CAMILE POMORIA

The Girl Before the Name

Some people introduce themselves with a name.

Camile introduced herself with a contradiction.

She was softness with edges.

A quiet room with thunder somewhere behind the walls.

A girl who could tell you exactly what she wanted from life, yet become strangely silent whenever someone asked what she wanted from love.

And perhaps that was the first thing I learned about her:

Camile was never something you simply met.

She was something you slowly discovered.

The first time I really looked at her, I wasn't searching for anything.

That is what I tell myself, anyway.

I was simply there.

She was talking about school, about becoming a teacher, about the kind of classroom she wanted someday.

Her eyes changed whenever she talked about her future.

They became brighter.

Not the dramatic kind of brightness found in movies.

Something quieter.

Something real.

"I want my students to remember me," she said.

"For being strict?"

She frowned.

"Why do you always think I'm strict?"

"Because you look like you'd make your students rewrite an entire paragraph because of one comma."

She laughed.

"Maybe I would."

"See?"

"But I'd explain why."

"Still strict."

She rolled her eyes.

"You'd be a terrible student."

"I'd be your favorite."

"In your dreams."

I smiled.

"Maybe."

She looked away, but I caught the smallest smile on her lips.

And that tiny smile became one of those things I remembered for no logical reason.

Maybe because it wasn't performed.

It simply happened.

Like rain.

Like sunlight slipping beneath a curtain.

Like something beautiful forgetting that someone was watching.

I began noticing the details after that.

Camile had a way of making ordinary things feel strangely specific.

The way she talked about food.

The way she became serious when school was involved.

The way she could be affectionate without making a ceremony out of it.

The way she could disappear into her own world when she had something important to accomplish.

She didn't seem like someone waiting for a person to complete her story.

She already had one.

And that fascinated me.