Halo

         The memories of him haunt her like a halo of golden sunlight, wrapped around her soul.  He was warm and long and lean and his eyes were like amber.  She remembers the first time that she saw him- they passed one another in a crowd.  He towered above the others, gleaming with an intangible energy.  He moved with precision and grace, a feline instinct.  He did not see her.

         Years later, they sat beside one another in a classroom.  She stole his pencils for fun and he criticized her artwork.  They laughed and joked with each other and discovered that they shared the same tastes in music and poetry.  She barely knew him, and yet, she knew his mind.  It worked in the same rhythms and melodies as hers.  Their synapses were synchronized like swimmers in an electric storm, and sometimes, she could answer his questions before he asked.

         Slowly, their acquaintance fashioned itself into a loose friendship.  He was a know-it-all, and she was a snob.  They corrected each other’s homework with a fierce camaraderie and competition.  Usually, he won.

         He was musical, and so was she.  The next year, they sung together in the school choir.  He was a bass.  She was a soprano.  As the chorus sang together, she would sift through the layers of voices until she detected his.  She would meld her voice with his, and let the harmonizing tones blend together in the most intimate of fashions.  In this way, she could pretend that his voice was singing for her, and for her alone.  The feeling that this thought gave her, she kept locked inside.  She treasured it like a poem.

         He played the piano with an effortless grace of emotion.  His hands were long and pale and delicate.  As he caressed the black and white keys, she would sit beside him and watch, falling in love with the precision and elegance with which he created music.  She decided to learn how to play, in homage to her silent affection for him.

         With a ridiculous determination, she practiced for hours each day, teaching herself to read the notes and rhythms.  Her nights were lonely, and she had much time to perfect the skill.  At any thought of him, she would turn to her piano and play until her wrists and fingers ached from the exertion.  Her talent did not long go unnoticed.

         He observed her one morning, sitting at the cold instrument early, before class started.  She made a motion to vacate her seat when she saw him arrive, but he walked slowly behind her, and put his warm arms around her shoulders, urging her to continue as he watched.  His voice low in her ear, he carefully instructed her in the art.  He taught her what he knew in stolen moments between classes, and she fell slowly in love with him- his deep voice, his pale hands, and waves of auburn hair that blazoned around his face.

         In September, the wind grew wild and spirited.  As she walked beneath the carnival of trees, it spun her shimmering hair about her face.  In a liquid motion, she brushed it from her eyes and laughed.  As she looked up, she saw him walking by.  He smiled at her, his eyes dancing, and her heart sprung to life like a fire among the dead leaves. 

         In October, they painted side by side.  They laughed at the names of flowers and smelled pine needles in the afternoon air.  Halloween was creeping through the foggy nights, and they sculpted pumpkins.  His hands were covered in yellow paint as he grabbed her hand beneath the running tap.  He smeared the golden paint on her and laughed at her derision.  She flung beads of water on his face and giggled at the mess they made.  They were happy in the saffron afternoon...

         In November, the night was black and clear as ice and she sat with him outside.  His jacket was red and warm and made of fleece.  He stuffed her inside of it with him and they spoke of Shakespeare and stop signs.  Fleeing the sharp night air, they looked for warmth inside of a car.  Sharing one seat, they sat on each other’s laps and huddled near the heater for hours.  She did not want to go home, but as the hours crept past midnight, she knew that she must return.

      In December, she knew with certainty that he loved her as well.  The winter was cold, and she frequently clothed herself in crimson to warm her spirit amidst the grey trees.  They walked together down cold hallways, lingering softly away from the group of friends before them.  They talked of cities and country sides, of friends and strangers.  The world was before them, and they smiled, making plans that would never come to fruition.

        He sat outside in a rocking chair as she drove away.  Watching his face growing smaller in the window, she knew that the moment would never return.  She had been pulled away from him by a well-meaning friend, and she could not help but think... if they had been alone?  But they hadn’t been, the moment had passed, and she would not see him for another two weeks.

      The fortnight passed and their paths once again crossed.  As she had predicted, things had changed.  There were no longer stolen moments in grey mornings, or late night conversations on cement curbs or in cars parked beneath the stars.  The winter died, and spring faded away.  Summer blazed into the world with a glowing intensity. 

      As the school year ended, she realized that her time with him was also passing away.  He would graduate at the end of the year; she would not.  They had a few more moments together- taken in unused rooms during skipped classes and free periods, but nothing happened.  She shared her lunch with him.  He spoke to her of musicals and of physics.  They never again touched...

    ...Until his graduation night.  She was wearing white and her long hair spilt in dark curls over her milky shoulders and her breast.  In one swooping gesture, he pulled her up into his arms, pressing her up against his chest.  She felt the coarse material of his gown against her face and she knew “this is where we say good-bye.”

    That night, she cried while singing the songs that he had taught her.  One week later, he flew 3,000 miles away to live in a place of cold rain and concrete walls.  She knew instinctively that day that he had gone out of her life.  She could feel a part of her heart detach itself, as if it were flying away with him.  Though she would see him again in the future, she had no real hope for any reconciliation.  He had gone away to study the stars, and she was left to herself and to the dreams of him that sometimes accompanied her sleep.