Ever Watching

She stands on the edge of the pavement, wearing jeans and an ordinary shirt. She hesitates as she looks left and right, then walks across the road with little more than the necessary confidence it takes to cross it. She keeps her eyes downcast as she walks past the cars that have stopped to give way to her. She peers left, then right out of the corner of her eyes, and I see the unmistakeable signs of a smile flitting momentarily across her face, but it wasn't a happy smile, it was more a cry for help type of smile. I can't understand what it means, nor that she did it while crossing the road. I figured it was an encaspulation of her vulnerability, she probably compared crossing the road to something like parading on a catwalk.

She continues walking down the other side of the road, passing numerous women's fashion stores that would have undoubtedly caught the attention of any normal girl. I am sitting at a cafe having the entire busy intersection for a view. I can see her, but she can't see me, not that she would ever actually look up. I have never actually seen her with her held up when she walks, it is always downcast, looking at her feet, as if she had an unnatural interest in the ground she walked on. Yet aside from the fact that she never looked up, she could always sense when someone within her vicinity was staring at her. I was not in her vicinity. She would purse her lips as she sensed their gaze on her, and she would shiftily peer out looking at nothing more than the feet of her admirer.

She would always walk faster, with more urgency to reach her destination. She despised being stared out, for good or bad. I didn't think of myself as staring at her, I was watching out for her. In this way I would comfort myself in knowing I was not a stalker, and in this way I learned her every nuance and awkward trait. The way she never really looked you in the eye when she spoke, she would turn her gaze and stare elsewhere while she spoke, purely out of shyness I knew that, but most people may have found it conceited and rude.

She walks without a purpose, as if she feels she doesn't belong in this world. Yet her movements are fluid and strong as if she has a destination, albeit it was probably her car. She intrigued me.
Every day during lunch she would walk out to the numerous cafes and takeaway shops, lining the streets, and she would try something different everyday. A new meal for a new day. And yet I would come to the same cafe, having the same meal and watching the same girl walk by, it maddened me.

Today she looked different. She seemed unhappy, her walk was slower and she hunched over a little, curling her shoulders closer to her face. Her arms were crossed and she adjusted her handbag on her shoulder. She continued walking, now she was almost directly opposite the cafe where I sat. She paused for a moment and moved her eyes infinitesimally to her left. She continued walking with a more pronounced suspicion in her movements. She did something then that I would have never thought I'd see. She lifted her head slightly and peered in the direction of the cafe I was sitting in. Her eyes were almost glazed over as she looked in my direction. My heart quickened, and I hastely looked away. I stifled a chance to look up, my head was downcast and I moved my eyes to peer up at her, they way she did to so many. She was still gazing over at me, and in that moment I saw her face clearly. Clearer than i'd ever seen it before, and I saw her eyes, I mean I've seen her eyes before, honey brown all over, a hint of gold encompassing the space just outside her pupil, and finally a thin band of chocolate brown circling the iris. But this time I saw through them, to undertand the urgency she felt, her sadness, loneliness and the pain. It was unbearable to look into someone's eyes and see so much emotion and hurt, so I looked away, like the coward that I am.

I chanced another glance, hoping not to look into her eyes again, but she had turned away and was slowly walking, on her way again, as if that unbearable moment didn't happen. It took me a second to realise it but my hands were clenched around the table I sat, and I was half standing out of my chair. Mechanically, I relaxed my posture and got up to pay and leave. Tomorrow would be a new day I thought to myself, and I was determined to stop the hurt I saw in her eyes and on her face today, even if I have never really spoken to her before. Minor indiscretion, I thought to myself as the hope of seeing her another day lightened my spirits.