A Brown-Eyed Girl

Chapter One

Chapter One

For the middle of March, the weather was exceptionally beautiful. For starters, the sun had actually made an appearance, and its feebly shining rays had raised the temperature to a record-breaking forty-nine degrees. Miraculously, there was no hint of even the smallest threat of rain. Only a scant number of clouds were in the sky, and these were quickly being reduced to wisps by a crisp breeze.

All of this was lost on the young woman striding purposefully down the sidewalk. At first glance, an observer might be tempted to write her off as high school age or younger because she was short, barely clearing five feet one. Looking closer, however, it soon became apparent that she was older than that, closer to twenty years old.

Her eyes, fixed steadily on some point of the sidewalk in front of her, were her most distinctive feature, deep, deep brown. They were so dark as to border on black, with a shockingly bold black line surrounding them. Unreadable to most, her eyes were what betrayed her age. Something about them defied the youthful and innocent quality often reflected by high school students. But then her eyes had been that way since she was eight years old - shockingly mature. Myriads of indescribable emotions swirled through them, but were not visible to the casual observer, especially since she rarely meet the eyes of someone she did not know.

Her pace was such that it ate up the sidewalk before her. Seemingly, she had a destination to reach, a task to accomplish, a purpose to be upheld. The occasional passerby on the sidewalk moved to the side to give her room. Most gave the awkward nod of acknowledgement and accompanying small smile that strangers do when crossing paths briefly. Most of the time, she missed such niceties, failing to return any of her own. If she did take notice, it was with an almost startling shock and puzzlement. In such cases, she managed to arrange her face into an answering smile, but it was often too late, the person in question already having moved on about their way.

Those strolling more slowly did notice the smile, but besides the fact that it had been a bit late in answering, nothing particular about it. It would have taken a particularly, keen observer to see the hope that moved through the dark eyes as they flicked to the face that was currently sharing the path. It would have taken longer and sharper still observation to see the slight frown that followed the automatic smile, the small but rueful shake of the head, and the emptiness that quickly replaced the shred of hope in the dark eyes.

She continued to make her way in the same manner, lost to all around her. Distracted by her own thoughts, she bumped into someone, tripped, and went down. Looking up she saw it was a young man, guy really, of about her age. She gave him credit for not laughing, she must have looked like an idiot, a clumsy, foolish, idiot. Instead of mocking her, he stood with a polite expression on his face, but uncontained humor brightening his eyes. Worse, he had a hand extended to help her up.

She would have preferred it if her had rudely hurried on his way. She had run into him, he should be pissed, not waiting to help her up. Realizing she was still wallowing in self-disgust and embarrassment on her ass in the middle of the sidewalk, she pushed quickly to her feet without taking his hand. She mumbled an apology as she brushed herself off, not listening to him telling her not to worry about it.

She did note that he certainly didn't look like an idiot, standing there composed, even amused by his chance encounter with her own rudeness. She avoided eye contact as much as possible, and scrambled past him, making an escape. Eyes fixed directly in front of her this time - she would not embarrass herself again by staring at the ground and ending up on it - she failed to notice that he turned to watch her leave.

Within another block, she had finally gotten where she had been going all along - home. Home was a small house that she had lived in alone since her mother had passed away five months ago. Her father had died when she was eight. They had been extremely close and despite the loss of her mother being the more recent, she missed him so much, that times it cut like a knife.