Burn.

“What are you looking at?”

I hadn’t realized I’d been staring at her or else I’d have looked away, probably. But when she said it, when she said those first words to me and only me, I felt like I’d been right all along, that Julia was the Julia from the dreams and the seizures - and all of the joy and sadness I’d ever felt through that someone I never knew was her. It was in her voice, that voice I’d heard a million times; it rang through my head when I least expected it and it shocked my bones.

“You swore,” was all I said.

She looked embarrassed suddenly. Her face slowly heated up and turned a deep shade of crimson.

There was a strange feeling that formed in the pit of my stomach. I couldn’t put my finger on what it was exactly, but it was along the lines of privacy invasion. I felt as though I was playing her to some extent, whereas she had no idea who I was and I had known her for years - albeit impersonally.

I watched her with sad eyes and felt like some sort of lover twice-removed. She turned back to the small fountain and folded her arms across her chest, letting out a small puff of air from her tight chest. My mind kept racing until its wheels veered off the track and skidded down the way.

She turned from the fountain, seemingly defeated, and began to walk away.

My mouth found the words before my head.

“Wait a minute, come back here!”

An exclamation that I never thought would leave my mouth. To a certain extent, I felt as though I were having some sort of out-of-body experience, where I was looking at a celebrity and watched the scene from an onlooker’s standpoint. There was an element of disbelief that laced my thoughts and stuck to my tongue.

She placed a hand on her hip and, after a moment, slowly turned back around to face me. Her eyes were as wide as the world and something inside me shook; the corners of my lips twitched upward and a laugh bubbled in my chest. I had to work to keep it withheld, but I was too weak to stop myself from showing any sort of emotion.

“What are you smiling about?” she asked.

I shrugged.

“Not sure.”

She was quiet. For a long while, then took a few steps toward me. She kept her eyes on her shoes and watched them as her heel hit the floor, then as the toe followed that. Then the next foot. The cycle repeated until she stood but a few feet before me.

I held her in my gaze with carefulness - she was so easily broken.

The closer she got, the more I noticed the little things, like the soft bags that lied beneath her eyes. It was clear she had concealed them with makeup, or at least, she had tried to. And her fingernail paint was chipped away, revealing a bit of plain nail around the edges of each painted one. And how she was pigeon-toed. And how she had the slightest of wavy curls around her ears.

Long eyelashes. Long, long eyelashes.

“Well,” she started, “did you need me for something?”

I started shaking my head no, but then my heart stopped all body motion and corrected my head. So I looked up at her and she looked back at me, and I said simply:

“You seem as though you’re missing.” I paused. “But what you’re missing, I couldn’t guess.” Except I could guess, because I knew. I knew exactly who she was missing, and part of me felt like telling her right then that I knew her mother was gone. But I wasn’t heartless, I was just trying to get her to speak to me and not take complete offense. I had to weasel myself in between the cracks in that hard shell she wore, a shell I hadn’t realized was there until I met her in person.

And that must have caught her off-guard because there was suddenly a look about her that made me feel as though I should eat my words, pull my lip over my head, and swallow that, too. A lump formed in my throat. I wondered where Cameron was at.

I took a nervous sip of coffee. The hot, brown caffeine stung, despite the constant taste that lingered in my mouth.

She bit her lip, trapping it between a set of pearly whites - the front two of which were slightly crooked. My heart doubled over itself.

“I am,” she said quietly.

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I couldn’t believe she was admitting it, although she wasn’t really naming any one specific person or thing that she lacked. But that was good enough for me.

She sighed suddenly, then placed a hand on her cocked hip and looked straight at me. Like she was looking through me. Like I was hollow.

“Listen, I wouldn’t normally ask for anything from a stranger,” she started, “but I need a penny. Do you have one I could borrow?”

I watched her eyes as they slowly turned from my face to the fountain to her right. I could hear my heart beating in my ears and I gripped the warm styrofoam cup in my left hand. And when I didn’t say anything at first, she sighed and turned away.

“Never mind,” she mumbled as she began walking off, “forget I even asked.”

And then my heart leaped and I stood from the chair in which I sat, my feet making complete contact with the ground beneath me and I looked straight at her. And as the words left my lips, I could taste the coffee that still rested on my tongue, singed into my taste buds from the moment I took my first sip - a sip taken too soon.

“Wait!”

Her stopping was abrupt. She turned slowly and looked back at me, her eyebrows furrowed and her brow arched. She stayed silent, as though waiting for me to speak back up again. I couldn’t think clearly, but I tried forming the words anyway.

“I think I have one,” I said, shoving my left hand into my pocket and digging around for a copper coin to hand to her, a copper coin she seemed desperate for.

My thumb and forefinger found it and yanked it from the cotton. I looked it in for a moment, then held it out to her at full arm’s length.

“Here.”

She took a few careful steps forward. Silent, but moving and confused. She looked at the penny I held out to her and took it. Still just as careful as her footsteps.

The mall was loud and rowdy and there was commotion everywhere. I saw it out of the corners of my eyes and my ears picked up on the sound that echoed throughout the entire mall. Somehow, though, I was able to dim the sound. I quieted it in my head and only listened for the sounds that Julia would make. I listened so carefully. She was the only movement I really watched for, too - she was the only thing I focused on. The top priority. The one and only.

“Thank you,” she told me, taking a few steps toward the fountain. She held the penny in both hands and, as she stood before the fountain, she closed her eyes tightly.

I waited.

She wished with everything she was, I could see it on her face. She was strained, but everything focused into that penny made it worth it.

And then she took one deep breath and tossed it in.

And the penny sank to the bottom Lincoln-side up.