Just One Look

I still have the scars from the accident covering my arms. They crisscrossed and etched their way all up and down my forearms. Every time I looked at them, the memory of her flashed in my mind.

Her eyes... even though they were hazed over, when I stop and think about it, they really weren't hazed over. They were fearful.

I still couldn't believe she said that. She had wanted to die. But if that was the case, then why was she so scared?

I was watching a news broadcast of what happened one day and I finally got her name.

Athena Ravyne.

I couldn't get her name out of my head. Athena. Athena. Athena. There were times where I caught myself just saying it out loud for no apparent reason. I felt like I was going insane. All of my thoughts revolved around her.

Athena

I often wondered what she was doing. Was she having fun? Was she with friends? Was she smiling? Was she with some other guy?

Was she still alive?

My greatest fear was that she wasn't alive any more. Everyday the newspaper was delivered to our house I checked the obituaries for her name. The last thing I wanted was to see her with the other deceased people. My fear was completely rational, too. If she was willing to die a year ago, who's to say that she wouldn't still act that way?

I must have looked like a sick person to my parents and twin older brothers. It's not like it's completely normal for a teenage boy to be scanning the obits for some girl that he only met once. Was it?

Well, it was to me.

Even if I only had met her once, Athena became my everything. I had one unsaid wish: to be able to see her again. Not only that, but to be able to talk to her again, to hold her in my arms again, to whisper softly into her ears those three words that I've so longed to say to her:

I love you.