Her eyes were wide with fascination.  As she spoke passionately of her plans for college and the future, she became lost.  I was captivated, drawn in more and more with each word she said. Infatuated with her and her confidence and everything she stood for.
“Michael!” she tugged on the white cuff of my nicest button up, snapping me out of my trance.  I jumped at her touch, not used to her gentle nature compared to my parents. I allowed myself to be led by her, down the old dirt road that we had become accustomed to, walking home each day. “I wanna take a different way this time.”
I knew this way would take us twice as long to get back to our houses than our usual route, but I followed the tail of her yellow sundress anyway, bobbing up and down and as she pranced along, leaping over every muddy puddle, laughing.  She reminded me of a child. 
I could picture her and I, eight years old, walking home from school.  She used to challenge me to a race to see who could make it to the street sign fastest.  I let her win almost every time.  But she can’t know that.
I wonder if she knows how much I need her.  How much I need these walks everyday.  They help me forget all of the hard things, because being with her is easy.  I am able to forget about school and family and work and death and sickness and everything is bearable and everything is okay because that's how it is when we walk. When I do get home, I don’t know what will happen, whether it be screaming or crying, last week I came home to a drunken mother crying on the floor of the kitchen, holding the knife that she used to make the cuts on her wrists. Terrified.  But for now, it doesn't matter so much.
“You’re such a slowpoke,” she stood in the middle of the path, arms crossed.  She began to tap her foot as if she was annoyed, creating a miniature dust storm around her brown laced boot, but couldn't mask the grin that began to form across her face.
“Why you gotta go so fast, Sam?”
“You’re only saying that because you’re slow,” she sang as I made my way towards her. Then she smiled, “I was listening to a song today with Sarah.  The most beautiful song I ever heard, and I can’t stop thinking ‘bout it.”  Then she grabbed my hand, “So you’ll keep up.”
We walked farther along the road, skipping over puddles as she hummed the tune of the song.  She was right too, about it being beautiful. 
She led us to our place.
We used to ride our bikes down the hill to the end of this street as many times as we could till we got too tired of trekking back up.  When one clear July day, we found a path that started at the edge of the woods. Feeling adventurous, we followed the path to a cleared out space, a sanctuary, about twenty feet deep--although it seemed like miles for the two of us. We spent hours away in the woods where no one could get to us.  We could be whatever we wanted. We were safe, surrounded by a circle of tall birch trees, protection.  We made a pact that it was strictly our place, whenever we were scared, we would go together, run away, and it would be okay.  We formed a bond that summer that I could never forget.  I didn't want it to end. I didn't want to go back to my broken home.   
She started singing, quietly at first.  She took my other hand and closed her eyes when she started singing more loudly. She is beautiful. With her hands in mine, mine in hers, she started to dance.  I started to dance.  I don’t know what the song is called, but it is the most beautiful song I will ever hear.  I have never been so close to her.  I could count all of the freckles on her face that she hates.  I tell her the same thing my Grandma used to say to my  older sister; that freckles are angel kisses.  Usually, Sam only shrugs, unconvinced, saying it’d be nice if the angels could stick to hugs. But she still blushes.
She’s beautiful in a careless way.  Her brown curly hair never quite stays in place, her big, blue-green eyes always see right through me even in times when I wish they wouldn't, and her smile, perfectly crooked--she hates it.  She didn't get braces in middle school like everyone else, and has one tooth that sticks out forward more than the rest.  But her smile is the most honest, happiest smile I've seen.  She’s beautiful.
We didn't stop dancing even when she finished the song.  There was something about this particular silence that was therapeutic.  Like we were two kids again, running from home, running from monsters, running from our parents, running from the reality that something bad will happen.
We’d probably look ridiculous to anyone if they were to find us; two teenagers, probably too old to be playing in the woods, dressed in their best, dancing to the silence.
To me, it was perfect.