fragile

18

He saw her again.

He couldn't believe it.

It had been ten years since he had last seen her.

He still remembered the day when she stopped coming to school. It was a couple of days after he had threatened Mick and gotten him to apologise. She hadn't been there to witness the nasty but hilarious break up between Willow and Mick.

The truth was all set out in the middle of the hallway where Willow had cornered him. Being the little dick Mick truly was, he had confessed.

Everyone knew that Mira was innocent but none did anything to change anything.

Colton had wished Mira had been there to see it. To see her face when she would hear the truth finally come out.

The truth that he had always known but never said.

But she was unlucky. She had left before she could get any proper closure, and he wondered how it affected her.

He could never forget her, after all, maybe pushed to the back of his mind but never forgotten -- why was the question he was still trying to figure out.

She was the girl he couldn't get out of his head, even after ten years. He never could explain why he was so intrigued by her, not even now, now that he was older.

Age did nothing to help. It only made him wiser and experienced in new situations rather than help make sense of the past.

She was a strong person, he realised as the gears in his mind worked and took him into the past as if looking back at a series of flashbacks.

If it was him going through the shit she was going through, he knew he would have succumbed to the pressure and done something he would regret.

His older self was cursing his teen self already for being the little piece of shit he was for not helping her when he had the chance.

Parents be damned should have been the attitude he had taken. He had already lost their respect and his reputation, anyway. He had been too gullible, thinking he could change anything.

Mira had been a big part of his life than he gave her credit for. They never shared a word after that day on the roof but it was when Mira had suddenly disappeared from classes and never appeared again, that he realised it felt empty without her presence. She had made an impact in his life without really doing anything.

Eventually, the teacher told them that she had left the school and it hit him the hardest.

He would stare at her desk some times, fooling himself into thinking that she would come back and hang her head down to show off the curly hair he was so accustomed to looking at.

He never stopped staring at the front doors either, thinking she would come through it with that small, hopeful smile she had on.

But she never did.

And slowly, everyone forgot about her.

Even he had moved on with life; dating, work, a failed marriage, and Casey all occupied his time.

Until then.

Colton felt bad but was always intrigued by her. So many times he wished he could have helped more or even talk to her again, to tell her that she wasn't alone.

He knew there were so many things that went on behind the scenes that he had no idea about. Maybe she just needed someone to talk to, and he hadn't been that person.

He just had his own problems at the time that he didn't even know how to deal with.

It was all too overwhelming for him at that point. He was only a dumb eighteen year old, after all.

Now he was a respected and an inspiration to young authors everywhere, managing to make a living off of his passion.

Colton put the book he had first written that had gotten published, to the side, forgotten and peered through the gap of the bookshelf, gazing upon the figure that had managed to capture his attention exactly ten years ago.

If he was honest, he had never liked girls like Mira. She was short, a little chubby and had dark, untamed hair that seemed to match the chaos in her dark eyes.

To be frank, he liked skinny, white girls - all of the things Mira weren't.

But that was when he was a stupid teenager with raging hormones and unrealistic views of love.

Now, he knew and accepted that love came in various shapes and sizes, and even races — and he wasn't complaining.

Colton found himself watching her in that same way he did when he was eighteen. She pulled him in without even trying and in a strange, unexplainable way.

His eyes were glued to her; she anxiously drew in her bottom lip and he couldn't seem to look away.

She was staring intently at the back of a book, possibly reading the blurb. His eyes trailed her actions carefully, almost in a caress as he watched her delicately place a strand of hair behind her ear.

Colton could tell, though, that she wasn't completely present. He could tell, even from where he was standing, that she wasn't paying attention to the book in her hands.

The expression on her face resembled the expression that his sister used to have sometimes; the faraway, empty look in Casey's eyes was now in Mira's.

And he hated that.

Seeing it on her face, a face other than Casey's, caused his chest to constrict painfully.

He only saw Mira for the first time in years now, but he knew he didn't want to lose her like he had lost Casey, either.

He wasn't going to make the same mistake he did ten years ago.

Without even realising, he was walking towards her.

"Hey."

She looked up, and to his relief, that look in her eyes vanished. Instead, something he didn't expect happened.

She smiled.