Tacit

She was a mysterious creature, really. With her dark hair and eyes, her mysteriously textured skin and expressive features. I never really took as much care on anything else as I did with her. I watched her carefully, examining her small movements, the obvious movements. I wanted to write it all down, but then it was concrete, then I was stalking the girl.

I never stalked her per se. I just watched. If she happened to be in my general area, then so be it.

She was so quiet. You would figure that from her rampaging brothers and publicly and blatantly crude family that she would be like them. Not really. Ginny Weasley was quiet. I looked up some words that meant "quiet", and I found out that the English language is terribly anal. There's a billion words for "quiet." And none of them meant what I really wanted them to mean. But then I fell upon the word taciturn. It was a beautiful word. It was simple in syllables and phonics, but it was still beautiful.

Ginny Weasley was, is, probably forever will be, taciturn. Tass-Ih-Turn.

Everything about her was this taciturn. The dictionary told me that she would be inclined to silence.

Silence?

I observed her some more. If she were to be inclined to this silence, then I would know. Every meal was lacking the opening of her mouth. Every hallway relished in one less echo, for her voice did not bounce off the walls. The library was lessened one less "shhh"

Definitely. She was inclined to silence.

I found myself extraordinarily contemplative around this age. I started using larger words in my head and I really began noticing things. For one, Potter's hair was the most terrible case of grease and dandruff I could ever comprehend. And Granger, well, Granger was and is honestly the most annoying basket-case in the century that Merlin reigned. I always knew there was a little something wrong with her, but really, this bint was insane.

Then there was Snape. I began to fully understand his bitterness after some observation. He wasn't neglected as a child, or beaten by his uncle, nor did he have his heart broken. He just really didn't like to be nice. I saw him give some slack to a Hufflepuff once. He laid so much self-loathing on himself that I was thinking along the lines of a serious depression problem.

All of this started around the fall of my seventh year. A pansy-ish thought about the beauty of snow crossed my mind, and I've never been the same since. I really don't think it happened that way, but honestly, there wasn't a self-realization/epiphany/revelation that could've wiped out the entire Slytherin race with its prodigious capabilities.

Nah, it was boring, it was lifeless. It was probably the farthest thing from straight that a chap could encounter.

Then I noticed her. I was berating Weasley on some insipid and klutzy thing he had done. She was just standing there, a complete contrast to her brother. Her big eyes were on me speaking some language I couldn't understand. I was dying to learn.

Her small pink lips bore no smile or frown. They just seemed to sit on her face without a purpose. I suddenly thought of a thousand ways I could give those lips purpose.

I noticed her skin color and her hair color and her eye color. Everything about her was Weasley. But I couldn't help thinking that she was a whole different race of Weasleys (because there were so many of them, they could practically form their own European country). Her skin color was pale, but there was some tint to it. I couldn't place it. Later I would realize that my mother bore the same tint. It was what she called a pale tan. She was French and the olive shade in her skin was what I saw in Weasleys. Not much, but not the hideously and blatantly Irish pallor of her brothers.

Her eyes were dark too. And her hair. The color was almost brown, dark and alluring, catching the hints of that carrot-red.

I couldn't understand how different this one girl was from the rest of her family. Obviously, after studying genes in a series of BioMagic, one parent had to have French pallor, the brown eyes, the brown hair. Just her audacity. All she had to do was stand there to be different. The Gods, God, plural or not, must've thought that she had some potential to be insanely different from the rest. Poor girl.

We stood there for a few moments. She didn't look down, up, around. She didn't look away. I fixed her with my hardest glare. And she didn't look away. I blinked hard and tried to recapture my breath. This unreadable language her eyes were portraying was deafening.

I was captured since. I wanted to challenge her taciturn state.

________________________________________________________

I began thinking up ways to make her talk. To me anyway. I mean, it's not like she didn't talk. There were several times when I saw her chatting, even animatedly, with a good friend. But that was never the point. She didn't talk often, or when there were others that she didn't know to hear. I was beginning to think that she didn't care much for the Trio, although I couldn't fathom why.

After a good amount of contemplating, I decided I would find her alone. Strike up casual conversation, insult a family member or two, personally affront her. I wasn't thinking rationally. I just wanted to get her to talk, to me preferably. Then I would work on the whole friendship thing.

I wasn't prepared when I did catch her alone. As fate would have it, I just wanted to be alone. At midnight on a mid-November evening, 275 feet elevated off of the ground, I didn't expect to catch the auburn-headed Weasley princess leaning against the wall of the Astronomy tower.

I didn't know it was her at first. I had peered through the glass window of the heavy wooden door that lead to the ceiling-less viewing tower. But the moon caught the red of her hair, and I had to check to see if it was her. It could have been the small Hannah Bones, or even Cho Chang, who had developed a liking for Wizarding dye. I pulled open the heavy door, feeling the muscles in my arm stretch and flex. I watched her spin around, one hand delving for her wand and the other clutching her heart.

I still couldn't see due to the waning moon drifting in and out between clouds. The only thing presented to me was her black silhouette. We stood there for a moment, the warm air rushing out to meet the snowy, November air. One of my arms were propping the door open and her wand still pointed at me. She must not have been intimidated by my presence, because she let out a long and deep breath and her wand lowered. Her other hand moved from her heart to rub her face and she titled her face to the sky. The moonlight caught her and I then knew it was Weasley.

I let go of the door, and it pushed me into the cold. I immediately began of thinking of things to say. But nothing came. I was standing in the doorframe while her face turned back to me. The frustration of not being able to see the expression on her face was killing me. I turned around and left.

I left.

______________________

After my incident at the astronomy tower, I kicked my self ruthlessly. Since when had words become lost to me? Since when was I shy and abrupt? I was guessing ever since I decided that I wanted something I really couldn't have.

I was used to getting everything I wanted. I was never deprived of what a needed, desired, pined. I was a piner- I knew that. I pined after what I wanted, and I got it.

I guess I'd have to pine a little more.

______________________

During the frosty weekends, students had gone out to skate on the lake. I guess I liked to watch them. I'd take the long walk around the lake, to the small pond that was all but separated from the lake. The large body of water never did freeze, but the separate pond that formed when there was too much rain in the autumn months would freeze into a large skating rink. I'd walk around it and sit on a large boulder, out of teachers' specific eyesight, and smoke.

I'd walk up to the boulder, climb up on the rocks around it and hop up on the snow-covered top. I'd make a spot for me and watch the clumsy skaters slide around the surface like dumb ballerinas and cavaliers. I'd take out a pack of cigarettes and take short puffs. I didn't like to drag a cigarette out, they weren't important enough. I'd take a bound book of parchment with me and take notes. Unimportant stuff like, "The girl in the gray scarf slipped. Took down her partner. The next day she was limping. Not back on the ice the next day."

Or, "My cigarette tastes like cherries. Bought the wrong pack in the Muggle convenient store. Absolutely disgusting. I smoke three more."

More prominent than writing was the sketches that were clumsy and blobish. But it kept me preoccupied enough. I came up there because I had nothing better to do. I came up there to think. Or more so, not to think. When I felt myself becoming psychotic enough about her- I'd watch people drifting along the ice.

One day, I decided to skip dinner. I decided to continue sitting on my rock. I had barely smoked all day; and decided to finish my pack of twenty. I hated chain-smoking, so I decided that ten minutes between each one would be appropriate. Not that it'd make me any healthier.

The sun had set, the temperature dropped intensely, and the sky was dark. The moon rose in a half-wax and the stars were bright as ever. I jotted this down. I reread it. I scratched it out.

I was on my fifth cigarette and eighth sketch when I heard a rustle in the snow. I looked up and saw on the opposite side- her. She was sitting on the ground pulling on white ice-skates. My head craned to perhaps see her better, it didn't work.

She moved out of the shadows of the tree she was under and I could see her better. She unfastened her cloak and threw it on a rock. Her hair was pulled into a auburn ponytail and she had a dark scarf wrapped around her neck. She was wearing a simple, dark sweater and what seemed to be Muggle jeans.

The pond was empty then, no one except me sitting on a boulder on the other side observing her like a sociopath. My eyes followed her as she stepped gracefully onto the ice. With a little push she was gliding. She began to lap around the pond slowly but with continuous, precise, graceful, and astonishing movements. She never stopped.

She switched backwards, then forwards, then backwards again without lapsing, just continuous movement. I couldn't look away.

Then she went into her first spin, starting slow with her arms around her like the fragile wings of an albatross. Steady as ever, her arms drew in and I watch in amazement as her body began to spin faster and faster until her hands were pressed against her body and her head was tilted to the sky with the moonlight ricocheting off of her face with each dramatic spin. Her body slowed when the momentum was lost, but she just began skating again.

She reminded me of a ballet my mum took me to once. Giselle, I think. Except she was on ice, spinning more dramatically than a ballerina ever could on pointe shoes.

She skated around delicately, her leg slowly rising into the air behind her. She wobbled a bit, and leg wasn't exactly straight, but her body was strong as it led itself along the ice. She slowly let her leg down and she began to gain speed. My eyes could not leave her as I watched her push herself into the air.

Slowly, to my mind's eye, she was spinning continuously, wrapped in a cocoon of arms and legs. In reality, she spun once in the air. Just once. She landed wrong too. Her body sprawling across the ice in a graceless cascade. My body stiffened and I felt my brow knit together.

She rolled over on to her back and pushed herself up into a sitting position. Her scarf had unraveled itself and released itself. She leaned over and grabbed it. Slowly and gradually, with motion so general, it ached me to watch, she pushed herself up onto her skates again.

From then on, she took it easy. She skated slowly, almost timidly among the ice in motions that seemed broken. I almost ached for her. One, she had landed on her hip, that couldn't have felt very good. Two, her spirit seemed shattered. I wanted to scream at her something inspirational and chastising, for being so pitiful, for giving in.

Her albatross wings only opened once more. This time right in front of me. Her wings separated and unfolded to release long fingers. Her long limbs stretched over the top of her head, again gaining so much speed that I thought she was going to explode into a million tiny fragments of compressed material.

But she didn't. She slowed, but didn't keep skating. And she hadn't even noticed me yet, sitting on the boulder with my untouched parchment book, unsmoked cigarettes. I decided to make some motion. I lit up a cigarette that had been between my fingers for some time now, waiting for me to light.

The crack of the fire on my wand startled her.

She cried aloud.

My heart just might have jumped as she made a noise.

She had whipped around to see me lit by the small flame on the tip of my wand. The wand followed to the tip of my cigarette, and the tip glowed red, then gray, then red again. The wand cast itself out, and I focused my attention on her.

Her face had changed from frightened to breathless to confused, then uncomfortable. I pulled the cigarette from my mouth.

"You okay?" I asked. She blinked rapidly, her arms limp by her side.

"Uh, yeah. You just, uh startled me," she said in staggered speech.

"No, I mean the fall. Are you okay?" I said, trying to sound careless. How do you ask someone if they were okay while sounding indifferent?

"Oh, yeah. I'm fine. It happens often," she said with obvious surprise.

Oh, merciful Merlin, she speaks.

I tried to search for something to say. I just said whatever came to mind.

"So you come out here often?" I said, taking a puff of my cigarette.

"Yeah. So, you're not here all of the time?" she asked timidly. I couldn't tell if she was hopeful that I was going to say yes or no.

"No. Only during the day. I'm guessing you only come here at night?"

"Yeah. I'd rather not have an audience," she said, looking down at the ice. Her voice was nice. The simplest word was pretty (well, nice was a generally simple word too). It was midrange. A little on the lower side, with words that were quick and staccato. The end of "audience" was quiet and ended with a short breathy syllable.

"I guess I'm not welcome then," I offered with a small smirk. She looked up and blinked. She looked uncomfortable again.

"Uh, no. You're fine," she said meekly. Honestly, I was disappointed by this. A little bite would've been nice.

"Oh, okay," I said. I put the cigarette to my mouth. Her eyes followed it. I pulled it away again. "Would you like one?"

The idea seemed to roll around in her mind a bit. Again, I saw that part of her willing to speak out. Her eyes were darting everywhere, but I still recognized that challenging glint in them I saw the first time she had caught my attention. This time, I think she was challenging herself. I watched her hand reach out for one.

I hopped off of my rock, and she skated closer to the shore. I drew one from the crinkled flip-top. I held it out to her. She thought it over again. I could see it in the way her fingers were coiled when she held her hand out farther. When she got close to it, she hesitated, but her long fingers straightened. She took it in the palm of her hand, and brought it to her and drew her wand. She lit the cigarette and brought it to her mouth. Drag. Cough. Drag. Cough. Cough. She threw the cigarette in the snow.

"I'm sorry. I can't do that. I've tried. But no," she said passionately (yes). I laughed at her.

"Too rebellious?" I offered. She looked at me a bit resentfully.

"No, just disgusting. I put it to my mouth and every time I get images of me in a hospital with lung cancer and bronchitis. Or me in jail with a dog collar on. The taste doesn't help either," she said.

I laughed again. Staring her in the eye, I took a long and deep drag. I blew the smoke out in the air.

"It's a god-awful habit," she finished, watching the smoke rise to the pine needles above me.

"I agree." I put out my cigarette and put the box in my pocket. She gave me an all-knowing look.

"Oh, so you're one of those people who want to quit because they know they're going to die but are too addicted to care?"

"No. I'm not addicted. I smoke because I'm bored," I said with a shrug.

"Sure. I drink cyanide a milliliter by a milliliter just because I'm bored, too," she said sarcastically.

"Point taken," I said. I was surprised by her spark. I knew it was there. I just thought it would be a little harder than this to get it out. Then came an awkward silence. She drew back into her taciturn state.

"Well, I'm going back to my rock. I promise not to look if you don't want me too," I said a bit more suggestively than I had intended. It was supposed to be funny, but it came out forced. Dammit. But she gave me a small smile, turned around and began her gliding again. I wondered if she cared that I looked or not.

I hopped onto my rock (yes, it had become my rock), and took out another cigarette along with my book and quill.

I sketched an awkward girl skating. It was obviously supposed to be her, but her head and hands were took big, and the body got smaller from there. I puffed out another cloud of smoke, but the acute amusement I found in smoking was no longer. A closed my eyes and breathed hard. I couldn't let someone manipulate me so.

Even then, I knew I was too late. She already had.

On my way into the castle, I disposed of the pack in the garbage bin.

________________________________________________________

I didn't talk to her again for months. I didn't go out to the pond because the flurries got so bad, that I doubt even she went out. I didn't go up to the astronomy tower because, well, maybe I was afraid. I don't really know. Now that I got something out of her, I figured my escapade was over. But I wanted to get more out of her, and that was what I was afraid of.

I continued my stupid observations in my daft book. My sketches got better. After the skating event, I never attempted drawing her again. I was too wary of what contorted blob would end up on the page.

I was sitting in the Great Hall, watching her again. Subtly, I hope. Her hair was braided. She looked like she had left everything the way it had been like when she had woken up. Pieces of hair were pulled randomly from the plait and framed her face. She was make-up-less and untamed. She reminded me of the albatross again. Her eyes were focused on a book. I desired to know the name of the book.

I rubbed my face with both hands. I felt delusional and unfocused. My thoughts were constantly fuzzy, and I constantly was foggy and unsure. I felt as staccato as my observations.

Before I lost my mind, I decided to follow her after she left the Hall. How this kept me from becoming clinically insane, I'm not sure. I just immediately felt better once I was behind her, holding a book I brought with me. I read the words, but kept her in my peripheral vision.

When she turned down a dark corridor, I stayed behind the corner and watched her from there. She turned to the right, and opened a door that wasn't even there. With a push, she was gone. I bit my lip and looked around my surroundings, remembering the way I had come.

________________________________________________________

I didn't go to dinner that night. Though, I did make sure she was attending dinner. I didn't want to get caught. Caught doing what? Snooping?

Sociopath. You're Neurotic. You're losing your mind.

Might as well do it right.

I went the exact way I had come earlier that morning. I went down the dark corridor and pushed on the right wall with my hand until it nudged something that moved. I faced what just looked like a rectangle with simple, swirling carvings. I took both hands and pushed.

Suddenly, I was in dusk-lit, circular room. No, I was in a dusk-lit tower. A tower made completely of concrete, like the rest of the castle. There was a rail-less staircase that led in dizzying circles around the walls to the top about two hundred feet up, where a ceiling of glass exposed the darkening lavender sky.

I took a step forward, and instantly, torches lit along the tower walls, dozens of them suddenly lit the dim room in orange and yellow color and purple shadows. My eyes fell around to the interior of the room.

I was actually startled.

Between the lavish decor and instruments, I didn't know what to wrap my mind around first.

There were red and blue and purple high back chairs in cherry-wood and dark oak. There were couches in velvets and silks and linens. There were prints of Degas, Monet and Manet. Portraits of old men I didn't recognize. Portraits that didn't move. But most importantly, there were the instruments.

Most prominent was the grand piano. Dark chestnut brown with yellowing keys. Gorgeous and arrogantly centered in the middle of the room, seeming to sing without making any noise.

And along the walls were stringed instruments, and brass instruments, woodwinds, some percussion. Cellos of every deep color, violins with distinguished varnishes, trumpets, bassoons, clarinets, oboes, horns that glistened silver and brass. Each itched to be played, all neat on their stands, wrapping around the room in a complete circle of instruments that could complete an orchestra.

From the stringed section, there was a gap in the cellos. A missing instrument. I looked around for it and found it seated next to the piano stool. I walked up to it. It was laying on its side, end-pin not bothered to be pushed in, bow on stool.

Did she play?

I turned to the piano. I couldn't resist sitting down on the hard, but welcoming stool. I glanced at the keys and timidly brought my fingers to them. They immediately curled and rested on the blunted tips of my digits.

I pressed down.

Loud and sweet. Glorious and dominant. My heart began to murmur.

I tried again.

Better than the first time.

Before I let myself touch the keys again, a book of sheet music caught my eye. I picked it up. It was yellow with green print. Stravinsky was printed on the front. I flipped it open to the middle.

Cello Part.

Valse.

Tacit.

My eyes blinked quickly at the familiar word. There was music written for the March, the Polka. But here, on a single staff of five lines, there the word TACIT was printed clearly and nothing else. Just the word, no music, no funny dots with even funnier sticks. Just tacit.

Tacit. Taciturn. Taciturn.

With a small smile, I set the music on top of the piano and turned back to the ivory keys.

Putting my hands back on the keys, I tried to remember.

No faster than I would let myself become absolutely and definitely immersed in the music, I let a well-loved melody flood into the room. My fingers found the keys with practiced precision, and lost them in equal out-of-practice.

I remembered lessons in the wide hall of the Malfoy Manor. The room had amazing acoustics and resonated the unworthy music of a five-year old. Twice a week, Tuesdays and Thursdays, practice an hour a day, every day for eight years until I left.

Then, it was a nuisance. Now, it was an old friend.

I felt myself going under in the music, losing my head, forgetting myself. With a deep breath and a hesitation in song I brought myself back. But at the same time, I sensed that I should stop. My hands paused over the piano keys and I looked over my shoulder.

Oh. Gods.

There she was, with her silly, messy, little plait. Dirty jeans, a burgundy cardigan, staring at me with those big brown eyes. Her mouth was parted and her hand was touching the hallow of her throat. It was like she was surprised, but her hand never did quite make it to her mouth to stifle a cry.

Soon, words were just stumbling out of my mouth. I stood up, stood like an idiot. "Uh...I'm sorry, I didn't mean, I mean...I just, I...uh...," I had forgotten was I was going to say. Her parted lips closed into a small smile. She stepped further in the room, and I was still standing there like an idiot.

Dumb bloke.

"Malfoy, it's okay. It's not like I own the room," she said, crossing over to the opposite room.

Her mary-janes (real mary-janes) tapped against the concrete with a thick, muffled sound. She grabbed a wooden chair and carried it effortlessly into the middle of the room. She looked back at me. "Unless you were apologizing for following me here."

Huh? Wait,

what?

"Oh," I said. Yeah, just 'oh.'

She looked like she wanted to laugh. She looked at me, then at the piano.

"I didn't know you played," she said as she walked over towards me. Towards me. Why was I so, so, so taciturn? My eyes followed her. I didn't even think about responding to her comment. She was still coming towards me. Then, she leaned over, grabbed the cello by the neck in one hand and the bow in the other. She heaved the cello off of the ground and took it over to her chair. She sat down, parted her knees, and situated the cello on the inside of her knee. She looked at me again, a bit expectant.

Oh.

"Hmm? Oh, yeah. I play. Fourteen years now. I think," I said. She raised her eyebrows.

"So, you started when you were...three?" she said. I nodded.

She whistled. I couldn't tell if she was impressed or if she thought I was worthless talent wasted on a rich spoiled kid. I watched as she resituated her cello until it was straight, the scroll nestled close to her neck. She picked up the bow and began to drag the horsehair across the strings. The sound was even, pleasant, simply natural. She tuned the instrument to its perfect pitch. When she was finished, her eyes flashed up to me, who happened to be standing there, still like an idiot.

"I'm going to practice, if you don't mind," she said quietly.

I shook my head.

"I mean, I did kind of interrupt you," she said, as if she just suddenly thought of it. I shrugged.

"This is kind of your place anyway," I said. She shook her head.

"No, I just found it first." She smiled. I shrugged.

"Do mind if I listen?" I asked. Her lip instinctively tucked in to be nibbled on. She suddenly seemed self-conscious. "Or do you not like an audience?" I offered with a smirk. She smiled at me.

"Well, you've seen me mess up before. I guess you're a good audience as any," she said with a shrug. I sat down at the stool, facing her, my back to the piano.

The first note was slow and pretty, full and soft. The hand on the string vibrated as it played note by note. The bow moved with continuous motion, reminded me of her figure skating.

The piece was familiar and breathtaking. Her eyes closed with memorization and her body rocked with the movement of the bow. She stopped a couple of times when she hit a wrong note, her eye lids flying open to start her rhythm again.

I searched my mind for the name of the piece. I finally decided that the style was Tchaikovsky. A ballet probably. But which one?

I decided to stop thinking about it. Watching her small body create such emotion and ecstasy was a ballet in itself. She suddenly trailed off without much of an ending. My body, ears and mind ached for the ending, but she turned to me with undecided smirk on her lips.

"A little rocky, but fun enough to play," she said. I wet my lips and searched for something to say.

"It was...incredible. What was it?" I asked. She laughed a bit sheepishly.

"The Pas-de-Deux from The Nutcracker. It's the cello solo in the beginning before it leads into orchestral," she said with a grin. I grinned myself.

"I knew it was Tchaikovsky," I said. "That was unbelievable. How long have you been playing?"

She seemed to contemplate it. "Seven years?" She bit her lip. Something inside me jumped. "Yeah, seven years," she giggled. "Only half as many years as you."

A silence settled over the room. I looked up at the sky light. The sun had finally set and the sky was black now. My eyes fell on her and caught her staring at me. Her eyes fluttered away, embarrassed. She looked up at the ceiling too. Then, an idea hit me. A smirk crept across my features.

"Want to go up?" I asked. Her head snapped towards me.

"What?"

"Up, to the top."

She blinked a bit, then looked up again.

"Have you been up, yet?" I asked. She shook her head. "Then let's." I stood up, crossed the room, took the cello from her and set it on the ground. I grasped her hand and pulled her up. "Come on."

I walked over the stairs, her small hand still in mine. I stepped up, my other hand against the wall. I looked down at her, she was looking up at me resentfully. I gave a playful tug, and she followed.

We climbed. It was a long way up, and there were a lot of stairs. I kept a hold of her hand, and leaned as close to the wall as possible, desperate to not look over the side.

About halfway up, I heard a whimper. I slowed down and stopped. I looked over my shoulder. She had looked over the side and couldn't look away. It was a long, long way down to the bottom. I leaned closer to the wall and pulled her up past me so that she was a few steps ahead of me. I wrapped my arm around her waist for extra support and pushed her along.

We picked up the pace and tried to make it up there faster than it took us the first half. Finally, we reached the top of the skylight. There was a hatch in the glass. She grabbed the handle and pushed up. The door flipped open and cold air rushed in to meet us. Bitter, bitter air.

She reached up and pulled herself up into the night air. She stood up timidly on the glass, looked around, then down at me. She stepped onto concrete and gave me room to pull myself up. I braced myself for the cold air, but the wind chill was definitely not what I expected. I stepped onto the glass with hesitation. Around the tower was a stone balcony, in which she was already standing on. I joined her.

"Holy shite, it's cold," she muttered when I walked up beside her. I laughed. I could hear her teeth chattering,

"Ver-rry cold" I stuttered. She giggled at me. I looked around. The moon was almost full, illuminating the iced tips of the Forbidden Forest, the sparkling rounds of the snowdrifts, and the crystallization of the pond right below us. I looked down at her and wondered when the air between us had become so comfortable.

I was staring at the top of her auburn head when she looked up at me. The moon was catching the tiny little red glints in her hair, like the moon did on a clear October day on the leaves of a tree. Her face was turned up to me, a bit surprised to catch me staring. She was shaking a bit from the cold. My hands went to her forearms instinctively. Perhaps to warm her a bit, or to stop the shaking. But with the same movement, my lips met her forehead.

I heard her intake of breath, and even though my lips had lingered, I pulled back reluctantly. I was surprised to see that her eyelids had fluttered closed. I expected them to be staring at me, bug-eyed and afraid. When I pulled away they fluttered back opened to stare at me surprised. But not bug-eyed or afraid. Just curious.

So I did the first thing that came to my mind.

My hand came up from her arm, touched her cheek and cupped itself around her jaw line. I watched her gulp timidly. I hesitated for a moment. Two moments. Three terrible and taciturn moments.

But then I kissed her.

And she was completely, passionately, in every meaning- taciturn.