Title: Unattainable

Words: 632

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She's beautiful when she's happy.

The starlight brings out a shine in her unruly, dark hair, and it softens the dark circles under her eyes. Her smile is radiant, her laugh clear in the crisp air, the darkness of a winter night bringing out the pale of her skin, the perfect pink color in her cheeks, flushed with the cold. Chestnut curls fall around her shoulders as she turns to look at me, her grin fading to a smile, soft, dampening the blaze of power in her eyes. I feel like she knows what thoughts cross my mind, every ache in my heart with every movement she makes. Every motion is like a breath of life to me.

"Why're you looking at me like that?" she asks, almost teasingly, and I feel how close her face is to mine, every breath forming a cloud in the air, creating a fog that stands out against the midnight blue sky. I feel, almost, rather than see, her eyes searching mine – deep hazel into crystalline blue, piercing my thoughts as swiftly and easily as fire consumes ice.

I let my lips quirk in a smile, never taking my eyes from hers. "Nothing." She shivers slightly in the cold and automatically I reach out to her, wrapping my arm around her shoulders to give her warmth. She scoots close to me, rests her head against my shoulder, her eyes fluttering closed. Perfectly black lashes stand out against the snowy tone of her skin. Most people wouldn't think she's all that out-of-the-ordinary, but her strange beauty draws a few eyes. It's more of her intensity than anything that draws people. She is just that intense. It's part of what drew her boyfriend of nearly six months – that intensity that makes her shine attracted him.

As I glance down at her, though, all I can think is that she deserves better than him. Once, all those months ago, she gave him a terrible power by falling in love with him: the power to hurt her, when she was already so deeply wounded. She says that he's human, and therefore, not perfect, and anyone would have done what he did, but I still remember the week they spent apart, when she was in so much pain that I scarcely recognized her. I still remember how deeply he hurt her, and how long it took to build up the levels of trust she lost in him. I still remember that I was the one there to catch her when she was falling, the place he should have been but wasn't.

Something in my mind tells me that I would never do that to her, but I shake my head to clear the thoughts. She is, quite clearly, unattainable. Still remarkably young, and I nearly ten years her senior, someone she thinks of like a big brother and could never see in that way. She doesn't seem so young, though. Her intensity, her power, her beauty, her intellect all make her seem so much closer to my age. I allow myself a grin at that. She's probably more mature than I am, in some ways. Even if age didn't separate us, she is still so unattainable: a fire grips her that would consume any man trying to keep up with her, and I have to admit that so far, he's the only one who has managed to do it.

She looks up at me and smiles. I feel the warmth of her flesh against mine and try to keep my heartbeat under control. "What are you grinning about now?" she asks me, her hair brushing against my neck as she tilts her head slightly to look at the stars, smiling as if in content.

God, but she's beautiful when she's happy.