Riverbank

She exhaled. It was good to be back. She felt at home here, even if it wasn't really home, even if the whole 6 years she lived here she only kept about three friends. Nobody else liked being around the crazy druggie girl. Her friends were true people, honest to a fault and damn good to have around in a rough situation or on a hot Saturday night. She had made new friends in new towns since being in Willow Bank but she always grew wistful for the backstabbing, traitorous charm of her little Louisiana town. 

She tucked her hands deep into the pockets of her navy blue peacoat, leaning back against her mamas cherry red front door. The air was thick and damp from the river that wasn't really a river just a few houses away. Gazing up and down the street, Sylvia drank up the scenery. The sky was grey above the trees, and depending on which way you looked, you could see the wealthy antebellum architecture of the old south or the slavish shacks that crowd the lower income neighborhoods of any small southern town. It was literally a turn of your head. One block was the kind of place most girls wouldn't walk even in daylight, the other seemed welcoming no matter how dark.

The swirling greys of the sky made each end of the street look desolate. Sirens played a low war song in the distance as an undercover car passed slowly down Beaureguard Blvd.  She smiled and nodded to the car. A youngish officer nodded back. It was Rock Cop, fucking bastard of a young man, had to come by and see. Ah, the lovely ability of news to spread faster in small towns then a spark through a wire. Time to strike out before anybody else dropped by for the traveling side show. 

Off she stepped, soft taps from her boots on the old brick streets followed her. She passed the columns and the oak trees, glancing up at the cracked paint or the refurbished porches, the whitewash furniture surrounded by mosquito screens. Such a pretty place, dark and morbidly pretty, for all the rich colors and white trim, the darkness oozed out of every brick, every plank; it watched out of the big bay windows, ducking its head behind lace curtains. But she flowed by, moving with the same certainty as a rivers current. Her own lightness was marred by dark. Dirty blond, pale blue eyes with dark dark streaks, almost white skin, with dusky pink lips. Contrast, contrast, that's the life in the new south. Gangsta rap and thugs mix with zydeco and debutantes, the old fashioned and the modern blend in strange and anxious ways. 

Tap, tap, tap. On she walked, turning the corner to 1st St, past the bar where her mama worked late late nights, serving liquor to wealthy blue hairs and old lushes barely making it by. Tap, tap, tap. It was getting darker now, she walked along the sidewalk by the old French and Spanish store fronts, the river bank, that wasn't really a river bank, slid craftily into view, obscured by the massive oaks that built themselves up upon its hillside for years and years. 

Down the steep hill that led to a river bank that was in a bygone year  river bed, a boy was sitting on a wrought iron bench. He was looking out over the water, calm, waiting but tense. She crossed the street without looking, having spent most of her life cheating death, logistics were on her side.  She reached the concrete steps that made the hill manageable, never looking away from the boys shoulders. They were broad and strong, an athlete. Even though he was in jacket she knew he was covered in freckles that were uncountable. The taps started again, the worn old stairs giving them an aged echo. The boys head turned a little. She slowed down and tried to breathe. He looked more relaxed now...maybe he had been worried she wouldn't really come. The 44th and final step, then asphalt, 15 steps, then soft grass. She exhaled. It seemed she had somehow contracted asthma.

Frozen in a moment that was idyllic to any passerby. A petite girl still and waiting behind a young man waiting as well. She watched his neck, the golden brown flecks flickered on pink sunburnt skin. On him it didn't look rough, but refined in a way, like a country club boy who mowed his own lawn. His hair had faded, when they first met, it was dark, almost burgundy and over the years time had burnished it to a copper brown, with just the lightest hints of red. 

The freckles shifted and his head turned. The move was so fluid that she almost didn't see it.  It was a shock to be so instantly confronted with his grey green eyes. Eyes she hadn't seen at all for months and that she now saw with new purpose. They choked her, they stopped her heart, they hit her like Katrina. 

"Hi."