casual jeans and nice big “lazy day” sweater. And eventually, I suppose, he had gotten his way, for I couldn’t recall the last time I’d dressed in anything casual. Today, though…Today was for me.
I ran my fingers through my hair, allowing it to fluff into a cloud around my pale, heart-shaped face and stared critically at the image in front of me. I loved my hair. I hated my wide mouth and I thought my gray eyes were much too far apart, but I loved my long, dark, wavy hair. Alex liked me to have it pinned neatly on top of my head.
I closed my eyes, conjuring his handsome face. I was being disloyal. Alex had taught me to live again when I had felt my life to be over. I owed him for that.
For an instant, a picture of Daniel’s happy-go-lucky, irregular features jumped into my mind. I pushed it away before the pain forced itself back from where it was locked deep in my heart, and turned abruptly from the mirror.
Outside, I walked along the pavement in a daze, taking in the sights and sounds of another busy weekday morning as if they were all new to me, savoring the bustling urgency of lives that never last. It had rained in the night, and the streets were a glistening gray, setting off the figures of people scurrying to work, heads low despite the colorful garments they wore to fend off the rain. Only the children lit up the morning. They wandered by in giggling groups, eyes shining with laughter, expressions mirroring the intensity I felt but could not understand. Some hugged their homework to their chests and chattered excitedly as they ran for the bus. Others threw their bags up into the air, loitering to sneak a cigarette behind the huge sycamore tree near the bus stop.
My bus was already waiting when I arrived at the stop. I hesitated, watching the line diminish as the waiting people poured through the bus door like sheep, knowing no better than to follow one another on the dreary road of routine.
But I had a choice. I lifted my chin, relishing the fresh breeze against my face, and carried on walking.
I took the shortcut across the park, where oak and ash and sycamore reached their branches way up into the graying sky, bringing a hint of the countryside into the city. I paused for a moment, marveling at their huge majestic shapes as a gust of wind brought autumn leaves fluttering down. They twirled around my head before settling gently on the ground to form a carpet of red and gold and glorious flame especially for me. With a smile in my heart I started to run, sliding through the leaves in my silly red shoes. Tripping over a tree stump and almost falling on my face in the thick, wet leaves—
“Are you all right?”
I didn’t notice the man approaching at a jog from along the other pathway until he spoke. He was thirty something, tall and broad, his dark hair short and tousled. His honey-brown eyes sparkled with amusement as he slowed to a walk, then stopped in front of me. He leaned forward, hands pressed against the tanned muscles of his thighs, his pleasant face flushed with effort.
“Are you running away from something?” he asked.
His voice was deep, with the slightest Scottish burr.
I slithered upright and returned to the everyday world, my face as crimson as my suit.
“No…no…thank you. I’m just—”
“Enjoying the morning?” he said for me.
I couldn’t help but smile. “Something like that.”
“Not the best footwear to go for a run in,” he commented.
“They match my suit,” I offered lamely, glancing down at my damp feet.
He laughed, a great bellow that echoed in the treetops.
“And a very nice suit it is, too,” he remarked, his eyebrows raised in appreciation.
“Aren’t you supposed to be running?” I ventured.
He shrugged, pulling a face. “Well, as I’m not actually running anywhere in particular, I don’t suppose it matters.”
“Ah.” I smiled. “I see. You must be one of those sad fitness freaks who get up at the crack of dawn to put in fifteen miles before breakfast.”
For a moment he caught my eyes again, and something stirred inside me, some distant memory of that exact expression.
“Have we met before?”
We said it in unison, then giggled like two old friends.
“Seriously, though…” he began.
“Have we met before?” I finished for him.
He smiled at me and I smiled back, mesmerized by the golden glints in his brown eyes. A peculiar warmth spread through my body, right to the ends of my fingertips.
“We can’t have,” he told me. “Because I would definitely have remembered.”
An awkward moment followed, and then I set off again along the pathway. What was I doing anyway, talking to strangers in the park?
“Decided not to run anymore?” he inquired, falling into step beside me.
I walked sedately toward the busy hum of the city to reenter my life, focusing on the snowy carpet beneath my feet and trying to ignore him.
“You know, you shouldn’t really talk to strangers in parks,” he told me, uncannily echoing my thoughts as we approached the gates.
Ahead of us I could see the traffic flowing by, hear angry horns honking with impatience. I hesitated, taking in the moment, my whole body bursting with awareness.
“Today is special, though,” I said.
“How? How is it special?”
His eyes met mine like those of a friend, and I was acutely reminded yet again of Daniel Brown. After months of keeping his memory at bay, today for some reason he was flooding my soul.
“I just feel…”
There in the gateway to the park, suspended between the glowing autumn beauty of the woodland and the harsh gray concrete of the city, I stared at the familiar stranger, wanting to share my odd, explosive emotions. But there are no words to explain what you don’t understand.
“Special,” I told him. “Today everything feels special.”
“Well, I hope it will always stay special for you,” he murmured, touching my cheek in a gesture of farewell. And then he just turned and walked away from me, back toward the park, while I stood alone and confused in the busy street as the town hall clock began to chime.
Nine times its booming echo shattered the air, uncomfortably reminding me of just how late I was. I perched on the corner of the curb, waiting for a gap in the traffic while frantically searching the crowded pavement for one last glimpse of the familiar stranger. The clock went silent all of a sudden and responsibility clawed, drawing my reluctant gaze toward the tall, austere office building on the other side of the street.
Fawcett and Medley. The gold-and-black sign loomed. The sign I had read almost every weekday morning since Daniel Brown had…Since I gave up my job at the kennels and changed my life.
A gap appeared in the endless
