Lila knew me once, when we were both small. I don’t recall being young, just short—she, on the other hand? Fresh as the spring and new as the dawn, I can only picture her as forever youthful. She came to me, gathered my little hands into hers, and claimed me before I’d known I had a heart to break. She dragged me behind her like a downed kite through her life and I stumbled along, trying to keep up and failing.
She always looked forward, my Lila, to dreams and adventures while I averted my gaze to not be blinded by her light. Did she know she had my heart in her teeth? I’ll give her the credit to assume she didn’t at first, but I don’t know when that changed. Did I give myself away all at once or did she pick up my tells overtime? Somewhere down the line I went from being her shadow to her minion.
“You’re so good to me,” she giggled, laying her head upon my shoulder while I didn’t dare grab her blazer out of fear of creasing it. “Always looking after me. Like a knight in shining armor!”
Well. I liked that better than being a minion at least.
She grew older and I grew taller; I stood back and watched her pick up and then discard boys like she was looking through the clothing racks at a clearance sale. I watched, secure in my place at her side, but then the boys she picked stayed around long enough for her to actually date them more than once. That was fine, I would tell myself, because it’s not like she didn’t have every right to do what she wanted. If I wasn’t going to pry my jaws open and speak, then my mouth was just going to stay shut. And my heart was gnashed to pieces, so be it.
It never mattered in the end; none of them ever stuck around for too long. So when she posted one day about being stood up on a date, I wasn’t surprised. I buttoned up my coat and ran out in the rain to pick up a bouquet of Black Eyed Susans and hurried to the café to see she was still there.
She stared up at me, like I was Bigfoot or Dracula or that drug dealer who hung out at the playground at two in the morning. “Ash? What are you doing here?”
I presented the bouquet to her. “Heard you got stood up.”
For a moment, her face softened as she stood and came over to take the flowers. “You’re the only one who ever gets me the right kind.” She laughed, tucking the bouquet into the crook of her elbow. “It’s such a waste you aren’t a man, Ashley, because you’d be the perfect boyfriend.”
I forced myself to smile. “Luck was never my forte.”
We sat back down at her booth for another five minutes. It was my duty to distract her from her woe and let her rail at the injustice of being stood up, but all that was forgotten when her beau, thoroughly soaked, showed up at the café’s door and explained his car wouldn’t start.
I waved goodbye as they slipped out the door, off to salvage their date. I left a moment later, picking up the tab, but leaving the bouquet.
Jessica Gasper lives beneath the boughs of a maple tree.
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