He never was one of those people who look a the ground as they walk.

He never hung his head.

That sweet foolish boy was damn proud.

Of everything.

But at the same time he never did look anybody in the eyes. Instead he would look up at the sky. His pupils always rolling around at the top of his eyes, he was always on a different level. He would take his eyes of the sky sometimes though. Just long enough to meet mine. He never did do that for anybody else.


I remember the first time he spoke to me. I was reading a copy of Great Expectations in the courtyard. I lifted my eyes to find his. God his eyes were so blue. I can remember wondering if it was from all that time staring up at the sky, and that maybe some of it was caught in his eyes. He laughed at my dog eared pages. He sat down next to me. He reach into his bag a tore a strip of paper from his notebook. He had blue spray paint residue on his fingers from the art room, and it smudged of in small blurs on the paper."Bookmark... lets give Dickens a break." I smiled, sliding it between the pages. I looked up to see his eyes on the sky again. At that moment the only thing I wanted was them back on me.

I would kill for his gaze.


I held that blue, smudged strip of paper in my hands. Smoothing it out against my knee. I folded it. i put it in the pocket of my jeans.


the next week at the party. Music fuzzed out with voices. Him coming over. Words lost. I reach in my pocket, remembering his bookmark I still had. I remember smoothing it out on the table. His smile. My smile as his eyes descended from the ceiling, finding me worthy. I wasn't going to lose his stare this time. I talked. What I said didn't matter. Because he kissed me. His eyes closed so it didn't matter ware he was looking. And suddenly I felt like I had brought an angel down from heaven.

And I didn't want to let him go.


We would take train rides to no ware and chase storm clouds in his shiny car until it rained. He would sit with his sketchbook and draw me. He never drew my face. Ia asked him why. He said that he could never reduce something so pretty to just a line drawing. he said that he wasn't a good enough artist to do it justice. He said that one day he would draw it, but he wasn't ready. I asked him to try. He told me no. He said he didn't want to spoil me. I asked him what that meant. He just lifted his eye to the sky, something I hadn't seen him do since the party. he laughed like I couldn't understand. I got up and frowned. I walked to my car and slammed the door.


the next day taped to my locker was a drawing of me. My face was calm and smoothed over, my curly hair falling around my face. I ran to him across the hall and buried my face in his chest. I whispered in his ear "you couldn't spoil anything". He looked at me sadly. "well before you I had anything I cared about spoiling."

those blue hands in mine. Nothing better in the world. That bristling, sloppy crew cut slipping through the palm of my hand.Wrapping his arms around my waist from behind as we waited in line at the video store.Holding a butter cup under my chin, telling me that if it glowed yellow then it meant that I was in love.
but then again
everything
spoils
and it did.
and it was my fault.

to be continued...