You Saw Me

• Catherine Giles, Grade 7
• Short Story
• 2014

You saw me.
I knew you had seen me. It was the glint in your eye before you turned your head back to face her. You were angry, no, enraged, as you yelled at her angelic face. It had tears streaming down it. So close, a small step from the freedom I wished you’d soon have.
Freedom from her.
And then, as I watched, you closed the shutters, blocking that glint from the rest of the world. And from me.

_________________

Pots banged, women bellowed, and small children ran, screaming, around. It was the harvest. The summer before she found you. The young maidens of the village were gathered around a small table, sheltered from the chaos. She flicked her hair and it floated back to her shoulders like a charcoal cloud, shimmering in the morning light. Her perfume wafted through the girls, a constant reminder of how powerful she was.
But you were more powerful. Even then, as a mere boy of seventeen, you were clear on your position over even the strongest of the villagers. And now, as you strode towards the well, and gathered the water for your fellow workers, slinging it onto your broad shoulders, she eyed you, like you a prize she would do anything to win.
And indeed you were. A prize, I mean.
But she didn’t know you. She hadn’t been there as your father drifted away. Not like me. She didn’t know the meaning of pain. No one could realise it, not until they’d seen your face as he left, abandoning you while you sat by his deathbed, begging him not to. No one knew you like I did back then. I remember the days we spent twirling around in the fields while our fathers and mothers conversed, and how we often made use of the nearby river, splashing and laughing in the warm sunlight. How I longed to grasp back those golden days, when we could cry out and sing without a care in the world.
But, those days are over. You will marry in the dawn light of the next day of rest.
_____________________

You have your own cabin now. A luxurious affair, but of course she demanded it that way.
It was expected you would inherit your father’s old house, centred in the heart of our village. I remember it from our childhood. It was a large, airy cabin with dark soot- coloured walls. That was her excuse. They darkness frightened her, she claimed, and her wish was immediately obeyed. You frowned slightly at the act, a little unsure. Your uncertainty completed her crime. You moved away to the edge of the town, further away from me than ever. Our differences were now complete.
My heart was not.