We would always meet at the same street-corner, and it became something of a routine. She would be waiting for me there, with the light from the gas-lamp pooling around her in its thick yellow glow, giving her the appearance of some sort of specter that seemed hardly fit for this world or anywhere else.

And, no matter the weather or the occasion, she was always smiling. That smile, it is forever burned into my memory and is probably something that I shall never forget, something that I will never try to forget. It was a drowsy sort of smile, the kind one wears when they first wake from sleep in the morning, still clinging to the fragments of dreams that quickly slip from their grasp once they become more alert to the world around them.

I loved that smile; it told me she was waiting for me, waiting for me to come to her so we could have the sort of conversations that only seemed to spark whenever we were around one another. The kind of conversations where the rest of the world seems to fade away in a dim fog, and we are the only ones in existence. We would walk the streets, chattering on and on, dodging in and out of the throngs of people, quickly turning around street-corners, talking about anything and everything, and by the time we realized that the sun was sinking far away in the distance, we were half-way across the city, our legs throbbing from the walk. We’d simply exchange looks with each other, and a wordless humor would pass between us, and we’d laugh, then turn around and start back again, the conversation continuing on in an unbreaking flow.

It makes me a bit sad to reflect on those times now, but I shall tell you none the less. It’s better to talk about them than to just let them sit and fester, isn’t it? Besides, I am feeling rather nostalgic this evening.

“Lettie!” I’d shout as I ran up to her, “Lettie!” And I’m sure I sounded terribly desperate in those times, with one hand clutching the powdered blue cloth blanket, and another waving frantically about, worried that she wouldn’t see me or that I’d be lost in the crowd.

And then she’d turn, and those steel-gray eyes would light up with recognition, and she’d expose that beautiful smile to me, tossing her head so that the bouncing red curls would tumble onto her pale white shoulders like springs.

“Andrew, there you are.” She greeted me in that lovely soprano voice, dressed in a golden poppy colored gown edged with old lace. I recognized the dress; it was the one from the play we had performed nearly two weeks before. Lettie had a habit of this, of quietly slipping the costumes from our former productions into her own wardrobe. She wore them quite well, so well in fact that one unfamiliar with them could hardly tell they were crafted for the stage at all.

Sometimes, when we felt slightly more daring, we would roam the streets in full-costume and make-up, playing the parts of our respective characters for the evening. Last week I took on the persona of Hamlet, and her Ophelia. We ran about like drunken fools, laughing and smiling at everything, I failing miserably at being the brooding, troubled prince. But how could I do anything but smile, but laugh, while in her presence? You might think me a romantic fool for saying so, and I will surely regret saying this later, but Lettie had this sort of hypnotic presence to me, and I found it very hard to focus on anything thing else while I was around her. For those brief and fleeting hours, it felt as if she and I were the only people in the world, as if we could do anything we wished, be anything we wanted to be. I’m not really sure how to describe it; I suppose you could call it freedom? Yes, that’s it; we were captivated by some feeling of invincible freedom that made us feel untouchable to the rest of the world.

After a bit of walking and conversing, we finally reached our destination: the bank of the river. There is something strange about the look of a river, or any body of water, really, during the early hours of twilight.  The red and orange shades reflected on the surface like a mirror, and if I didn’t know any better, I would’ve thought we stepped right into some sort of oil painting, as the whole scene seemed saturated with beautiful, pastel colors.

Soon, I spread out the blanket I had brought with me, and we were lying on it, the cotton rubbing gently against our skin with grass tickling our hair and the lazy thrum of water bugs and frogs in our ears. The weather was hot, humid even, and I felt beady drops of sweat begin to surface on my forehead, removing my glasses to wipe my brow once or twice.

We were the sort of pair that could enjoy each other’s company without a word, just staring up at the sky lost in thought and daydreaming. Sometimes I would recite passages of poetry to her, some my own, some borrowed, simply because I wanted to hear how it would sound rolling off my tongue or because it was too beautiful to keep to myself. She’d look across and grin at me, adding her own lines or echoing back the next stanza to me without so much as a pause. The sound of her voice, rising and falling in octave like music captivated me, and I felt like a child experiencing some sort of newfound joy for the first time.

Looking back on it now, maybe all I wanted to hear then was the sound of her voice.

“Lettie”, I said after a spell of silence, clearing my throat which suddenly seemed dry.

“Yes?”

“I love you, Lettie, will you marry me?”

She was lying on her back, and then turned onto her side, not the slightest hint of shock or horror in her face. There were leaves tangled in her red hair, and I suddenly thought of Artemis, wild and lovely, streaking through the forests of Ancient Greece.

“You’ve asked me that question so many times, do you think asking me again is going to change anything?”

There was a look of pain in those gray eyes.

“But I-”

She placed a finger to my lips, and I was instantly hushed as she grabbed my left wrist with her free hand as if to inspect it. The golden band flickered teasingly on my finger in the fading sunlight causing me to wince, it felt like some sort of brand to me, and I understood what she meant at once.

“You’re engaged, and soon you’ll be a wonderful husband, with an adoring little wife, it’ll be everything you ever wanted.”

Her voice was cracking, even if it was slightly I could tell, she was trying to deceive herself, and deceive me along with her. We both knew I wouldn’t be happy, couldn’t be happy, in this arranged marriage my parents had orchestrated for me.

Yes, of course my fiancé was beautiful, but she also lacked the emotion, the joi de vivre. She was perfectly content with sitting in the corner looking lovely, never having any of her own thoughts or opinions. Every word she spoke to me were only ones she had been taught to say, and in conversations I could tell she was frightened of offending me, of saying something ‘wrong’, of behaving in a way not fit for a groomed lady for even a single second. Lettie was not like that at all: she was outspoken, not afraid of speaking her mind, adventurous…on a completely different end of the spectrum. Exactly the type of woman I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.

A sudden idea flew into my head, and I trembled from the mere excitement of it.

“Let’s run away together, elope!”

“I said no, Andrew.”

The sharpness of her voice surprised me, and then she fell silent, staring at our reflections in the water before letting out a heavy sigh. She chose her words very carefully, pausing frequently, and I was worried she was going to drop the subject all together.

“I love you too, it’s just…it’s not that easy. If we run away together, we’ll be hunted; there’ll be such a scandal, your father will surely be looking for us, you’ll have to leave everything behind, your lifestyle, your friends….everything.”

It suddenly dawned on me. My friends – I had never even thought of it – having to leave Jan and Francis behind, getting new identities, switching towns, changing names, always running….that wasn’t the kind of life I wanted to give her at all.
My thoughts were interrupted by the sound of soft sobs, and I looked across from me. She was crying. A pang of guilt ran through me, watching her sway back and forth, her face contorted and wrinkled as she tried to force herself to stop once she noticed I was gazing at her.

In an instant I pulled her over to me, and her head was resting beneath my chin, her thick hair curling against my cheeks. We didn’t exchange words, only sat there holding each other. It was dark now, and my family was probably wondering where I could possibly be at such an hour, but it meant little to me. All I was concerned with now was finding a way to make her stop crying. It took awhile, but finally she slumped her weight against me, exhausted from the emotional outburst. I drowsily led her home, where goodnights were said, accompanied with sleepy and slightly ashamed smiles. Walking away from the black silhouette of the house, I was worried she was angry with me, when I felt a gentle tug at the sleeve of my shirt, spinning around only to be given a quick kiss, and soon Lettie’s soft, playful laughter melted away my previous worries.

Once I arrived home, I tiptoed quietly to bed, not even bothering to change my clothes. The next morning I told my parents that I had spent the entire previous day with Francis, and that we had been dutifully studying for our exams.