One Step Closer

The day I knew I loved her was the day we found a bar of soap in the gutter.

It was a Saturday like any other, and we were at our normal game of balancing on the street curb. Rules were that the first one to fall had to submit to a request from the other player. Don't worry, we never asked much.

When we talked about the game with friends, Carrie would always roll her eyes and say, "He cheats all the time!!" (FYI, I do NOT). We'd been at it for years now, living next to each other, growing up surrounded by the same people, and participating in the same events.

It had rained the night before, which meant that the outside world smelled of earth and cloud-water as Carrie and I stretched in preparation of our daily game.

Being the taller one out of the two of us, I was at a disadvantage, and yet I had won most of the balancing acts. Carrie, however, had been getting better, and today it was her turn to balance in front of me (which meant it was my job to catch her if she fell).

As we tootled along, we walked down the first street with no problems. But it was really the second street that was difficult. In fact, if we ever managed to walk on the unbalanced curb without a hitch, we'd rejoice by sharing a soda on the front steps of Carrie's house, courtesy of her mom.

My own mother's idea of a prize was tap water mixed with juice powder. We definitely preferred sharing one soda between us rather than an energy powder marketed as a water-down juice mixture.

The problem with the second street was the down-draft. The wind on fall days was merciless, and it didn't play fair. Carrie, although she had started to win more often, was first at a disadvantage because she was in front of me, receiving the brunt of all the wind. The second disadvantage was because she had absentmindedly put on flip-flops instead of tennis shoes.

But, we continued the treacherous journey and kept going, walking tight-rope-like on the curb.

We passed the first house. Carrie and I walked along without a problem

But it was at the second that the wind picked up even more, and Carrie started to slip every now and then.

"You want to take a break?" I asked.

"Nope."

I had expected as much.

But a few steps later, when we had almost reached the big tree in front of the Smith's yard, she slipped too far on a dip in the curb, and fell backward.

I, as planned, caught her.

And as we fell, I felt a falling of a different kind.

Somehow, in the slow-motion heat of the moment, I subconsciously noticed the the fact that my arms fit perfectly around her, making sure she didn't hurt herself as we almost crash landed with a thud in the soft, yellowing grass of autumn.

We burst out laughing jovially, covered in dew and rain, all of our worries melting away.

Then, there was a soft silence. In that brief second in-between, after seeing her eyes crinkle from laughing and her breath coming out it short gasps in the hilarity, I realized how beautiful she looked. It was as if my eyes had suddenly been opened after a lifetime of sleep.

And she was looking back at me, almost as if she was wondering what I was thinking. I wonder if my gaze softened as I looked at her, not sure what to do with new emotions I was feeling, because after a second she looked at the ground and smiled to herself.

I think we both felt that something had suddenly changed, possibly even more evident by my sudden upstart to help her up and propose that we head back to Carrie's house for a bottle of soda.

Even though we hadn't succeeded in our quest to conquer the curb, we were not ones to turn down pity-prizes.

She had twisted her foot slightly in the wrong direction, and subtly limped back to our part of the neighborhood. I thought about offering to help, but I didn't.

We turned into her driveway, and said hi to Carrie's mom. She gave us a bottle of Dr. Pepper, and asked us that we'd get down a Frisbee that had landed on the roof, just above front door.

Carrie sat down on the steps in front of said door, and I climbed on the railing, latching onto the overhead gutter on the edge of the roof.

My hand, trying to get a firm grip, landed on something squishy.

"What the heck is in here???" I exclaimed, digging my hand deeper into the gutter.

As soon as I pulled it out, I started to laugh hysterically.

"What?!" Carrie asked emphatically, trying to see what I had found.

I showed her the bar of grimy white soap that had somehow ended up in the gutter of her roof.

"It's a bar of soap!!"

She started to laugh with me, as I carefully got down from standing on the railing, the treasure of sweet-smelling lavender soap in my hand.

"Do you want it?" I asked goofily.

"No!! Get that stuff away from me!!"

I playfully brought it near her head, and she shrieked.

"Okay, okay, I'll bring it inside and throw it away," I said, satisfied.

"Don't take too long, 'kay?"

I looked back at her with a questioning glance. There was almost a subtle undertone of concern, or need in her comment. And as I looked at her for half a second longer, her eyes seemed to softly shine with a new warmth I hadn't ever seen before, now suddenly evident in the dark blue oceans I was looking into.

"This soda ain't gonna drink itself!"

I rolled my eyes, not sure if she was trying to cover up her first comment, and entered her house to throw the clean mess away.

Later that day, I came into my room and picked up a pack of peanuts off of my desk, thinking over the day thoughtfully. Carrie had given me a ring on the phone a short while ago to tell me that in all our excitement over the bar of soap, we had forgotten the Frisbee on the roof.

I can imagine Carrie's mom coming outside after I left, seeing the Frisbee still sitting on the shingles, pursing her lips and shaking her head.

It's too bad.

But really, it wasn't.

I was much distracted by the light in Carrie's eyes and the shine of her smile to care.

And that's when I knew.

That's when I knew I loved her.

And gosh, I loved that smile.