Rest

I didn't know who she was. I didn't even know her name. That didn't stop me from thinking about her. Every stunted second, my mind would paint her reverse on my eyelids. I'd feel her slip into my system while I was playing my bass. I didn't know her but she was inspiring me towards a deeper level of music I never knew existed. Forget knowing it existed inside of me.

I've looked back at that collection of premature scribbling and I realise now that they were signposts to the addiction I felt towards her. They were a warning I ignored for the sake of a feeling. Giddiness leaves you disillusioned in more ways than one.

I'd convinced myself that the next time I saw her wouldn't be so powerful. I'd already seen her once, right? So I was braced for another encounter. I knew what I was trying to deal with. But I was wrong. So drastically wrong.

***

It was three weeks later that I next saw her. It should never have happened. If I had woken up on time, it wouldn't have. But that's fate. It was hurling me towards her with an unavoidable force.

Rampaging through the mesh of blurred colours that were the school corridors, I was focussed on forming a plausible excuse for my late arrival. Anything but the truth that would hand me a detention and deprive me of practising with Billie Joe. I was oblivious to anything but my thoughts. Maybe if I was paying attention things would have worked out differently. But regrets are useless. They can't erase and replace a situation when it's been cemented into your history.

Settling on the golden "family issues" excuse, I pounded up the stairs to my English class. It wasn't a complete lie. My family did have issues. Major ones. There was a massive serrated slash down the middle of it and no one was nearly brave enough to try to sew it back together. So we sat crowded by the crevice, occasionally falling in and losing ourselves to the situation. It was the wonderful melodrama of our lives and the reason why I turned to the music scene of Gilman Street for a family.

Shoving those depressing thoughts into the cobwebbed section of my mind, I reached the top of the stairs and was halted by my own heart.

Once again, all I caught was the back of her. But there was no mistaking the one thing that I had seen so many times pressed against my sealed eyelids. She looked even more captivating in vivid life.

Her raven hair cast a sleek shadow down her spine this time that teased the tips of a paler, and intact, pair of jeans. A blue gypsy top clung to her figure for security as she remained stagnant at the top of the staircase.

Hearing my stuttered footsteps as they came to a halt, she spun around. And that was when I crossed the line of no return. Set in a faerie face was a set of almond eyes that regarded me with fear. A faint hint of pink brushed her cheeks as she chewed on her blushed lips.

Her eyes traced over me, dragging a chill down with them. As she raised them again, she smiled into my soul. It crumbled within me as I tried to smile in return and walk past her. As I did, I caught a faint smell of intoxication and knew she was bad in a good way.

Just as I was about to step into security, clinging onto another brief encounter tallied on the back of my memory, she called out to me in that distinctive voice.

"Hey," she said. "Can you help me?"

Turning around to face her pleading expression, I thought I'd help her with anything. Gulping subtly, I replied, "Yeah," hoping I didn't sound too over-excited at being able to bask in her presence longer. "What's up?"

With a faint smile, she looked down at a sheet of paper in her hand. "B775. I can't find it." she told me.

B775. Music. The other side of the school. Sparing a rushed glance down the corridor, I thought how late I was already. Yet, as she glanced up at me wearing a mask of worry, I found a subliminal part of me saying screw it. Infatuation is the strongest drug to the human heart. It's an adrenaline that barricades your common sense into a void you can't locate, labelling it as unnecessary panic.

"It's the other side of the building," I told her. "I'll take you there."

"Don't you have..?" she asked, indicating to the baited corridor ahead of me.

Sliding it a flitting glance, I shook my head. "Nah." I replied. The only place I needed to be at that moment was with her.

A faint smile flickered at me as I retraced my steps past her and down the stairs. I heard her follow me lightly like a sigh and tried to think of something intelligent to say.

"So... er... you new here?" I asked, glancing back at her. Her eyes were weighted on the floor and, at my question, they snapped up to gaze at me. In that brief second they entwined with mine, I could perceive a harrowing element rebounding on her lower lashes. Something that wailed at me that she didn't just need guidance to her lesson but through the onslaught of life.

As that split second streamed past leaving me with a memory I should have noted, her eyes ignited and burnt away that resonant revelation. Looking back, I should have led her to the music class then me to a life without her., left her as a faltering face from the past folded into the back of my mind. But I couldn't. That snapshot hung onto my conscience. It was a limpet whispering that all lost souls need guidance. Didn't I at some point?

Banishing those insecurities, I offered her a reassuring smile, which she took gladly. "Yeah," she replied. "I've just moved from Wales."

"That's in Britain, right?" I asked, holding the door open for her.

Her face glowed with intense humour at my question as she stepped through the door, having to skim past me. "You're the first person to realise that," she smiled. "Everyone else thinks Wales is in England."

I grinned at people's misconception, taking in how beautiful she was when she was happy. It was almost as if that harrowing revelation was a sordid dream I conjured to heave myself away from her. I almost convinced myself it was to smother the unnerving feelings trying to clamour towards my mind.

"What made you move?" I asked.

That sordid dream blazed into an inferno through her whole expression as soon as I uttered those fatal words. They were like a knife plunged into her that dimmed the glow with one rancid gasp. Her shoulders slumped onto her broken soul and, just as she began to recline in on herself, she flickered back to reality with a reassuring smile that told me that one depressing moment was a wavering lie I should forget. But I couldn't. I subconsciously memorised everything she did, good or bad, storing it for safekeeping when something kept telling me the situation was far from safe.

"I just fancied a change." she told me forcefully, enforcing that reason onto me. She slid beside me and looked up at my confused expression with intrigued eyes. "You lived in Berkeley all your life?" she asked, fixing the interrogation on me.

I should have realised then that she was shrouding her truth in interest. That she was banishing it to the deeper confines of her mind. I guess she must have known the effect she was weaving on me, how easy I could be shaken off track at the faint hint of fascination. She worked it to her advantage every time.

"Nah," I replied slowly, trying to suppress the daunting memories creeping towards my conscious thoughts. "I moved here a couple of years ago."

She sensed my deeper story and stepped closer to me, brushing my arm. It was that moment, that connection, that flutter of contact, that bound us together. We're still bound rigorously today even though we're opposite ends of the world. Some feelings can't be demolished.

As we reached B775, my pace slowed. I'd waited so long to hoard her in my presence and, when the time came that I could, I didn't want to let her go. I couldn't. If I had been drawn in before, I was simply drowning then.

Shifting her eyes to the number engraved above the door, she cast herself a humoured smile. "I could have found that myself." she murmured to no one in particular. I just grinned, catching her ethereal thoughts as she liberated them. Turning back to me, she looked down at the floor, suddenly shy and passionately appealing. Raising her almond eyes, she rooted me to the spot with an innocent smile. "Thanks... er... "

"Mike," I finished. "Mike... Dirnt."

Her smile gathered momento at my reply. "Thanks, Mike." she corrected. She turned back to the door, resting a delicate hand on the handle. "See you around." she added before she plunged into the class.

Watching the room swallow her and the door seal her from me, I couldn't help wishing she would.