Sorry that took a bit. Between school work and work work and rereading the Harry Potter series in preparation for the goodness about to come, I have barely had time to breathe. Again, I really do appreciate those reviews so much. It means a ton.
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She closes her eyes as the wind sweeps across her face and she pauses, breathes in for a moment, and smiles. Sometimes the asphalt and the metal gets to be a bit much and she disappears in the park for a few hours, twisting herself around the trees, and it feels like home.
She doesn't usually miss home. She doesn't miss the constrictiveness of the quaint town. In the city, she can stretch her arms out and breathe deep without colliding with another. Another who knows everything about her, from her birthday to her preferred choice in music to her full history of boyfriends. No, that she doesn't miss.
But she misses fall in her Connecticut home with her mother gathering baskets of leaves and showering them upon her whenever she chooses to leave the comfort of the porch. She misses fresh picked apples and warm cider and the smell of something warm and sugary baking in Sookie's kitchen.
In the city, the change of seasons is hardly noticeable, at least not in the way she had grown to recognize. There were few trees outside the park and buildings never change with weather. They remain intimidating and solid, their glass never reflecting the heat of the sun or the frigid wind.
So she closes her eyes as the fall wind sweeps by her face and she can almost smell something warm and sugary but it is probably because she is a block down from that great donut shop and its not even close to what she remembers. But she can pretend.
She stuffs her hands into her denim pockets and her hair swirls around her face with the passing breeze, orange and brown leaves swirling around her boots. She watches as children scramble in the leaves starting to litter the ground and smiles because she is reminded of old days and older leaves.
Her feet follow the cement pathway and she finally lets her eyes linger somewhere other than the trees and when she sees him she smiles to herself because it is so likely for her body to unconsciously lead her to him. It never ceased to amuse her after their encounters, when she would go home and curl up on her second hand couch, a cup of warm coffee (two sugar, one cream) cupped in her delicate hands, that in such a large city, they consistently ran into one another. That they were consistently drawn to one another.
But she didn't believe in fate and happenstance. She believed in rigid order, specific rules, that their meetings were purely coincidental.
She watches him for a moment, pouring over a beaten paperback (easy to tuck in back pockets) and watches as his eyes skim back and forth casually over the worn, yellowed paper. She sits down next to him and he doesn't move an inch, doesn't even flinch. He just turns the page and she has to restrict herself from chuckling when she recognizes the words on the page.
"Ayn Rand." She muses quietly, her voice flowing into the wind and billowing around them.
"Political nut." He responds almost automatically and she can hear the chuckle in his voice. She is reminded of other fall scenes with baskets and ponds and feet dangling over stilled water. But they are much older now and much has changed.
They sit in silence for a bit longer, the sounds of children laughing and the turning of pages accompanying them when he closes the book and folds it in his hands. He looks over at her for a moment and she meets his gaze.
"You have a-" He is smiling, his hand twitching in his lap.
"What?" Her face is self-conscious, worried.
He chuckles and reaches forward, pulling a leaf out of her hair with determined gentleness and she feels something move inside her when his hand lightly grazes her cheek as he pulls away. She swallows as she watches him release the leaf in the wind, the brown mixing with the others of its kind.
He smiles at her again and stands up, gracefully tucking the worn book into his back pocket (she smiles). She feels a jolt in her stomach and maybe she does believe in fate and happenstance, just a little. He's taken two steps away from her before she stands up and follows him.
"Hey, Jess." He stops and turns half towards her, a curious expression (raised eyebrow, bright eyes). Her hands find her pockets again and she leans back in her heal, twisting back and forth.
"Let's have coffee."
He ponders her for a moment as her heart beats in her chest franticly and then a small smile breaks his features.
"I would like that." He states casually.
She nods and looks ahead of them, catching another whiff of the donuts a block down. "I know a place."