Quivering

-“It’s not a big thing,” she says, her lips quivering as her eyes fall from her solid stare into me.
“Sometimes it’s nothing, I mean, when I feel there’s something in me and I feel like something, then it may be something and it may bother me. But sometimes, and I feel this more often, I feel this something’s left me and I feel nothing, I feel like nothing and then it’s nothing,” tears, now, shaking themselves from her hazel eyes.
As I sit there, across from her, her eyes turned to the ground, tears cascading down as the strands of her hair cover her face, I think back to who she used to be. Who she was when I met her, her wonderful smile followed by her joy filled laugh, as she closed her eyes holding her head to the blowing wind, her hair taking leave of its nesting, being loosed in the wind as she stood a joyously innocent incarnation, of beauty.
I remember those initial glances. I’d sit across the room from her in the seminars, the ones we were forced to attend, in conjunction with the writing program. It’s almost amazing that the distance between us was ever gaped. At first I thought the only thing that would be wrought of those initial glances were more glances; my need to confirm that her graceful smile was still in that room with me. And the days passed, as they are prone to doing and I started to notice, every time I turned and glanced in her direction, her hair was blowing in an absent breeze and her eyes were never on the speaker but just left of him, a few feet away from were I sat. Every so often, I’d turn and her eyes would barely escape mine. How I felt like a child in those moments. Playing games in high school English, turning to look at that girl with the wonderful eyes and turning away as she had just done the moment before you noticed. Those awkward moments of trying to define affinity, coupled with the ambivalence of promise.
How we spoke, when we first spoke, I can hardly remember. I remember water falling from a fountain, the sweet sound of renewal in the background. Her eyes. But was it then that I first noticed? It must have been, but since that moment I’ve often gazed right into them and noticed the different shades leading to her soul. This is why now it is impossible to discern if it was then, when I first noticed the beauty in them. It is impossible now to recall what we said to each other. It is easier to return to the emotion, that breaking free from ambivalence, and understanding of affinity, brought us in that first conversation. The smiles, hers and mine, there were too many to remember each, but I remember they were there. While we stood there the shadows vanished and I walked her home. I don’t believe I saw her past the double doors of her apartment building. It’s funny, that’s the way it was, but it doesn’t say much about what it was in that first meeting.
Subsequent conversations, or should I call them dates? I think they fell somewhere in between. How do you define dates anyways, is it how long you spend together or what you do while together? We usually had coffee and talked. I remember her always present smile, more than I remember where exactly our conversations started or ended. Bits and pieces here and there. The uncovering of ourselves as we discovered each other, in each word spoken. Her words punctuated by her soft laughter, that wonderfully sonorous sound that would erupt from her and always disappear into a smile, the smile that never seemed to depart her face in those days, as we spent our moments together. How many syllables we made use of, I’ll never know, innumerable, with the quality of stars. The certain thing is that these sounds filled with meaning, were what brought us together.
Her lips continue to quiver, the bottom one most, as it always does whenever the emotion inside of her shakes her and she can no longer suppress it, her stare stolen from me and now lost in the leaves of muted colors. I could almost see her breath as she pushes it out trying to form words, but failing. Her hand dead on the wrought iron table. Wait. Quivering, not dead, dying. I reach out and bring my fingers under hers, lifting them up in my own hand. She stops pushing out the silent syllables, bites her lip to keep it from quivering and remains motionless, except for her eyes. They make their way through the flood of tears and catch a glimpse of me. Her hand falls out of mine as she pulls back and steals away the somber beauty of her face, leaving me to stare only at her dark curls as they shake with her sobbing. It’s funny, how both laughing and crying resemble each other. I remember how her curls would bounce in such a similar way when she’d turn from me to try and stop laughing.
It was that night, that coffee shop on the east side. It was then, the sound in her laugh and the bouncing of her curls became indelible marks in my memory. Were we at any other point, I might even say it was then we fell in love, but at the moment, all that’s certain is that it was then that part of her became part of me. It was in those moments, a week or so after our first conversation that she said more to me in her silence, than can ever be said with three simple words. In that expression, was life, hers and mine, somehow intertwined. And we embraced that night, not like the embraces of the world, of flesh, but knowing that the essence of ourselves, were together, creating something greater than we could ever be. I walked her to her door, that night, and even after she had closed it, I could feel her presence by my side.