Her eyes fell on him and lingered.
His voice as he sang ''Oh Holy Night'' calmed her.
He felt her stare, took his eyes off his music book and winked.
She quivered.
When he adjusted his crutches to favour his weak leg,
She felt her heart move from her chest to her head .
The warmness she felt was not pity.
She fought back tears.
His voice was angelic,everyone said so even Mrs White.
He knew he was special, he was destined for greatness.
The polio didn't dim his light.
She marveled.
In awe she approached him after rehearsals.
''Umm,can you help me with my part?'' She said choking from shyness.
She assumed he knew her name.
She was wrong.
They met again at the home, at the home where the Government cared for them.
She loved to visit, never wanting to leave at nightfall,
Yet she left everyday back to the church floor.
She was happy.
They shared a love for music, connecting in the deepness of classics
She loved the way he laughed when she asked with widened eyes for stories from his trips abroad.
He was thirty five or thirty eight, deadbeat and full of crap but;
She was clueless.
A Whitney Houston track played on the stereo,
The day he used his good leg to hold her down while he covered her mouth with huge palms.
Her brain refused to accept what she knew was happening.
She refused to cry.
Her mind ran,cried,screamed,bite as he held her and said ''I am Sorry”.
In that moment she knew, she knew he had killed her.
She let the numbness envelop her as she watched her body move to pick her choir note.
She was fifteen, not quite sixteen.