She Really Felt

I had set out to tell a different story than the one that ended up on the page.

It was supposed to be something, else. Something special. Maybe it still was when I was finished, but it wasn't what I had intended.

It had begun simply enough, as I suppose most things do, with a chance encounter. I walked into the little coffee shop where she worked and ordered a tall mocha latte. Nothing fancy, but she smiled as she handed me my change, and I noticed the way her smile lit up her eyes.

Some people, when they smile, it doesn't reach their eyes. You can tell. Their lips curl up at the ends, and their cheekbones rise a little, but their eyes stay blank. They aren't really smiling. They aren't really happy. They are just putting on a mask. Maybe it's their job, or maybe they think it will make you go away. In the end, if you're watching, you can tell the difference between that and a real smile.

But she really smiled. She didn't know me, didn't have any reason to think we'd ever meet again, but she smiled at me. Here was a person who really felt emotions. It filled me with a passion. I wanted to see her feel something more.

I didn't go back into the coffee shop after that day. It was important that she not realize that I was trying to elicit some response from her. That would make it too forced, too fake. It would betray the purpose of the whole thing.

But I watched her from the parking lot of the shopping mall across the street. I watched her as she handed coffee to strangers. I watched as she interacted with her coworkers. I didn't use binoculars, that might give me away, so I couldn't see her eyes, but I remembered how they lit up when she smiled at me, and I could imagine them doing so again.

I imagined her sharing nice little anecdotes with the girl who mopped the floor. I imagined her wishing each customer a good afternoon as they walked out with their hot little cups and scones. I imagined her humming along to the fake music they piped in all day through little speakers up near the ceiling.

It was a wonderful experience, watching this pretty little thing love her life. But I wanted to see more. I wanted to see her feel other emotions. I wanted to see how real she really was.

I followed her home one night, just to see where she lived. I was careful to drive by quickly and continue on my way, but I remembered the spot.

I couldn't watch her all the time, I had responsibilities of my own to attend to, but when I had the opportunity I would drive by and see her working through the windows of the little coffee shop. Even when I was at work, or some ridiculous family occasion I would think of her and try to imagine what she was doing.

I started to carry a picture of her around in my wallet. I had taken it one day while she was out shopping with some people I assumed were her friends. She had just picked up a little handbag and was turning to show it to one of the other girls when I snapped the photo. Her hair was whipping around her face and framed it like the glow you'd see in those renaissance paintings of angels or god. Her body was turned away from the camera but you could see the look in her eyes. It was such a passionate moment.

One day when it was raining, I opened up the front of her mailbox. She always checked the mail when she came home from work, so I waited and watched as she reached in and pulled out the soaking wet envelopes. Each one, bills, cards, advertisements, was covered in rain water with ink running across the paper. I took a picture of her face as she shook them out in the lawn before she went inside. It replaced the other picture of her in my wallet.

A few nights later I went to her home and let the air out of one of her tires. It was Wednesday so I knew she'd be leaving for work at 10:45. I waited for hours for her to come outside, and when she did she immediately saw the flat tire. The look on her face was beautiful. This was a real person. Her frustration and surprise made me feel so warm inside, I began to cry. It was all too much. I had to drive away to a parking lot where she wouldn't see me express my emotions.

She eventually made it into work that day and I watched as she related the story to her coworkers. Each time she did so she relived the emotions of finding her flat tire. I took a video recording of her telling one of the customers what had happened. You couldn't hear her of course, I was too far away. But I could tell what she was saying by the way her expressions changed.

I stayed away from her home for a few weeks after that. I didn't want to arouse any suspicion. I found an internet site where she posted little messages for her family. I would check it every night before bed.

It had been more than three months since I first met her when I went by her house again and took her dog. I left the gate open so it would seem like it had run away. I watched her when she found the dog missing. I watched her frantically search the neighborhood. I watched her spend days driving around tacking up signs to every telephone poll with a picture of her dog and a phone number. I even kept one. And over the course of the next few weeks, I watched her slowly resign herself to never seeing her dog again.

I waited until it seemed that she had lost all hope, but not so long that she might forget about the dog, before I returned it to her yard one night. I had kept it safe in my home and even fed it the same dog food she used the entire time. I watched as she woke up the next morning and found it playing in the yard waiting for her. I watched her cry and roll in the grass with the dog in her arms.

I just wanted to see her feel. I didn't want to hurt her, but I wanted to see her hurt. That was why I killed her mother.

It was simple enough. The woman was old and frail. When the police found the accident, they just accepted the obvious explanation. An old woman had lost control of her car on a dark road and hit a tree. They didn't have any reason to suspect foul play, and so they didn't.

The funeral was almost more than I was ready for. She wept over her mothers grave. Quietly, with class, but powerfully. I could see the pain written bold across her face even from where I sat in my rented car nearly a football field away. I could see her shoulders shake as the pastor read the eulogy. I replaced the picture in my wallet with a new one.

I watched her for several years after that. Occasionally making little changes in her life to guide her towards something new. Once I had flowers delivered to her home addressed to someone else so she would think it was an accident. I cherished the look on her face as she picked them up and carried them inside. I made a noise complaint on her from a pay phone one night and watched as the police knocked on her door and woke her up. Another time I left a love letter under her windshield wiper made out to someone she'd never heard of.

Each time I was there, somewhere, to watch her. She became the canvas across which I painted a sea of emotions. And she felt every one of them fully.

In the end, I suppose it shouldn't have come as such a surprise when I ran into her that night.

I had followed her for years. I knew where she ate. I knew where she shopped. I knew where she went to church. But it was a small town. It wasn't that much of a stretch that one night I would find myself getting gas and look over to see her at the pump right next to me.

I wanted to tell her so much. I hadn't been this close to her in over four years, not since she sold me that first coffee. I wanted her to understand what I had done, and why. I wanted it to all be revealed, and I wanted it to never end.

What I didn't want was to see her look over at me across the top of her car with such dispassion. She didn't smile. She didn't nod. She simply saw me, and looked away.

The words died in my throat. My heart was broken beyond repair. I don't even know where I drove to after that, or how long I sat in the car before I got out and walked up to her door.

I opened it with the spare key she kept hidden behind the loose bit of wood along the porch rail. As I walked inside I imagined all the times we'd shared over the years. I wept at the thought of the little picture of her at her mother's funeral I still carried in my wallet. It was worn down from all the times I'd pulled it out and brushed her tears away.

I found her lying in her bedroom. I looked at her sleeping face and tried to imagine all those emotions played across it, but all I could see was the blank look she'd given me at the gas station earlier that night.

I called the police myself. I didn't want to get away. I didn't have anywhere to go now. I could hear them screaming at me to lie down as I walked out onto the porch. It didn't matter. It was all over now.

I couldn't understand how it had come to this. In between my tears I saw a vision of her smile.

Somewhere off in the distance I heard a sound of thunder.