always like this!” Celia was just able to pull her elbow far enough out of Peter’s rib to give me a coy, expectant glare.
All this I caught through the side of my eye, in that little blurry space where my glasses failed to clarify the world. I, for one, was not paying much attention to their coquetry. From our perch on the mezzanine I was instead exercising my God given right to absent mindedly cast my eyes over the crowd below. Haphazardly gleaning, faces and people held equal, scenes observed with indifference. That is, and little did I know the danger, until I saw her.
The girl’s hair crowned her in gold, curled so that its volume covered her face in profile as she leaned over her notebook. As she looked up to speak, I, still so far away caught a glimpse of how her lips, pink and regal, moved softly against her complexion. How nice would it be, I thought, if she gave that sterling attention to me?
I wanted to turn and ask Celia, Peter even, what this all meant. “I have a philosophical question,” I planned to tell them, wanting to ask their soul, divine an answer softer than logic. “I’m in love with her.”
I didn’t know how they would respond or how I should respond myself. To go down and meet her?
In any case, as I deliberated, she got up and left.
I wrote this only to ask; what value does it all have, to me or to you reading this? To me, so I can feel the same pain writing as I do when she left. To you, I hope either in me you find commonality to sooth you, or that circumstance has removed you far from the feeling. To her, only to say thank you.