Lost Chance
By David A., Coaldale, CO
I'm in the back seat of a Suburban with the most gorgeous girl I've ever laid eyes on. I can smell her hair, inches from my face. I can see each delicate curve of her body. I hear her breathing, and I inch closer. My arm twitches at my side, eager to touch her. My lips contour themselves at the thought of kissing her; it wouldn't matter where. In the moonlight streaming through the window, I see her smile and my breath catches in my throat. Her silhouette beats on the drum inside my chest, putting my body in rhythm with hers. My imagination stays where I last left it instead of wandering through getting to know her, as it might have in a different scenario. Every emotion that may have existed inside of me filters through her and is strained from my being, leaving me purified of the strains and worries of a 15-year-old's life. A wisp of a memory touches the end of a thread in my mind, but her next breath blows it away. I desire nothing more than to sit where I am, without the intoxication of anything else in the world, next to her.
A laugh from the seat in front of us semi-awakens me from my trance. The next bounces clearly upon my head. The other four teens in the driver's education class with us appear in my eyes. I look at her, unchanged, laughing with them. I settle back in and spend the next hour trying to put my arm around her. I can't bring myself to do it. A simple thing, but I cannot manage it. When we stop and she moves forward a seat, my heart sinks.
"Coward," I tell myself. I stop to reconsider. "No, human."
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