Unreal. Totally unreal. With the rain, and the music and the light. The familliar and unfamilliar mixed, the familliar became strange and the world became new. The streetlight and the diagonal rain and the crummy day edging into crummy night and the car warm and time stopped.

"Cornflower Blue" he calls her, because of her eyes, and she knows it's corny, but she's too young not to be thrilled by it.

She's at the precipice, she can feel it, and she doesn't know how to be, what to do, how to feel, she just knows that she will do as he does and he'll show her how to be. She's grateful and giddy.

He's been staying with them for a few days, and he sleeps in the basement. She is on the second floor, but she can feel him in the house, all the same. It feels charged. Her parents are mystified by what is happening- she arranged the visit almost all on her own, this boy from another state come to visit their daughter. She feels like an adult, even though she is far from it, she feels she can do anything if she is shown how. She's a quick study. She's not brave, but she is confident.

A tape in the tape deck. A band she knows is cool, because no one she knows has heard of them. Complicated lyrics: "The words she spoke enlightened him, and everything, everything chaaaanged..."

There's a moment and the moment passes. Something has happened, but she's not sure what it was. A decision that was or wasn't made. Something that did or didn't happen. An expectation not met.

The drive home is short, with him at the wheel of her mother's car. (She's too young.) He leaves the next day, and that's alright.  There's time enough.






For the Scriptic.org prompt exchange this week, Debbie at http://debbiesdays.wordpress.com gave me this prompt: The words she spoke enlightened him and everything changed.

I gave Michael at http://michaelwebb.us this prompt: The crowd had seemed so friendly a moment ago, but now they took on a meaner cast, and seemed to swell with a bit of menace.