I Think About You Ronnie Anne

2

       There she is. My friends, you cannot see it, so I'll describe it. From these bushes, far away but not ruining the sight, I can see her in the kitchen. She is alone and she's preparing a midnight snack. She hasn't gone to bed yet and she doesn't seem tired. Usually, it's around this time she goes to sleep, so I wonder what's keeping her up. Is it a case of insomnia? Is there a dark level of suspicion that somebody—somebody with a painful hunger—is watching her? Her eyelashes are so pretty. Every time she blinks it's like they flash a sparkly twinkle in my direction. Her eyes hold a galaxy of their own, with artful strokes of stars and organized constellations. I love her so much, but she doesn't even know my name. We have talked before. Twice, actually. The first time was on the school bus. That was also the exact moment my crush on her began to sprout. She sat next to me, confined to the small boundaries of that small leathery seat. The seat was so small, in fact, that we touched at the hip. Every other seat on the bus was filled, as we were being taken on a field trip that all the students were ecstatic to attend.

       She looked at me with those cosmic eyes, and asked, "Mind if I sit here?" I was stunned by her beauty and gave a consenting nod. I tried to keep my eyes from staring, but every now and then I gave a shy glance at her. One of those times she spotted me looking at her and I glowed bright red with embarrassment. She may have shrugged it off, but I felt that moment's awkward fallout for days. I still feel a vestigial discomfort just imagining it again. I guess nodding to her wasn't really "talking" with her, but more so "interacting." Well, the second time I can promise we did talk. I was at the park sitting down in the grass, savoring the shade of a tall tree, when she happened to walk by. "Hey," she said. "Do you go to Royal Woods Middle School?" I couldn't believe that a god—any god—had allowed us to reconvene. Like tiny wooden dolls in the hands of an imaginative child, who wishes to make two characters talk and say the improvised words he spits out. "Oh, yeah, I do. Are you Ronnie Anne?" She smiled. "Hah, I guess I told you my name already?" (She hadn't. I had searched for her face in the yearbook after that meeting on the school bus.)

       "Yeah, you did," I said. "Cool. So, what's your name? I didn't ask; unless I did, and I forgot." She laughed. I told her, "My name is Louis." That's where it ended. She said, "Nice meeting again," and walked off. My name isn't Louis, it's Lincoln. I gave her a fake name on purpose. As much as I wanted to keep talking to her, I was scared. Back to discussing atavistic instincts. Everything has a primal reason. Human beings are made of many things, and all of them—every single piece—are meant to increase survivability. Emotions, muscles, eyes, stress, whatever you can name. All of it has a reason that deep in history, has been created to increase our life expectancy, even if we have it much easier today, our body still contains instincts that are meant to defend us against vicious carnivores that stalk us from the distant shadows of the stone age. I was scared to give Ronnie Anne my name. This meant that my brain and body communicated, and they both agreed that fear was an appropriate response. Ronnie Anne was perceived as an enemy, and humans fear their enemies. Instead of throwing a punch or biting her with my razor-sharp canines, I opted for something less violent. I gave her a fake name. You could say that the fake name I gave was my stone, which I bashed into her head, and it scared her... so she ran away. The same thing happened on the daily during the age of cave bears and wooly mammoths.

       Now to return to the present. Ronnie Anne has left the kitchen and moved to her bedroom, where she slips into bed and dozes off. She's so cute when she sleeps—so innocent, so docile. So demure, and she rests like a kitten. Her small nose scrunches when she moves in her sleep like she's dreaming of a struggle that I could swoop in and wake her from. Maybe I could wake her with a kiss as if she were Sleeping Beauty! I'm kidding, that would be criminal, but it's a cute idea, no? She lies on her side in that comfy soft hoodie. How does she live looking like this? How is she not praised by all whom she passes? She's too perfect! Too perfect for us all! It makes my chest want to burst so my heart can fly out and wrap hugging arms around her kitten-self. Her closed eyes are that of a princess! Maybe I should talk to her tomorrow at school. I'm very shy, so I doubt I'd make a good impression—especially not a confident one. I suppose I could bake her something. Yes! A genius idea, a cupcake crafted for her to ingest, chewing it with that small polite mouth, and tasting the sweet and colorful frosting that I'd have chosen to match the colors of her outfit. No... that much is creepy. That much is wrong. Just a cupcake. That's all that I'll make her. She'll like it. She'll love it.