It was her eyes I noticed first.
We were on a subway. I was heading home. She stepped on and sat down next to me. I gave her a quick smile, she just looked away. She looked about 15. I was not too much older (but old enough that I definitely couldn’t make a move).
I decided she was Asian. Half-Asian, maybe. Her eyes were blue. Slightly pointed at the end. But still big. Huge. Beautiful.
New haircut. I could tell because she was playing with it in a way that indicated she wasn’t quite comfortable with it yet.
She held a happy birthday tiara in her left hand.
I had read a book of Hemingway short stories that day. Titles of stories and lines from them swirled in my head.
As she left the subway, we made eye contact for what felt like a minute. As I stared into her perfect eyes, I thought about how I was heading towards a clean well-lighted place, and how that look in her eyes made it so clear that she was not.