Dear Jane Doe

I waited impatiently at my bedroom window. College had been draining, as usual, with all those stupid girls falling at my feet like lost puppies. My bag lay abandoned on the bed as I pulled off my shirt in frustration at the intense heat washing over me. But my mind was already too focused on seeing her for it to really become bothersome.

Seriously. When was she getting here? It was already 3:36… school finished over half an hour ago.

What if something bad had happened to her? What if she had taken the bus home instead? What if she’d moved house and would never walk by again? These terrible thoughts made me shudder despite the sweltering temperature. I knew I could never make it through the day without watching her walk by along the path which lay just beyond my home.

Just in the desperate grasp of my bedroom window.

It was a community path, supposedly hidden behind a wall yet this room was high enough to peek over. Surrounded by flowers in full bloom and grass in desperate need to be cut, it made seeing her all the more surreal.

Her.

It infuriated me that I had no name to put to her beautiful face. And my god was she beautiful.

Tall. Elegant. Happy. Alive. Athletic (so I assumed… or rather dreamt). The thing that tore me up most inside was that my pride would never allow me outside these four walls when she passed. It was as if her presence made me a prisoner.

A prisoner to passion. Passion for a stranger

I didn’t view what I was doing as stalking because then I may have to force myself to stop. Whenever she passed I would simply watch her glide by and have enough sense to understand she didn’t know me let alone love me. I was doing no harm just by merely admiring what splendour decided to walk by.

Then I caught a glimpse of her. It was as if the sun beating down only focused its coveting beam onto her as she swayed along.

I say sway because she was dancing, Ipod headphones dangling down her blue tank top and disappearing into her jean pockets. The window my forehead was subconsciously pressed against was open ajar so that her voice could meet my ears.

“I don't think that passenger seat
Has ever looked this good to me
He tells me about his night
And I count the colours in his eyes

He'll never fall in love
He swears, as he runs his fingers through his hair
I'm laughing 'cause I hope he's wrong
And I don't think it ever crossed his mind
He tells a joke, I fake a smile
But I know all his favourite songs

And I could tell you
His favourite colour's green
He loves to argue
Born on the seventeenth
His sister's beautiful
He has his father's eyes
And if you ask me if I love him
I'd lie”

When I could see her no longer I closed my eyes and re-called her voice. It was calming and charming as if a favourite bird had suddenly decided to sing the most beautiful song to me.

But it wasn’t to me. What if it was for someone else? Wait a second… was I jealous?

I shook myself and got up from my uncomfortable position to approach the guitar lying in the corner of the bedroom. My infatuation with that girl had gone on for too long. I needed a new hobby… a new girlfriend… a new play thing. I missed a warm girl’s body pressed against mine under the covers. I hated the fact that the only girl I saw underneath me was her.

I was Alec Bradshaw.

I could have any woman I desired.

I would have any woman I desired.

But why was the only woman I desired out of reach?

Life's a bitch.

The guitar felt comforting in my calloused hands as I strung the cords appropriately. I didn’t have the heart to sing out loud so in my mind I repeated the line: “and she’s nothing more than a lost star floating past my lonely world.”