She came into my life like volcanoes and earthquakes, like tornadoes and lightning, like the summer storm that comes out of nowhere and changes everything around it. She was seventeen, fresh out of high school, and her every movement seemed to cry out a challenge to the world. Her feet trod – no, danced – along the pathways with the easy confidence and self-assurance known only to the young. Yes, she was a child yet, for all she felt so grown up, and she looked at the world with eyes untainted by fear and hate.

I was twenty-two, and jaded. My last encounter with the world had turned out rather poorly, so I had delved deep into my books and my studies, as if to protect me from the dangers out there. It was not that I was afraid, perish the thought! But I knew enough to see that God cared little for me, and people weren’t worth the pain. So I went about my days, each much like the preceding, spending an hour here and there with family and friends, but otherwise an island. I thought I was happy that way.

But then my life changed forever. We only bumped into each other, and with her arms piled high with textbooks from the college bookshop, it was inevitable that they fall. I don’t know what possessed me to help her carry them, usually I would have walked right by, but she was such a small thing, almost lost, and maybe I thought I saw something of myself in her.

By the time I realised otherwise, it was too late.

As I helped her onto the bus, I had little inkling that we would ever meet again. She, a first year humanities student. I, working on my masters in physics. She, a bright and vivacious girl with a love of life, I a cynical loner. What commonalities could we possibly have?

It was only a few days later, as I was grabbing a bite to eat while engaged in a riveting thriller novel, that she sat herself down across from me. And then she began to talk. I must have seemed terribly rude as I tried to ignore her, I don’t recall a single thing she said. But for some reason, she continued to talk until eventually I responded, just to make her leave me alone. I couldn’t understand why she wanted to talk to me, and I’m sure I rebuffed her quite firmly.

But she was a tenacious little thing, and week after week she kept on coming back. Was I her pet project? I don’t know, and now I don’t really want to. But as the weeks passed, I began to find it harder and harder to pay attention to my book, until before I knew it I had stopped turning the pages altogether. I think I caught a glint of something in her eye, but it was gone before I could mark it.

I began to find myself interested in what he had to say. She was awfully intelligent, I felt her mind wasted on English and history. But then, I don’t think she could ever have been happy as a scientist, while she loved to explore the world around her in a more involved way. I began to respond, at first infrequently, and then we began to enter real conversations. Politics, religion, money - nothing was sacred. Like me, she didn’t care what the world thought of her, as long as she was happy. Except I just didn’t care.

I began to notice her more, watching her walk around the campus with her friends. They seemed a lot like her – beautiful, intelligent, funny, exuberant. I could never understand why she kept coming back to me. But she did, and before I knew it I discovered that I cared what she thought of me. For she first time in several months, I began to care for my appearance. When we bumped into each other and she flattered me with her effervescent smile, I began to smile back and say ‘Hello.’

But then came her exams, and holidays. For several weeks, as I worked on my thesis at home or in the library or out on the grounds, there was no cheerful voice badgering me to pay attention. No bright-eyed little nymph to pester and prod. And where once I would have relished the peace, suddenly the campus seemed empty, like it never had before. I missed her.

I think she must have been surprised at my smile on her first day back. I was so glad to see her, to return to the meetings and coffee that had become a crucial part of my routine. And when she began to open up a bit more, I found myself returning the favour. I learnt about her family and her late brother, whom she clearly still missed. And in return, I revealed to her what I had never told anyone else, about exactly why my fiancée and I separated.

No longer did we only meet by chance, at the uni cafeteria or on the bus home, but we started actively sharing our time. When her friends invited her ice skating, she dragged me along and, despite how much I complained, I found I rather enjoyed it. When she saw a function advertised, be it a bushwalk or a harbour cruise or even a night out in the city, we would go together. Though it was always a surprise to have someone ask for ID - I had long ago forgotten how much younger she was than I. We were kindred souls, that was all that mattered.

By the end of that year, I had become a different person. No longer did I complain – in fact, sometimes I was the one dragging her to events that interested me. Maybe to a band that we were both fond of – I never could believe such a sunny girl could share my love of rock music, but she never did stop surprising me. And with her influence, I discovered that I too could be interesting, that I too had something to offer the world. I began to talk to people in the labs with me or around the campus, and found myself gaining new friends. My group seemed astonished and gratified at the change in me, and I even had a proper conversation with my older brother, whom I’d barely seen in years.

One evening together on the harbour bridge, I found myself asking her why she had chosen me. I was hardly interesting at that time, I was older than her (and certainly disagreeable), and not at all in her area. But she just laughed and replied, “Sometimes, we come into people’s lives when they just need to be cheered up a little. In your case, it was my job. The fact that I found you moderately attractive just made it easier on my part.” And what could I say to that?

I guess it was inevitable that I would fall for her. I know I wasn’t the only one – I had seen the looks some of her male friends gave her, though she seemed innocently oblivious. What surprised me was that she seemed to return my feelings. By this stage, she was well into her second year of university, which she was passing with flying colours. I had finally submitted my thesis, and was working full-time as a lab assistant, but we still managed to find time to see each other. How could we not? She was the best thing that had ever happened to me.

To be honest, I was initially a bit hesitant about entering a relationship. My last relationship had turned into an utter disaster, and I can’t deny that I was nervous about what this would mean for us. On top of that, she was four years younger than I, and though that never mattered in regards to our friendship, suddenly it seemed like a large age gap. Of course, just as I learnt when we very first met, she would never take no for an answer. Though she seemed more focused, inside she had barely changed from the impetuous, confident girl I ran into on the bus. And against all my wishes and arguments, I loved her beyond all imagining.

Not much really changed between us. We still did things together, and we still did things apart – we each had had our experiences with clingy partners, despite her young age. The only difference was that we knew our feelings were reciprocated. We began to plan a future, what we’d do when she was finished with her course. She now planned on publishing some fiction, although we always joked about each other’s tastes; I always found her fantasy novels too cliché and girly – she thought I was being a hypocrite, considering how stereotypical most thriller plots were. And I planned on being right there beside her. I was beginning to look at rings, something to show her how much I did love her. It wasn’t like with my previous fiancée, where I felt almost obligated to buy her things in order to keep her. I simply wanted to, and I wanted her to have the best. Now that my thesis was in print, I had a chance of landing a better job, and maybe we could move in together? Despite how much she loved her family, I could tell they were beginning to annoy her. Everything seemed perfect, and my future seemed full of promise.

But alas, it was not to be. When my phone rang in the middle of work, I knew there was something wrong. The few people who rang me at all knew better than to ring during work, with the temperament of my supervisor being what it was. Regardless of his glare, however, I rushed to answer it, already knowing in my heart that it would not be good.

It was her mother, and her voice seemed almost choked, very different from the last time we met. Through what I later realised were tears, she managed to tell me to go to the hospital near their house. I don’t remember if I ever thanked her for ringing me so quickly, when she was in such pain herself. I also don’t remember what I told my supervisor – everything seems like such a blur, to use such a cliché phase. What I do know was that somehow I ended up at the hospital, where her body lay on cold white sheets.

I remember that she was pale – too pale, she spent too much time outdoors to ever be that pale. I remember nurses and doctors worriedly conversing outside, while her parents and brothers anxiously sat around her bed. I remember what seemed like hundreds of tubes and dials and displays, though there can’t have been more than a dozen at most. And I remember how still she looked, barely breathing, like she was already dead.

All that night and the next, for as long as we were allowed in the room, her family and I kept our weary vigil. Somewhere along the line, I began to wonder whether this frail, silent creature was really her, or just some wax model placed in her bed, for she had never been that still in all the almost three years I had known her. I think I was going slowly mad through worry; I know that her parents, so full of grief themselves, had difficulty pulling me away.

Then, on the third morning, she awoke. We were so excited, her parents even more so than I, for they had gone through this torture once before with her younger brother. Her eyes shone warmly despite finding it hard to breathe, and she gently squeezed my hands. For a moment, it seemed like we were the only two there, and maybe we were, for I think I remember the sound of the door.

And though I knew I should have reassured her, for she was the one in pain, she had always been the strong one. With as much strength as she could muster, she touched my face, and I was hard pressed to hold back the tears. She told me that she wasn’t in pain, although I knew she was, and that she wasn’t afraid of dying, though she couldn’t hide her tears. She had always been prepared for this day, she said; she had never even expected to live past high school. Apparently, she had had this condition since birth. But, she told me, she was so glad she did.

She told me… that she was sorry we couldn’t see our plans through… and that she wished she could have finished her course… but that the thing she regretted most was having to leave me. She made me promise to continue living, to continue smiling, like she had taught me to do, and said that that way she would never be forgotten. Heartbroken, I gave her my word.

She didn’t live much longer after that. At the funeral, the parents asked me to give a speech, but I knew that I never could. The grief was still too deep. For several months, I barely spoke to people apart from the daily drudge of my work, just as I had those three long years ago. I still saw her family occasionally, and eventually I found friendship in her youngest brother, who dreamed of being a physicist.

But as the seasons turned, I found myself appreciating the beauty of the sunsets once more, and sometimes I could laugh at a joyful memory we shared without feeling the heart wrenching guilt I once did. It was not that I loved or missed her less, for I don’t think that hole will ever fully mend. But I realised hat there is still good in this world. She was the light of my life, and there will never be another like her. But that did not mean I should stop living. She would never have forgiven me for that.

And that, I think, was her biggest legacy. She was only in my life for three short years, but in that time she and I lived more together than I had in all the years beforehand. She was like a bright candle in the night, and through her illumination she showed everyone around her the way to live. She was the miracle that made my life worthwhile. And when I think of how she lit up the world around her and woke it to joy, I can’t help finding her name terribly fitting.

My little Eva.

Life.