“I don’t want to drop you off, I’m just going to keep you, that’s cool, right?”
“Awww, you want me to go drive around with you all night? Hey, that would be a blast, we’d have the best time, everyone would be so jealous!”.
“Of course we would! Who wouldn’t? You’re like sunshine, Angel.”
The handsome but slight young man beside her remained silent, simply grinning, content. Dark eyes twinkling, his caramel skin almost shining with excitement. On the rare occasions he spoke, we both struggled to decipher his accent, she indicating as much with measuredly flirtatious utterances meant to distance and pacify.
She was strikingly beautiful but that wasn’t what struck me. It was the fact that in spite of being so jaded at such a young age, in spite of being incredibly beautiful and making no bones about the fact that she knew it, she was gracious and loving and very sweet. She had clearly suffered a great deal but she chose to walk in the sun. At great cost, but she was committed to that choice and seemed intent on spreading a little happiness wherever she went.
She definitely brightened my night, and was appreciative to a degree that passengers rarely are.
As we pulled up to her house, I wanted so desperately to possess some kind of magic that could steer her from what I suspected lay ahead for her, in the distant, and not so distant future. The beauty of innocence in a broken world is so breathtaking, I think that compulsion to protect it must be almost universal.
So often, so very many nights, I regret my lack of magic.
Love is the only weapon I’m left with, and I’m not afraid to use it.
