your pillow smelled like cherries and vanilla.

the curtains were drawn, but a thin ray of sun still managed to sneak into the room, cutting through the darkness every so smoothly, like a hot knife through butter. it was a mid-afternoon sometime in october, and even though a peek out the window would suggest otherwise, it was terribly cold.

i still laugh at the image of you i have stuck in my head, snuggled in three blankets and your favorite cream colored cardigan. your hair was messy, spread all over the white bed sheets, creating a beautiful contrast between them and the hypnotizing shade of brown that i could only describe as something goddess-like.
i remember this. this is the part where you look at me, your eyes almost closed right before you would fall asleep. i wasn’t even that close to your face, but i could still clearly see your dark, beautifully long eyelashes getting closer and closer, meeting at a center and molding together perfectly like a jigsaw puzzle. they’d lock me away from your eyes, closing in together as if they were the gates to your soul which i was banned from entering. i smiled. i think it was the same way i’m smiling right now.
i picked up the tea mug from your bedside table and held onto it tighter, to warm myself up. i must’ve sat there counting your freckles for a bit too long because the next thing i knew, my hands were burning up and i nearly spilled the forest fruit tea all over your bed. i don’t think i ever told you about that.

‘everything in your room is so… you’ i remember thinking. white walls covered in pictures, small mirrors, shelves with small cacti and hard-cover editions of classics- anything like The Great Gatsby and To Kill A Mockingbird. I had bought you ‘A Tale of Two Cities’ a few weeks before, but it wasn’t on the shelf with the others- instead, it was on your nightstand with a bookmark somewhere about halfway through. the candle you had lit earlier which was next to the book had started to drip wax so i had to move it, which is why you found it on your desk.

that brought me a few months back, when i lit some gingerbread scented candles the first time you came over. you’d mentioned that they were your favorite, so i had made a mental note to buy some just in case. i was really nervous that day. to be fair, it didn’t come as a surprise to me, even though i had never felt like that before. i knew the moment you spilled your ice tea all over me in that cafe that my life would never be the same.

that night we waited until my parents were asleep and we went up onto the balcony. we sat on the railing and even though your feet were dangling two stories high, i don’t remember seeing an ounce of worry on your face. i asked you about your future and you told me you wanted to write. when you asked about mine i said i didn’t know, but in fact, that night it became very clear to me- i was look my future directly in its beautiful, hypnotizing green eyes that seemed to have a drug-like effect on me. after that, we shared a set of headphones and listened to anything from ‘House of The Rising Sun’ to ‘Thinking Out Loud’. you fell asleep, your head resting on my shoulder, so i had to carry you back inside.

‘do you want to go see a movie?’ was what brought me back from my trip down memory lane. i said yes, watching you get up from under the many blankets and walking towards the open window. you stood up straight, your hair slightly flowing in the wind, sun rays stroking your pale skin as if you had been chosen for whatever reason. in your white oversized t-shirt, draped over your small figure reaching just above your knees, i remember thinking that you were, in fact, a modern-day greek goddess and i was more than lucky to be breathing the same air as you.