This week I've decided to share an original fiction piece:

She was everywhere. Even within the throngs of coffee lines and lecture halls, my eyes focused on her as if she was the only city on a map. Her eyes never met mine though, for they were forever nestled between the words printed on the weathered paper of whatever new book she was reading for the week.

I can’t recall the first time I noticed her but she must have been reading. She probably had her headphones in too, blowing out her eardrums with some shitty eighties song she’d silently sing along to--either that or one of her God forsaken country CD’s.

It only took me three months to muster enough courage to initiate a conversation with her. Actually, if we weren’t alone in the elevator, I probably never would have spoken to her in the first place. She wasn’t my type--which is precisely the reason why I never went out of my way to talk to her.

Okay, that’s false. I’ll reluctantly admit that even an arrogant asshole like myself gets shy sometimes, and I don’t know why but she made me Nervous. The type of Nervous where my hands become slick with a rubbery sweat and my stomach contracts to the point where I’m thoroughly convinced it's digesting itself or something. That feeling is the real reason why I never approached her. Of course, this was all until a rainy day in October when I chose to ride the elevator, and lo-and-behold, she’s standing between the doors completely saturated.

I may not be able to recall the first time I saw her but I sure as hell remember the first time we talked. She mumbled something about her waterlogged book and I desperately tried not to stare at the way her soggy brown hair framed her angular face. It was the closest I ever saw her and I wanted to memorize every feature, all while trying not to come off as a complete creep.

Before then, I swore her eyes were blue, but at closer inspection I realized they were brown--not a dark, mucky brown, but a golden brown with sprinkles of emerald sparkles. They were absolutely magnificent. Beneath her left eye was a copper-colored freckle, only becoming visible if I squinted. Her beauty was simple and subtle, hidden behind the confines of book covers. I craved to learn more about her; not just where her freckles were located or what her lips tasted like, but why she read so much, who her favorite person was, if she liked lemonade, where she grew up, her thoughts on politics, and what made her tick.

I wanted to know her as more than just the ubiquitous girl who stood before me in a red raincoat.

“What book are you reading?” The words fell out of my mouth before I even had time to grasp them. Seriously, I didn't even know what I was saying.

Those tire-sized brown eyes barely glanced in my direction. “You wouldn't know.”

A smirk slid between my lips. She was sassy. I liked it. Definitely not what I expected. She looked like the quiet, good-girl type. The type my mother would’ve loved for me to bring home. The type I never typically sought after. But it was refreshing. She was refreshing.

“I'm sorry.” She muttered, finally looking up from the dampened pages. “That was rude. I'm just having a bad day and now I'm taking it out on a stranger. Sorry.”

“That’s okay. I’m Trevor,” I said as my lopsided smirk found its balance on my lips, morphing into a genuine smile.

“Madeline,” she spoke softly, wearing a similar smile.

I slid my hands into the pockets of my jeans to discreetly wipe away the moisture seeping from my palms. The Nervous feeling fell like a shadow from the fluorescent light, suffocating the already stifled air I was breathing. Either that or I was intoxicated by the sweet scent radiating from Madeline’s skin. It was a divine mixture of ripe peaches and fresh rain. I simply could not get enough. On any other day, I would’ve cursed the painfully slow ascent of the elevator, but I was incredibly thankful for the extra time with Madeline.

“Well Madeline, it looks like we’re not strangers anymore, so feel free to take your anger out on me.”

She rolled her eyes, “Was that a pick-up line?”

“Depends,” I shrugged indifferently even though every fiber of my being flickered with an intense fire. “Do you want it to be?”

“You’ll have to try harder than that.” Madeline didn’t budge but silently challenged me with her own seductive smirk.

A shaky breath exhaled from the space between my ever growing dry lips as I watched drops of water drip from her wavy, coffee-with-no-milk colored hair, splash silently onto the elevator floor. Again, I was at a loss for words.

I swore she’d be the death of me.

Not trusting my wandering eyes, I took a closer look at the book she was hugging to her chest and laughed.

“What’s so funny?”

Much to my dismay, a dinner bell ding sounded, signaling the arrival of my floor. I reluctantly walked to the opening doors but not before turning to Madeline and smiling again. “The guy dies at the end.”

“What?” A thick crease crinkled between her eyebrows.

I pointed to the book. “But what do I know? I’ve never heard of it before.”

And with that, I confidently strolled out of the elevator, leaving Madeline with her jaw on the ground.

A month almost passed before I saw her again. She was no longer everywhere. Or maybe it was different because I purposely searched every map for her; she no longer stood out like Paris or Rome. No, Madeline was a secret city, hidden between rivers with foreign names.

I almost gave up. After waiting in long lines for coffees I never drank and taking the same elevator everyday, she and her books were nowhere to be found.

Fate didn’t exist. At least I didn’t think it did, especially when Madeline virtually disappeared from the planet. The whole notion about how every minuscule detail of my life was written the moment a sperm penetrated an egg seemed utterly ridiculous. Madeline and I just happened to be in the same place at the same time, and maybe that two minute and twelve second encounter in the elevator was all I’d ever get with her. Of course, my theory was later proven wrong and Maddie would gush about how we were destined to be together and all that girly crap. I’d roll my eyes while biting back a smile. She knew I’d never admit it, but I felt the same.

Almost ten years later and now I know for a fact we met for a reason. We were going to be together for a lifetime. It was embedded in our souls. We wore it on our hands. Unfortunately, souls know no time, and while our lifetime was longer than two minutes and twelve seconds, it was a lot shorter than either of us ever expected.

Perhaps fate--or whatever the hell it was that brought us together in the first place--is to blame for severing our lifetime. A knife wedged through a heart, leaving us both bloodless.

She’s Angry now. I know she is. It’s laced between the same crevice above her book-pointing nose. She doesn’t know I’m watching. I sound like a stalker, but I swear I’m not.

We were in love. I think I fell in it the night we met again at a party. Never before had I felt the fall from love. Usually I caught myself before gravity could drag me down, but that night I lost balance and never got back up. The fall was hard and the floor was sticky but I didn’t want to get up. Instead, I grabbed onto Madeline’s legs and she fell with me. Now I wish I got up and brushed off the bruises because the pain I felt then is incomparable to the pain we feel now.

Four weeks after the inevitable elevator ride, I was at a party slugging back warm beer and smiling at girls who glanced my way. I remember my eyes brimming over the red Solo cup, scanning the room when I found her slumped over in the tight corner. She was hugging herself as she sunk her teeth into her painted red lips. The Nervous feeling blew bubbles beneath my stomach. Sure, a couple of beers were brewing through my veins, but I was not drunk. Buzzed, maybe, but not drunk. The liquid courage pushed me towards her. It was dark and damp, as expected in the basement of a grimy Fraternity house, but I could still see her.

“Where’s your book?” I asked, eyeing her more closely. She was awkwardly clutching her own Solo cup while fiddling with her tight blue tank-top, looking incredibly uncomfortable.

Madeline’s dark eyes met mine with surprise. “Oh, um, I finished it,” she stammered. “Thanks for spoiling the ending by the way.”

I shrugged, joining her against the brick wall. “Sorry.”

She stayed quiet, continuing to chew on her lower lip, eyeing her drink.

“Having fun?”

“Not really.” She mumbled. “This isn’t my scene.”

“What’re you doing here then?” I couldn’t help but ask.

It was her turn to shrug her bare shoulders. “My friends dragged me here but they’re off drinking and making out with random guys.”

I chuckled. “Rather be reading, huh?”
Madeline was shorter than me by at least five or six inches, but I had not realized until then. She was so cute.

Craning her neck upwards, she glared into my eyes. “Are you making fun of me?”

“What? No! I was just kidding.” She had me tripping again.

“Well you don’t know me.”

“You’re right. I’m sorry, that was rude. I’m just having a bad day.” I said smoothly, hoping to recover my tracks.

She laughed quietly and I breathed a sigh of relief. I still had a chance.

“Honestly though, I would rather be reading. Actually, I’d rather be doing anything else than be at this shit fest.”

“Then let’s leave,” I suggested boldly. Maybe I did have one too many beers.

Her dark eyebrows arched highly on her forehead, challenging me. “What?”

“I don’t…” My words trailed and I lost conscious thought, hypnotized by the green glimmers sparkling in Maddie’s eyes. “I think you’re beautiful,” I blurted like a blabbering buffoon.

Even in the darkness I could see the pink blush caress her pale cheeks. “You’re going to have to try a lot harder than that, Trevor.”

“I’m serious,” I choked, holding her gaze. “You’re beautiful.”

“Well, thanks.” She smiled, my knees buckled. “But you’re still not getting me to leave with you.”

“I-I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant we can go outside and talk or something.”

Madeline turned closer to me, analyzing my timid eyes.

“Okay,” she finally said.

I didn’t think I heard her correctly but I was pretty certain her mouth formed the letters ‘o’ and ‘k’. Then I felt her small hand grab my larger, sweaty one as she pulled me through the intoxicated crowd of college students. My friend Jared smirked at me, patting me on the back as we walked past him.

“Nice, man.”

Flash forward four years later and he would go on to recall this memory at our wedding. I don’t think any of us would have ever predicted that, though.

That night was just the beginning; a mere drop of time in the abyss of forever. We flirted and shared secret smiles under the dusty blanket of stars. We talked on the back porch until three in the morning, only to be interrupted by Madeline’s friend Ashley who came screaming for her, thinking she had been abducted. Another laughable wedding story.

As it turned out, Ashley had dated my former roommate during freshman year and remembered me. I was in the clear. She later encouraged Madeline into agreeing to go out with me. I should have thanked her, but I’ll bet Maddie regrets ever listening to her now. It would have spared us all an unnecessary heartache.

But it happened regardless, and a week later I took us to a local Mexican restaurant and learned more about her. She read a lot because fictional worlds were far more exciting than her own. Her favorite person was her Grandmother who shared a passion for books and traveling. She did in fact, like lemonade, but only drank it during the summer, preferring iced tea instead. I learned that she grew up on the outskirts of Georgia, explaining her slight southern twang and love for Willie Nelson. Her parents were raging Republicans, but Maddie was a free-spirited liberal. She wouldn’t tell me what made her tick, so I had to find out on my own. Another challenge I was eager to tackle.

My mindless jokes made her laugh. We went out again the next night and I learned what her lips tasted like. She was rambling about flunking a paper and I just did it. I kissed her and I couldn’t stop. Her soft flesh melted perfectly against mine. The Nervous feeling was screaming at me somewhere beneath my skull, but it was quieted the moment Maddie smiled.

I spent the rest of college studying the flavor of her lips as she read me lines of poetry. After graduation, we moved in together and dated for another two years.

On our four-year anniversary, I proposed on a beach near her hometown. She cried and so did I. The next summer we married at a local white church, and later that night my fingers traced her freckles underneath the moonlight.

Intense, passionate, wild, our love was. Marriage was bliss. Maddie was my breath. We were so happy, we bled jubilance. Of course, like any couple, we had our fights. Ugly fights. We were far from perfect, but our love was pure. At the end of every night, she’d rest her head against my chest and we’d succumb to a peaceful slumber. Together.

Now, it is hard to fathom how we will never again feel that way.

All because of me.

It was unexpected. For everyone. How did this happen to us?

Madeline sleeps alone now. She shivers between the sheets as her tiny body spasms from the loss of mine. Across the span of nine months, the prominent sparkles in her eyes have dulled significantly. They used to put the stars to shame but now they merely resemble two black holes.

I miss her but I can’t tell her. She wouldn’t believe it anyway.

Instead, I remain silent and watch a life I left behind.

She looks better today but she still can’t fool me. I know it’s all a facade. I see right through the plastic smile and make-up covering the craters carved beneath the skin of her eye sockets. She can’t fool me. She never could. But she’s trying. She’s trying to fool the world around her--all of Leafton, Georgia--how she is fine without me. Madeline ignores their somber stares and pitiful whispers. The plastic around her lips crunch into a tight smile. She’s fine.

They question her resilience, how she’s braving through the storm. Madeline’s strong, don’t get me wrong, but if it were not for our six-year-old son, she wouldn’t be as strong as she is. He is the sole reason she’s wearing a counterfeit smile. The reason she slips from beneath the cold sheets every morning. She has to be brave because he can’t understand why Daddy is gone.

The day Maddie gave birth to our son is forever embedded into my memory. No day--no feeling--could ever compare to the moment I held his tiny frame in the crook of my arms. Ever so slowly, his eyes peeled open, revealing a near replica of Maddie’s orbs--both like miniature brown universes. Pride swelled through my veins. We made him.

Owen Daniel Wilkeson.

He was a physical product of our love, mirroring bits and pieces of the both of us. Unfortunately, the poor kid inherited my dark head of hair, which will most likely become prematurely gray, just like mine did. But, he has a killer smirk, and I told him he could get any girl he wanted, as long as he smiled at them. Madeline rolled her eyes but she knew it was true. Afterall, my smirk was part of the reason she fell for me.

Owen wasn’t exactly planned, but he wasn’t a surprise either. Madeline and I wanted kids, but we were both busy with work. She had just started at a publishing firm, and I was a professor at Georgia Tech. Money was tight, but we were making it work. The Nervous feeling--a feeling I hadn’t felt since our wedding--reappeared when Maddie suspected she was first pregnant. After she felt sick for nearly a week, I foolishly told her she probably had the flu, but she knew better. A doctor confirmed it a few days later, and if possible, I was both terrified and absolutely exuberant.

My own father left me and my mother when I was only four-years-old. How was I supposed to be a Dad when I never even had one? But Maddie reassured me with one of her calming smiles, and I knew it would all be okay. Of course, she was right. Maybe I’m bragging, but it’s a realm linked with parenthood.

Owen really is a great kid. He’s only six, but he’s incredibly smart. He likes books and baseball, especially books about baseball. We’ve taken him to a few Atlanta Braves games, hence his budding obsession with the team. The kid’s got one hell of an arm, too. Maddie signed him up for a tee-ball team but I can’t make it to the games. Owen is crushed, constantly questioning why so many Dads are there and I’m not.

I hate it. I hate how I can’t be there to watch him hit, or cheer him on as he runs to first base. I hate how I’m not there when he feels dejected about dropping the ball. He needs me and I’m not there.

Even though I was Nervous about becoming a Dad, I vowed to never leave our child. I would never be my Father. I would never let my son feel the way I felt when I was fatherless at the Father-Son football games in elementary school. I never wanted Owen to feel abandoned.

But now that’s exactly how he feels and I’m to blame. I did what I said I’d never do. I’m a sad hypocrite.

The sadness is soon forgotten and replaced with a smile when I see Maddie and Owen pull up to the front of his school. It’s hard to believe he’s in first grade already; now I’m sad again. He’s got his whole life in front of him and I’m afraid I won’t be present for any of it. Watching Owen and Maddie is like being trapped behind a one-way mirror. I’m suffocating behind the unbreakable glass, observing as they live the life I’ve been cruelly cut from--except, it’s impossible to look away. I’m screaming, sure the glass will break, but it doesn’t. Perhaps it’s better this way. I’m getting used to being a shadow. Watching is better than nothing. Although, I’d do just about anything to reach through the transparent wall and take hold of them.

My hands are pressed to the glass. Maddie and Owen are only a mere arm’s length away but I can not break the barrier. I want to touch my wife like the sea touches the sky. I want to kiss her the way the waves kiss the shore. I want to hold my son like the night holds the stars. I want to come home. I’m slowly learning to accept where I live now.

Maddie’s car is now hugging the curb of the student drop-off area. My eyes could be closed and I’d still know this. First, because Maddie lives every second of her life to a regimented schedule, and secondly, I’ve been watching the same scene every morning for the past nine months. Today Owen looks pissed off when he gets out of the car. He scrunches his face in a tight scowl, folding his arms over his navy blue Atlanta Braves t-shirt as he kicks the dirt. The infamous smirk must currently be in hiding because I haven’t seen it in a while. Most days he looks tired,or simply lifeless--certainly not what typical six-year-olds should look like--but I’ve never seen him so Angry. Owen’s a fairly calm kid, so Maddie must have seriously set him off.

My view slowly shifts toward her and it’s clear she’s equally--if not more--perturbed. I know the warning signs well; I often considered myself a professional at pissing Madeline off. Once I learned exactly what made her tick, I’d do it on purpose just to get a rise out of her. I couldn’t help it. She’s strangely seductive when she’s Angry.

The first sign is her rhythmically ticking jaw. She clenches her teeth together as if she’s biting something hard. I’ve always warned her about the possibility of cracking a tooth but she never listens to me. The second sign of Madeline's apparent Anger is the deep line wedged between her furrowed eyebrows. As I detected before, the crevice only seems to have thickened on her drive to the school. The third, and final sign of Anger, is her death grip on the steering wheel. Like her jaw, Maddie’s fists are clenched, choking the wheel with her bone white knuckles. But lately she always looks Angry. I can’t tell if it’s from me, Owen, or the world. Probably all three.

Her so called ‘friend’, Amber Richmond, drives past Maddie’s car and flashes her a smile wreaking of pity. Maddie’s lips are tight, but forcefully shift upwards. I laugh because it’s painfully fake. When Amber continues down the one-way street, Maddie rolls her eyes. She doesn’t like Amber but since Owen’s friends with her son Jake, she can’t exactly ignore the fake blonde.

The drop off line is jammed with mini-vans and trucks. Maddie’s Anger is growing and Owen takes off toward the front doors of the elementary school, never looking at the car. Normally he and Maddie at least wave goodbye, but both forgo the morning ritual today. I look at Madeline again and I’m certain she’s spewing a string of curses under her breath-- “shit” is seemingly the favorite (and cleanest) word coming from her mouth. It’s comforting to know she hasn’t changed too much in the past nine months; she’s still cursing like a filthy truck driver.

“It’s not very lady like,” her mother would drawl with a disdainful frown.

“Do you actually think I give a shit?” Maddie would quip.

Most people are surprised by her vulgar language. I know I was. She is an enigma. A refreshing enigma in which I never wanted to solve. A stab of red pain punches through me when I remember how I can no longer explore the mysteries of Maddie. It’s hard to tell what she’s thinking, but it’s even harder to tell from the inside of my glass.

One day I might have to stop watching them. I don’t know when the day will come, but until then, the shadows remain my cloak.

Maddie’s black car vanishes between buses, weaving through screaming students and silver soccer mom vans. Now it’s my turn to curse. I know where she’s going next and I need to get there before she does. She’ll try to talk to me, like she does everyday. Sometimes she’s silent. But, I listen. I always listen.

Swollen grey clouds suspend in the dreary sky, ready to burst with moisture. Colors are absent, replaced by the dull hues of a black and white photograph. Maddie’s lens often looks like this, but today it’s especially depressing.

I finally find her car and follow it to the next location. Drops of rain start spilling from the ashy sky, but they do not deter her. When she gets here, she doesn’t see me, but parks under a sleepy hollow with a cardinal perched under a branch. It takes a few breaths before she steps out of the vehicle and onto the patch of damp grass.

With innocent eyes and hair matted by the rain, Maddie looks nineteen again. It’s like we’re back in the elevator on the first day we officially met--the day our present collided with the future. But how could we have known? Every passing second since then led us here, to this moment: a place we never planned to be--not this soon, at least.

She’s merely a few feet from me now, still smelling like peaches and summer rain. Even when everything changes, the simple facets of life remain the same. A crack of thunder rips through the hazy clouds, unleashing a flood of rain. No one is around. Maddie does not bother concealing her cries. Her face is blurred with stains of salty tears and drops of rain. I want to hold her, kiss her in the rain like we’ve done so many times before, but this glass is God damn cemented and I can not break through.

“I miss you,” Maddie says, fiddling with the diamond wedding band resting around her ring finger.

I miss you, too, I want to say but my words are a hushed whisper lost among the breeze. After a closer examination, I count the rings circling Maddie’s muddy eyes, resembling the dark bands of a tree stump. Rain falls harder, as do her tears, but she makes no move to wipe away the moisture streaking over her pale skin.

Even in the middle of a storm, Maddie’s raw beauty is a radiant sun. She’s my sun in the darkest of winters.

“It’s hard to live without you, Trevor. I don’t know how…” Her voice teeters on the sharp edges of despair. Everyday she’s one step away from falling. I want to save her, but I must learn to let her fall. She didn’t lose me. I lost her.

Eventually she will fall, but she’ll fall past the feelings of hopelessness and sadness, and learn to float. And after floating, she’ll start to fall again--she’ll fall in love. But it won’t be with me. She’ll fall for Owen’s baseball coach whose wife recently died, and together they’ll provide each other comfort--a comfort I do not know how to give from my side of the glass.

“I’ll always love you,” Maddie says again. I’ll always love her too--even when she starts to love someone else; I will finally watch her smile again. I’ll watch when he asks her to dinner and she almost says no. I’ll watch when he kisses her goodnight on the front porch, and I’ll watch when he gets down on one knee and she nods feverishly. I’ll watch her walk down the sandy aisle, looking beautiful as ever, at their small beach wedding where they exchange vows. I’ll watch when she gives birth to their beautiful baby girl.

I’ll always be watching.

Maddie crouches onto the wet grass, delicately running her fingers over my marble grave.

I love you, too.

The corner of her lips gently crack into a small smile, just for a second. It’s like she can hear me. And even though I’m gone, I’m everywhere.

I am everywhere.