A lone sunbeam escapes through the drapes, caressing her tousled hair, then her cheerful face. The smile on her face has been there forever, hidden from herself; the smile gently creases her cheeks and her pouting lips. Sometimes, in her desolation the smile would hide, so that she could never find and put him away.
She thought of him as a mask, so the world would think of her only as a cheerful face, and she would hold in all her melancholy within—that was “her,” all tightly wound up and bunched inside.
The lines were intent on betraying her. They’d make a cautious appearance whenever she was not looking at them. Her mask was out-thinking her now. The smile would stay put through the day, where colleagues would look at her and feel the warmth and lovely spirit within.
In the privacy of her little red and grey cubicle, she’d go back to being withdrawn and lonely. That was “her” too—all melancholic and withdrawn. She’d never know who the true “her” was. The smile knew that too… He waited for her to fall asleep before letting the mask’s charade go quietly into the night. She had always thought he was just her mind’s deception. She could write off that silly smile any time—a mask was just that, right? But he was there, for real, for her, waiting for the word, the last shy smile or even “the look” that he had fallen in love with.
Her eyes twinkled, the stars in her eyes waiting for the night of her dreams. He knew then that he would have to wait too, for her to get over herself, to look beyond her mind’s deceptions, to be herself again.
