Clear and Bright: Chapter One: In An Instant

                                                                                

                                                      

I almost didn't notice him there, watching me. I was rushing, running impossibly late.

I was never late, not to anything...

Today, however, was different. I was running and rushing...


Time seemed to be rushing, too. Right past me. It's as if I was frozen, unable to move, while everything swirled around me.


Perhaps notice him isn't quite right. I didn't actually see him. I felt him. I felt his penetrating stare. It was searing straight through me, literally stopped me cold, right in the middle of the street. I didn't have to look for him. I knew exactly where he was, I felt him that strongly.


It was the briefest second before our eyes met. Those eyes. Those beautiful, soul stealing eyes. I was lost in them. I was lost in him. I was completely unaware of where I was, what was happening around me. I heard nothing. I saw nothing. Nothing existed but those eyes.


Nothing, that is, until I felt his arms around me. In that moment, time seemed to stand still. Still, like I was, in the middle of that damn street. Time wasn't standing still, though. It could only have been seconds. Seconds before he was there, seconds before I was in his arms, being whisked out of the perilous path that my frozen state had left me in.


That he had left me in.


His eyes.


Those eyes.


It didn't matter who he was, this man. I was his. I knew it. He knew it. His eyes had told me.

Those eyes. 

He hadn't spoken. He hadn't touched. He hadn't even moved. He had merely looked at me, although intently, and I was his.


He looked at me now, with those eyes. They held me, as his arms held me, but stronger. He hadn't let go. I was out of harm's way, but still he hadn't released me from his gaze or his grasp. I was glad. I was thrilled. I was overcome. I didn't want to be released.


I was his.


He still hadn't spoken, not a sound, but it didn't matter. I wouldn't have heard him. The only sound in my ears was that of my furiously thundering heart. Or was it his? Ours? I couldn't be sure, of anything, except that my life was changed in an instant by this man and those eyes.

That was how we met.