Hidden

Her hand was poised on top of the rusted chainlink fence, and the ends of her long, elegant fingers were chewed up, looking as if she picked at the skin there.

She quickly drew them down. "Um...nothing."

This interested me. That my girl--Kate--had secrets. Was ashamed of something. This girl, who's name meant 'pure', was apparently not completely so.

But then I realized that, just because she had a bad habit didn't mean that she had secrets. It just meant that she was nervous. And I could tell that she was even as we stood there under the soft March sun; she was putting all her tension into her lips again.

She cast her eyes downward, staring at the ground, but then looked at me. "You wear the same kind of shoes that I do."

I was only wearing a pair of black Converse. There was nothing on them; they were just the regular old classic ones.

"Yeah. I saw that you wore them at school."

We just kind of looked at each other for a moment, and it felt like her big, deep dark eyes were staring straight through mine, and peering into my soul. I looked away, as if that could defend me from her gaze.

"Can I tell you something?" she asked, a mischievious glitter in her eyes.

It piqued my interest that she would ask to tell me something, but at the same time it worried me.

"Yeah, sure. Why not?"

She swallowed, and smiled sweetly as she said, "You have some of the prettiest eyes that I've ever seen."

And with that, she turned and left me standing there, beckoned by her father at the door.