Adelia

[2]

You could see it if you looked hard enough, but then again, maybe you couldn't. 

The clumsiness of her smile; the airieness of her eyes; the gleaming of her collar bones, and the unsteadiness of her legs, always ready to run off before I could ask the most important question, put to sleep the most earth-crumbling words. All these things were special gifts she presented only me with because I knew she didn't have many friends. I could only wonder why.. 

As we sat at the back table once again on Tuesday night, the hazardous thoughts tumbling into my mind like crunching pieces of rocks from a snowy mountain top, an avalanche of thoughts, all about her. I wanted to take her somewhere, to show her that it doesn't have to be like this. That she can climb into my car and let me show her beautiful things and she did not have to worry about how she would pay me back, or if she didn't deserve them.

Then there was something else, how her clothes were ripped and clumped with dust and much too big and I found that, not as a pity, but as an oppurtunity.  

"Your clothes, " I said, drawing circles on a cracker, "do you want new ones?"

She stopped shoveling things into her mouth and chewed slowly, a puzzled look on her face, then swallowed, "What's wrong with them? They're nicer than anyone else's on my entire block, " She said, crossing her arms to cover the fading fabric. 

"I just thought, " I took a drink of coffee, "we could go someti-"

"No!" She tensed, "I like them." Then she grimaced and look down at her pants, playing around the tears and coiling them around her fingers, "They're pretty bad, aren't they?" 

She looked up hopefully, but shamefully, knowing that she would do anything to have what other girls had and she shouldn't want that. It was wrong. She should have been happy, but she wasn't, and I don't think it was just the clothes. I wanted to know so badly what it is. But she wouldn't, she wouldn't dare tell me more than she had too, just enough to make me unlock the back door. 

Her eyelids wrinkled when she closed them tight like that, battling with herself, then giving in, "I guess... I wouldn't mind if you..." 

Suddenly seeing her with the sunlight wrapping itself around her sounded awfully nice, her eyes would be brighter; glistening; she would no longer have to restrain this friendship, or whatever this was, to the hours of the night, as I silently prayed I wouldn't wake anyone. It would be different; open; free with just a little light. 

"Tomorrow, at 2?" 

"Yeah," she exhaled. 

"Yeah?" 

"Yeah."