I met her when I was seventeen. I remember, it was third period on Thursday, Maths. I couldn't not notice her. She walked in slowly, dark hair and gray-green eyes. They reminded me of the sea. I fucking hate the sea. She sat next to me at the back of the class and started drawing. I could smell her hair. I'm not sure if it was her perfume or her shampoo, but it was immediately 'her' smell. It was soft and earthy, the kind of smell that fills your nostrils with the image of a park after a thunder storm. I couldn't concentrate, so I tried to talk to her. "What's the formula for a circle?" Her scribbling stopped, she turned her head towards me, a smirk. "π r 2." It was the most beautiful thing I'd heard, the way she talked. Well, the most fuck-able thing I'd heard. But she was beautiful too. She was always beautiful.

She wrapped her lips around a cigarette, trails of smoke curled around her face. Her mahogany hair fell around her shoulders. We were behind a church; the old, rustic kind. The stone walls were hard on our backs. My eyes were glued to her, just as her eyes were trained on me. I could see her hopes and dreams, her world. I heard a rat scampering across the roof. She stood up and sucked down the last of her death-stick. I sat there for a moment, watching her over-analyse her actions, like she was a robot. Everything seemed so precise; mechanical; perfect. I pulled myself up onto my feet. She was facing away from me. I walked up behind her and held her fragile frame. She was crying. her shoulders did not shudder and her voice was not wailing, but tears were streaming down her face and over her cracked lips. I held her for a while. She sounded desperate. "Is it the pain you love?" I didn't have the heart to answer.

Silence. Beautiful, predictable, empty silence. I could feel the water around us. It was so cool, so smooth. My lungs were burning and with each sharp intake of breath, I could feel the water coursing into my lungs. We were drowning. We kicked our feet as if to sweep us from the ocean floor. Our arms were wrapped around each other. We were finally at peace.

We are at peace. We break the surface. Sunlight attacks our bodies. We feel the heat and light. We refuse to open our eyes. We are alone. We are beautiful. We are together. The world cannot take us now.