The Truth About Love

Almost

A cool breeze blew through the courtyard, sending the fall leaves swirling through the air. Gazing at the piles of leaves wafting along the damp cement, she could still detect the lingering scent of rain hanging in the crisp autumn air. She pulled her coat tighter across her form, aware of the chilly wind yet somehow still unable to drag her gaze away from the autumn atmosphere surrounding her.

She stood amidst the large oak trees in the middle of the yard, speckled with hauntingly dark roots and contrastingly amber leaves, lost in the scenery. The students around her, heading to classes or simply eager to escape the cold, shoved past her; some stopping to admonish her for blocking the path. In the distance, she could hear the loud crunch of leaves beneath what seemed to be heavy leather boots, and the sound snapped her from her languid mood, particularly when the source of the sound came crashing into her.

Two bodies went toppling, her comparatively small, slender body at the bottom of the human pyramid. Tangled together in a mess of limbs, she tried to unhook her head from underneath a rather long, heavy arm. Above her, with an stunned yet apologetic expression, he laid with a mess of curly, chocolate locks and strikingly warm hazel eyes. Suddenly, she could no longer hear the bustle of the students, or the howling wind, she could only hear his deep, frazzled voice repeat apologies. With careful consideration, he detangled their bodies, leaving her feeling more cold than she had standing along in the yard in her thin wool coat.

She couldn't bring herself to say anything, maybe reprimand him for his clumsiness and her consequent sore legs, as her gaze was fixated on him. When he brought himself to his feet, he towered over her considerably, continuing to apologize even as he excused himself off to a class.

The rest of the day faded off into a contented blur. His disheveled, handsome figure stuck in her head; every detail from the leaves stuck in his softly styled hair to his glasses sent askew from the fall seemed to imprint itself on her existence.

It was inevitable, but somehow she found herself in the courtyard the next day after that, the reasons much less associated with the fall leaves now. Day after day, when her classes had come to to an end for the day, before her conscious was aware of it, her feet would take her along the path of the oak trees. Some days, she did see him, rushing in the opposite direction with the same intelligent yet disoriented demeanour that seemed to charm her more than she was ever willing to admit.

The seasons grew to change, the once amber oak trees now covered in thick sheets of ice and snow. The muddy, damp cement paths now permanently plastered with snowy boot prints lining it up and down. Her coat changed, from the thin wool to a thick twill, yet the sight of him never seemed to change. Always in a hurry, always seeming to get into some trouble along the way, always seeming to have the strangest yet most welcome effect on her existence.

On a day, like any of the others, she trudged through the snowy oak path, attempting to get some warm solace across campus. Before she could see him, she heard the familiar sound on his boots in the snow, somehow in her heart vastly different from the sound of other boots. She heard a laugh, the deep familiar sound of his that seemed to warm her, followed by a softer laugh, high-pitched, decidedly feminine. Her stomach bottomed, the feeling of disappointment wringing at her heart. She shifted her line of sight to her own boots, willing herself to keep her illusion of him in place somehow. He passed her, rushing by her with a surprisingly lack of haste. In fact he seemed more relaxed than ever as he casually leaned down to brush a kiss across the temple of the source of the sweet, feminine laugh. Her stature, much shorter than his, with a mass of bouncy caramel curls and wide, glassy green eyes that seemed to sparkle even from this distance.

They rushed past her, almost oblivious to the world around them. Despite everything else, she pushed out a rather deep sigh, squaring her drooping shoulders. She couldn't help but laugh at her stupidity, she was so dangerously close.

She had almost fallen for him.