Oh Deliah

What a time to have forgotten my pencil.

'So, do you have one?' Deliah Shaw leaned a little closer, bridging the gap between our desks. The gap that had brought us so close yet separated us by so much.

I kept rummaging in my bag.

'Yeah, yeah I do. It's in here somewhere.' I knew it wasn't. It was sitting on my floor back in my bedroom, carefully wedged into the bottom of an upside down paper cup for reasons I was unable to explain, even to myself.

Deliah Shaw's smile was distracting. Like rainbows dancing on an April day. Her eyes gazed at me, so full of hope, so full of promise.

Oh Deliah, how I have dreamed of you. With your chocolate fountain hair and skin like milky buttons. The way you move is as though the angels lay flowers for your feet. The way you speak is a Spanish guitar strumming in my ear. I would sell my Scalextric to buy you a pony. If you wanted a pony, that is. If you didn't I would buy you something else. Maybe shoes. You like shoes. Every day you wear beautiful shoes of a myriad of colours. I would buy you a houseful of shoes.

Deliah's smile was fading. It dragged down the corners of my heart. I searched deeper.

Oh Deliah, I have dreamed of this moment. This moment you need me. You are my damsel in distress and I am your knight. I will come to your rescue.

'It's in here somewhere.' I enthused, mentally booting myself in the brain for being so unprepared. Unprepared for the very moment I had been preparing myself for since I first saw Deliah Shaw sit her glorious self at the desk next to me.

Oh Deliah you are a work of art. A painter would put down his paintbrush in honour of such a muse. I would spend long hours drawing you, taking care with every line, slowly tracing my pencil over...

My pencil. I sighed and slowly closed my bag. I turned to Deliah. Every part of me felt heavy and weak. Oh those eyes.

'I'm sorry Deliah, I left it at home.'

She turned from me and the world slowed a hundred fold as the connecting gaze from her eyes broke from mine.

Oh Deliah, I have let you down. I am your knight and I let you down. But tomorrow, Deliah, I will have a plethora of pencils in all the colours of the rainbow. You shall have a new one everyday Deliah.

I felt the shattering of my heart as she turned to Bobby, sitting on the desk on her other side. 'Bobby, do you have a pencil you can lend me?' She asked, her voice as sweet as sherbet on the tongue. Bobby turned to her with a smile. The world began to fold in on itself. Do not have a pencil you weasel!

He had a pencil. They dated till the end of high school.