She had a sly smile that promised mischief and debauchery. Her eyes were piercing, as though she could see into your very soul. With that tempting smile, those bright green eyes, and a tilt of her head, it was so easy to tell her everything.
She hoarded secrets like a dragon hoards jewels. Dried flowers and foreign candies and little gold teaspoons dropped out of her pockets and she would grin a cheshire-cat grin, a quick flash of white in the dark, if you asked where they came from.
The green-eyed girl seemed to always be in motion, foot tapping under the table, head darting back and forth like a hummingbird. Even her hair couldn’t stay still, bouncing in loose curls around her shoulders. Hovering between red and gold, it glimmered and glinted under the light, some indistinct, ever-changing colour. Her fingers were always cold, and on icy winter mornings when fog shrouded the sky, she would press them to your neck with a mean little laugh and watch you flinch away. Little freckles were scattered across the bridge of her nose, like cinnamon flakes on milk, and under the sun she would shiver, a little shaky quiver, and sigh. The green-eyed girl seemed to dance through the world like the breeze, unpredictable and light-footed. She never stayed long and left the soft scent of lilacs behind. So sweet and innocent-looking, all soft smiles and round edges but yet there was always something a little too wrong. Teeth too sharp, eyes too bright. That sweet-lilac smell turning sour.
Sour like cold sweat, sour like fear.
Because it was fear, that metallic, bitter smell. Fear that followed her around like a thick cloud, wafting from the hopes and dreams and heartbreaks of every starry-eyed lover she left behind. She was bright and bubbly and captivating, and people stopped and stared at this Technicolor girl. Her eyes so green like shining gems, reminding you that nature always colors its deadliest creatures the brightest.
The cruel thing was that you couldn’t help but love her, but she was always leaving; she never loved anyone for long. The green-eyed girl would drink like it was the last night of her life, and later she would whisper to you, eyes heavy and half-lidded, that she was afraid, lips parted slightly and red from smudged lipstick, something heavy and sharp on her breath. Sometimes she would smoke, heavy thick wisps drifting and curling around her, and all you could see was her faint outline, high heels kicked off, leaning relaxed against the wall. Nearly lost in the billowing clouds was the gentle slope of shoulder and neck, the slim fingers reaching out for something. You heard her laughter and felt the heat and spark of her rather than saw it, and you knew it was her without ever looking.
She left a string of broken hearts in her wake wherever she went, and you felt them, felt all of them when she would look at you with that sphinx-like enigmatic smile on her face. You looked into her green, green eyes, and somehow knew it was a siren’s call. Mine, they seemed to say. You are mine and no one else’s.
She was a natural phenomena, a natural disaster, and she laughed like a wild thing. She danced like a maenad taken with madness. She twirled on bridge rails and teetered on the edges of highway overpasses. She laughed in the world’s face with an easy, careless contempt and she
lived so fast, like a flame burning itself out.
The green-eyed girl was a whirlwind and she crashed through lives. The green-eyed girl was impossible to capture. She was everything and nothing, she was some sort of capricious spirit, she was just a girl. She was heartless.
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