The Reaper (Pt VII)

Her eyes settled over him with a confused grin.

"Aren't you going to pick me up," she laughed and he burned with embarrassment.

"So sorry, I wasn't looking," he apologized. Instinctively, he bent his head and bowed.

"Southern manners. I like that," she complimented and her words seemed to rise in him.

She became the object of knowledge to him, an inviting new book laying at his fingertips. Her pages ruffled and flirted with him. How he longed to tear through the cover. But he was full of self doubt, quietly pondering his affections for her.

He saw her frequently in the library and watched her lovely red hair sink deep in a book. Then, she'd rise like a beauty out of water and gape at him. Her lips parted shyly into a smile. Perhaps it was a sign but he didn't act upon it.

Though her heart fluttered madly in her chest, she could not shake her encounter with him. Nor could she deny the warmth of his gaze and touch upon their awkward greeting.

She made her move; a mad dash for the boy while he innocently roamed for books on a shelf. She pounced on him like a cat seizing a toy and kissed him.

"I just wanted to say thanks for the other day," she whispered shyly. Her face turned shamefully red at the doubts of her ambush.

"No I ran into you. I should be sorry," he answered. His words retreated as it escaped his breath.

An intimate line lay between them. It was so delicate and fine that each took tiny steps so not to break it. They were budding trapeze artists suspended in fright. They calculated their emotions like equations but failed to see the solution in their reasoning. Taking several missteps, the line broke and they were falling into the precipice of love.