Remembering A Girl by Love Gordon
Jane first saw her in the holiday rush outside Macy’s. It was her freshman year at a small NYC visual arts college. The girl walked ahead, oblivious. Her brown hair swung against her green jacket. Black boots on her feet beat an even cadence on the side walk.
“Daria!” she cried out, running to catch her. But the girl had vanished into the crowd. She’d never have seen her if she’d been in Paris. However, Jane wasn’t in Paris, because she’d chosen to stay close to home after the death of the girl she’d just seen. If that wasn’t Daria, it was a living doppelganger of the person, who had been dearest to her on this earth.
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There were several more times – seven, she counted – but she could never catch up to the girl, never find her. Jane saw her twice at the subway station, once outside the library, even in a 7-11. The girl was elusive, enigmatic. She never saw her face. Oh, she couldn’t be Daria- but was there any other explanation? No one walked quite like Daria, had those scruffy Doc Martens that had been through a hurricane or two, and looked it.
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It was the February of her senior year, a few days before the fourth anniversary of that terrible, terrible day. She saw the girl sitting at an outdoor table of her favorite café, the Leaky Teacup. Just twenty paces away, she sat, and even from behind Jane could seen the edges of a pair of black round-rimmed glasses. She ran to grab the chair next to her.
Throwing herself into that chair, she laid a hand on a green wool-covered arm.
“Gotcha!” she exclaimed, triumphant.
Daria smiled.
For a few long, long seconds, Jane simply drank in the image of her friend, who, she knew, would be gone sooner rather than later. It seemed decades had passed before Daria smirked again, laughed, and spoke.
“A true friend,” and as the words died on her lips, she flickered, like a bad television. Raising a hand in wave, she continued to flicker, her solidity slipping away until she went out entirely. Jane was alone at the table.
But that was okay now.