Women's magazine story

Angel

She walks past me every day. I can’t even tell if she knows I exist, I’m so hypnotized by the way she looks I actually forget to look at her properly. I just gaze at the curves of her body in her skirt suit, her endless legs resting on heels so high they would make an acrobat feel dizzy, her magnificent dark hair bouncing here and there, shiny from the roots to the ends. Whenever she walks in while I’m talking, I completely forget what I was saying and just sit there, looking at her going from the entrance door to the lift, up to the 23rd floor -I know, because I get her mail at the reception. People make fun of me because of that, and I hate it. I hate the fact that they allow themselves to turn her in such a trivial subject. She’s an angel, a wonder of nature, and she should be treated as such. And to me, she’s even more an angel in that she is inaccessible, out of my reach. Days go by, and I want her to see me, I want to make her smile, laugh, to dry her tears but never, never provoke them. But I just sit there, behind my desk, smiling when she looks in my direction, not knowing if she sees me or if she just looks through the little, insignificant receptionist that I am.
But today was different. Today, a man came in with a bunch of beautiful flowers, that smelled like heaven. I thought ‘Heaven for an angel’ and got worried. I was right to be. He came up to my desk, and ask where he could find her. I had to tell him, it’s my job, I can’t lose it. I reluctantly pointed the lift to him and he walked away. He was handsome; great smile, nice hair, expensive suit. I spent the next half hour looking at the lift door, hoping he would come out of it looking disappointed. Obvisously, he didn’t. He did end up leaving, but she was with him, holding his hand. My world crumbled, my heart was crushed. How could she do this? I’d cherished her every day since the first one, telling everyone how wonderful she was, introducing her to my parents in thousands of different ways in my head, and this was how she thanked me? By leaving with this play boy, most likely rich and shallow, not even looking back at me before disappearing in the night? I couldn’t believe it.
It lasted a few months. The happier she looked, the more miserable I felt. I still looked at her, but no longer like a believer looks at his god; more like a dog looks at his masters when he knows they’re going on holidays without him. She kept smiling in my direction, either to send me her support, or to rub her happiness in my face, I didn’t know. I started trying not to look at her. It was hard at first, but I forced myself to focus on something else when I knew she was about to come in. After some time, I actually stopped being obsessed by her. It felt good, not to be her slave anymore. I had been freed.
But on a monday morning, she didn’t come in. I just noticed, and didn’t think much of it. Except she wasn’t there on the tuesday either, nor on the wednesday. But that was it. She just let me enough time to get worried about her again, and she came back. She was smiling, and everyone seemed to be satisfied with it, but I had looked at her everyday for all this time, I knew, I could feel it was all facade. She was playing a role, there was something wrong. Her skirt suit was perfectly ironed, her hair looked shinier than ever, and her smile was bright, but something was missing. This little glance of happiness in her eyes, that made everything. And I realized, I was probably the only one to notice it, because I was the only one who truly took time to look at her. And I also realized, no matter how hard I had tried to fool myself into forgetting her, I wanted to be the one who made this little glance come back. I decided to ask her out, this very night, as soon as I’d see her.
Night came. Lights were turning off, people would randomly yell ‘good night’ accross the halls, and then silence again. The lift opened, she came out, and I found myself paralized. I couldn’t do it, me the little, insignific... She came up to my desk, with a shy smile, and simply said the sentence that changed everything: ‘Do you want to take a coffee together sometime?’.