It Started With a Smile

    It started with a smile.
    Her grin was so bright. Her laugh was a melody, a siren’s song. I couldn’t help but listen. I couldn’t help  but be drawn in by her sweet song.
    She would always look at me. Her eyes shone with mischief. I followed her: sharing her smiles, sharing her time.
    Before long she began to share mine.
    The first time she talked to me--like actually talked to me--I was utterly entranced. All she had wanted was some homework answers, but that couldn’t matter less to me. Not when she was standing before me with her shining eyes and her bright grin. It was blinding. She was blinding. Blinding me of my senses, of common sense. Even if I had known then, known what would’ve happened, known what would become of us, I doubt I’d have cared.
    For some unknown reason, she stayed. Her grins became more common. Her laugh only got sweeter as I committed the sound to memory. I would catch her eye in class and my heart would stop. If I had died from it I would have died ecstatic.
    Soon she began to linger. A touch to my arm, fire under our skin. I craved her like I craved air, water. Her slight brushes of a hand were a narcotic, morphine, taking all the pain away. I had withdrawals at her loss, my mind and body screaming, begging for more of her.
    Of course I became an addict. How could I not? With something so sweet, soenraturing, someone like me could have no hope to resist. I didn’t even try.
    When she first kissed me, I thought I had ascended.
    Things were good for a long while. She had brought me happiness, brought me joy. It took me a while to realize that there was no love there. None that she had given to me, anyways.
    I lived in the light of her caress, blind to the fact that the rest of my life had gone dark.
    But just when I had grown most reliant on the light, just when I was sure I couldn’t live without it, it dimmed.
    Her kisses became quick and shallow. Her touches didn’t linger. Her eyes only shined with tears. Her smiles were no longer bright.
    She was fading from me, and I faded right by her side. I didn’t know what else to do. I was her faithful servant. It had been so long since I’d acted on my own. How was I supposed to stay whole?
    Somewhere along the way, I realized that if I stayed by her side, I would fade into oblivion, into nothing more than a shadow to grace her presence. I started to see them, the shadows of all the others she had left in her wake. Bright and beautiful she was, cloaked by the shadows of those who obeyed her every command. I was to be one of them before long.
    I took a leap. I knew that I had no other choice. I was a moth, drawn to the flames that burned my wings. But I would not be a shadow.
    I left the warmth, the shelter of the lantern that had guided my life since I had lost myself. I took a leap to the shore.
    It started with a smile.
    And it ended with a broken heart.