Time

After that incident, everything changed. The time in this town, where we all grew up, stopped. That smile that she wore everyday was the time we needed. Every day visiting the park nearby, spending hours that felt like seconds pass by. Waking up early in the morning, getting ready for a brand new adventure, looking forward to see that smile. I wonder who else saw what was coming. I wonder if those guys knew our time was running out.

Time flew by with her around. You could never get enough of being with her. I still remember that plain face, adorned with those curious brown eyes and that smile. That summer, we had selfishly stolen time from her, time she wasn’t getting back. This small town, where everybody knew everybody, hid endless surprises. Even though we all knew this, we kept going to the top of the mountain where we first met.

Even from the day we first met her, time was all she talked about. As weird as she was, we were attracted to her like bees to honey. I think it was her thirst for more out of everything. I think she provided us with the interest and curiosity we all had stopped showing years ago. Something this town did to all, except her. She managed to escape from the claws of a gray and monotone life. Always asking the right question, at the right time. There’s nothing that could stop her, except time itself. The way she talked about time, and the right way to spend it made you wonder. And even if time was her number one topic to talk about, clocks were not to be spoken of. It drove her crazy when I told her the time.

I think I finally understand why. But with her eccentricity and way of seeing things, I probably still don’t understand. I probably never will. Six of us, spending everyday during the summer together, and we still didn’t know a single thing about her. Not Emma, John, Cameron, Allie, or me. Specially me.

It was hard not falling in love with her. Or infatuated with that smile. With time, you were bound to fall a little deeper in love with her and the need to see her smile grew. I still don’t know whether I loved her, or her smile. It was a question that kept me up at night, and even as years passed after that day, I wonder what would’ve happened if I had told her.

I’m sure she would’ve laughed. Or ask for time to think about what I had just said. She always needed time, it drove me crazy. She could do things that seemed to be out of a random impulse, but I’m sure she had thought about it thoroughly.

“Time is all we have. So when in doubt, take more time.” She repeated over and over again.

For a person who loved to rush past things, quickly wanting to end something to start something new, time controlled her. Or did she control time? I still didn’t know. None of us did. When it came to her, we knew nothing. Her knowledge of the world, the underworld, the living, or dead was astonishing. How someone so little could hold that amount of knowledge was beyond any of us. But because it was her, it made sense. To Allie, she was someone to admire. Allie looked up to her, and was now a completely different person because of it. She had a way of changing those around her. I don’t think she was aware of it.

She was so different, and it scared me a little. I think she knew this, and did nothing. She could be a little cruel at times, specially with Emma around. Emma and her were inseparable from the very beginning. Often having fun at the expense of others, but with that smile, she could get away with almost anything. Emma had changed too after that day so drastically, I wonder how she felt about that. When we brought her up, Emma was the first one to break down. She was sensitive to that subject and preferred to forget that day. Even though the clock had continued ticking, time had stood still.

We were all stuck that day, never taking a step forward. She’s our time. John often said. The oldest out of the six of us. He protected us, and held a special place for her. I think he too, had grown to love her smile. We all had, I think that was the reason we still held on. I wonder if she knew this. John spent his free time with us, making sure to make her happy. But John, like he promised, stayed the same. We all had broken that promise that day, but not him. It didn’t come as a shock that she and John had an unexceptionally close bond. He held a happy memory, pure and innocent, of her.

For that day, no one was to blame. Except time. Of course, barely reaching the age of sixteen, we still had a list of unending questions. Cameron just had one. It was the one she had left unanswered, with the excuse he wasn’t asking the right one. “Keep trying, you’re getting closer,” she’d say. But I doubted she would ever answer. She never did, after all. She’d brush questions off with that smile, and all was forgotten. Everything she did, whether it was wrong or not, was forgivable when she smiled.

Although I know I love her smile, I’ve grown to hate it a little. The time we all stole, was stolen from us. It was unfair, how she still got her way. How vulnerable we were, all because of her. The thought of her was still painful, and it had been almost ten years since I heard her name. It was almost as if we were purposely avoiding the subject, with the inability even whisper about her. The name that matched her perfectly. Everything about her was okay. The flaws she saw, we saw as attributes. Time and her had finally had a match that day. Time had stopped that day, for her. “Men talk about killing time, while time slowly kills them,”she said the day before. I wonder if she knew time was catching up to her. That the time she had so preciously talked about, had finally betrayed her. Had she realized the time she always knew would keep moving, suddenly stopped? I can almost picture her stomping her foot, to the first and last lost battle. All the time she had so often stolen, had suddenly been stolen from her. And for us? Well, time stopped.