PLEASE NOTE: This piece was written in 2018, when I first took writers craft in HighSchool. My love of it has led me to share this draft with all it's initial wording and all. Hope you enjoy!
The blanket surrounding their veins looked smooth and plush. Their eyebrows were furrowed, slightly creasing at the dip of their nose. Their soft lips were pursed together in a tight line.
The universe of their skin was fair; speckled with bronze stars. It put the world into perspective. On my small habitable planet, where rivers ran and mountains climbed - in a cafe on a main street - an anomaly could be found. A cosmos that I had the guilty pleasure of watching.
Chestnut tresses shifted around their head, catching the light that was drawn to them like all to a black hole. The silky strands were not parted down the middle, and instead circled the center of their crown. The layers looked thick and most tufts came to a stop at their shoulders, where they barely brushed against their wool collar. A portion of them stopped just below their eyebrows. I wanted to touch them. I wanted to run my fingers through their hair - to drag my nails along their scalp. To catch any bumps. To tug lightly at their roots.
But it was their eyes that truly drew me in. Every once in a blue moon they could be seen- the two beautiful galaxies with dark stars residing at the center. The stardust lashes that fluttered in and out of existence. The gorgeous green that swam with focus and drifted across the pages of the book they wrote their thoughts in. I wish they would share their immaculate thoughts with me. I wish that they would trace me like they traced their lines, even if only with their eyes.
If only.
However, not all of the universe was visible and their green jumper acted as clouds to the night sky, hiding the dips in their collar bone. Sometimes the shirt would shift, like when they would reread a previous passage and mutter under their breath; one hand would prop under their chin as their nimble fingers would tap along the trims. Other times, when they would reach over the book and set down their pencil to replace it with their steaming mug, I would get a glimpse of what lay under the fibers. A glimpse that only encouraged my wandering mind. Did the bronze freckles continue below the wool? Did they hide under the folds of their arms? In the spaces that I couldn't see?
One fur lined boot was planted firmly on the floor unlike my own, which bounced off the tile ground. My pencil tapped impatiently along the lacquered surface of the table. The sound of the rain drizzling outside did nothing to soothe the fidgeting actions; it did nothing to stop my mind from thinking of the scenarios I wanted to execute.
I wanted to pick up my own bag and sit adjacent to them. I wanted to ask what they were drinking, and what they were writing about. To crack a pun about dragons, as I noticed the dragon patch on their jacket and book. I'd hate to drag-on the conversation like this, or maybe, You set my heart on fire. Maybe they would give me the crooked half smile I saw them give their phone. The one where their left corner would twitch up more, warping the constellation on their upper cheek and wrinkling their bottom eyelid. The one where all the stars in the galaxy seemed to burst into a supernova.
I wanted to, but I missed my chance. I missed the one and only chance that surely, I was ever going to get.
Already, they were slipping their book into their bag and sliding their pencil into place. Already, they were placing their jacket on their covered arms, and hiding more of the stars from my sight. Already, they had slipped on their bag and made their way through the glass door, walking with confident strides towards the exit.
Already, the sound of their footsteps was becoming a memory. The soft thud made from a single leather sole, then the light clack made from their curving prosthetic limb.
They turned left and passed by the glass window, hood covering as many chestnut locks as it could, their galaxies slid to the corner of their eyes - twinkling so much the rain did nothing to dim them - and made contact with mine. They stopped, parted their lips, and inclined their head more towards the interior of the cafe.
My breath halted.
I could see all the swirling questions they had, the way the lighter green stars spiralled around their black centers. I could see the way some rain clung to their eyelashes, creating more glimmering stars that burned in the streetlights. I could see the darker shades bringing the lighter ones to life, but at the same time burning. With what I did not know.
A waxen scar, one that was hidden before by their hair, went from the bottom of their chin to just below the corner of their lip. It glowed pale against their fair face, and stretched up with their cheeks and lips as they waved at me, ring finger and pinkie finger curling into their palm.
I couldn't wave back. Not in time.
Already, they had turned on their prosthetic heel and strode out of my sight. Already, my world was void of their glimmering lights. It was only me now, trapped in an eternal black hole that is life.
And never, would they come and pull me out.