Royal Blue

The shopping mall air conditioning washed the heat from my skin. Passing through dirty sliding glass doors, I saw you: a kind stranger with royal blue tips at the end of your hair.

You smiled, or at least I thought you did under your facemask, your cheeks raising ever so slightly and your eyes faintly squinting.

Perhaps you mistook me for someone you knew.

In passing, you half waved my way, realising only when your hand was raised that I was not the person you thought I was.

I smiled back, a knee jerk reaction, half bowing my head as our eyes locked for a beat.

After a couple of metres, I looked back at you.

My heart fluttered.

I ignored it.

You were just a girl with royal blue tips at the end of your hair.

My day brought with it this and that. Nothing important. That was until I passed you again.

I knew you didn’t know me, and I certainly didn’t know you. Because I would have remembered you.

Your eyes, full of warmth like a hot chocolate on a cold winter’s day.

Your round glasses, a thin but perfect frame.

Your oak brown hair, with royal blue tips.

A knowing sat behind your smile this time, now slightly kinder than before.

Going up the escalator, it was less than a second, but I could have lived in that smile for an eternity.

As I was walking away, fate whispered in my ear.

Turn around.

Come on.

Turn around.

I fought it at first.

Then it occurred to me.

What could I lose?

As if by chance, we both turned to each other, you, now halfway up the escalator, and me, about to leave through the double glass doors.

One final smile.

A part of you will be with me everywhere I go.

In the evening sky as the stars slowly twinkle themselves awake.

In the ocean drifting back and forth along the shoreline.

In the small patch of forget-me-nots growing by my bedroom window.

If fate should bring us together again, I will make sure things are different.

I’ll muster up the courage to say hi but fumble with my words.

I’ll tell you that your smile is perfect, even though I haven’t properly seen it.

I’ll fog up my glasses when I blush at your laugh.

But more than anything, I’ll marvel at how beautiful you look in royal blue.