"She's the exclamation mark 

in the happiest sentence 

that I could ever possibly write."

- Michael Faudet

When I was young, my older sisters always called me a "troublemaker". But I beg to differ. I didn't necessarily break every rule, challenge authority, or do severe mischief that could kick me out of school or attend counseling sessions. Most of the troubles I brought sprout from my carelessness, which still proved troublesome on certain levels.

Like for instance, I had a knack for stepping on the back of the shoe of the person in front of me and making them trip. I broke approximately twelve drinking glasses in the house every year (and I didn't really mean it, I swear!) I bumped into people and shopping carts, earning profanities and bruises on my arms and hips. I cracked jokes that I didn't know were offensive and I would gain a slap from a girl (Sunshine Lee, seventh grade) or send one crying back to her friends (Whoever That Was, fifth grade).

And I lost a lot of things, too—most of them were easy to be replaced and some have been difficult to regain lately. (Like my heart. But I'm getting quite ahead of myself.)

So, no, I'd never been exactly a troublemaker. A walking disaster, perhaps. "Be careful!" was the sentence I always heard from my mom.

Most of my mishaps led me to different situations that I really didn't mind much. I was a kid, and at the time, I thought they were just inconsequential things. However, a certain little accident proved me wrong, and I would soon discover that it was actually a puzzle piece to a story I could never have dreamed.

════════════

If anyone would ask me what I remember the most from my elementary school, I would say we had a teacher whose last name was Greasley back in the third grade.

Mr. Greasley was a stout man of medium height with a round, flabby face decorated with thick bushy eyebrows and black button-like eyes. He always wore brown, from his monotonous polyester shirt and vest down to his leather shoes, and his voice sounded like a roar in everyone's ears when he was mad. He reminded me so much of a grizzly bear so I labeled him Mr. Greasley Bear, which became a running joke in the entire grade.

That was mischief number one.

The mischief number two was when I was caught laughing in class and he asked what the matter was. I responded, "Nothing," and added, by mistake, my infamous joke, "Mr. Greasley Bear" at the end.

His face turned red all over in a snap, and, with the authority of a thousand professors, he roared, "Your attitude is getting rather out of hand, Mr. Finn Hunter! And I do not appreciate how you are distracting your classmates while I'm teaching. I need you to sit here in front of my desk and stay focused on my lesson from now on."

I couldn't help but groan like a starving caveman.

And that, my friends, was how I, for the first time, got to sit right next to this strange girl who didn't bother to turn her head and acknowledge her new seatmate.

I'd always seen her around the school, mostly in the far corner of the playground. With her bright red hair that tumbled down in these big, playful curls, she stuck out like a neon signboard in a dark alleyway. She was always alone for some reason. Always far away from people. Never smiling. Never making eye contact with anyone. She often stared at the walls or at the trees, just thinking or talking to herself, which made other kids laugh and call her names behind her back or in such a vague way.

And she never seemed to mind them at all.

At a young age, I was exposed to a world full of energy and of people always on the move. So sitting next to someone who was as responsive as a statue bugged the hell out of me. Is she even breathing? I remember asking myself. This girl hardly reacted to anything around her. I'd never talked to her before, but she probably knew me from reputation, so being the haughty little kid I was, I took the first move. I wanted to see if she could make any reactions other than blinking or turning her head.

My first attempt was a big flop. I stared at her until she got uncomfortable enough to slide a look in my direction, and then I put on a winning smile that won most of my teachers over every time. However, my charm proved insufficient because she only blinked and turned her head away almost like an android.

She sure was a weird chick.

It didn't stop me from bothering her, though. I imagined it as some sort of a game. Maybe it was due to classroom boredom or something, but I found an odd thrill in making the quietest and weirdest girl in school react. I pretty much didn't care about the punishment I'd been given. If there was anything I'd learn from this Science class, aside from the subject, it was the art of stealth. The punishment was useless anyway. Mr. Greasley had separated me from my friends to stop the disturbance but he didn't know that I was friends with everyone in the class.

Well, of course, except her.

I decided to step up my game in my second attempt. Instead of just staring at her for a long time, I threw in some words. They were just plain greetings like "hi" or "hey," but amazingly, they were able to gain a curious head tilt and a tiny closed smile from her.

It was a just small reaction, almost a faint one, but I had never seen her smile—not even once before—so it was quite of an achievement, really. I felt like I was getting a high-five from my childhood favorite hero The Flash.

So from there, it progressed to exchanging casual smiles. First with a slight tilt of one corner of the mouth. Then with both corners of the mouth. And ultimately with upper and lower teeth showing. When I managed to establish a consistent barter of smiles with her in and out of the classroom, I felt the privilege to visit her little sanctuary in the corner of the playground and strike up a conversation with her.

"Why are you always alone?" I asked. It had been bothering me for a while.

She was giving half of her lunch to a stray cat. I think she had been feeding it for some time now because lately, I had noticed that it was prowling the area too many times.

"Because... I just like to be," she mumbled after scraping half of the contents of her lunchbox to the ground.

"Don't you feel sad here?"

She kept her attention to the cat that was hungrily devouring her lunch. "No," she answered. "Why would I be sad?"

"It's so quiet," I said, looking around the desolate area. In the distance, I saw several kids playing tag. "I like to be near people. There's so much fun going on."

"It's not quiet..." she said.

"It is," I rebuffed with a sneer.

"It's not," she maintained in her innocent tone and raised her head as if sensing something in the air. "Don't you hear it? The trees? The birds? Nature is creating music. You just have to listen carefully."

She was just eight, but her mind was already a bottomless pit of rich, reflective, and restless imagination. She was able to recognize beyond the immediate surroundings and circumstances—an ability I didn't possess. So, I didn't listen. Instead, I dismissed it as her being weird as she was known to be.

"Don't you have friends?" I asked.

"Well... I have one now."

I thought she was talking about me, and I almost beamed with pride until she gestured at the cat that was licking its paws, and said, "She's alone, too. We make a nice pair, don't you think?" I could've sworn I almost heard humor in her voice.

I scowled as I stared at the bald patches on the cat's skin and the dirt that glued some of its brown-and-white furs together. There was a faint foul smell coming off it, and it disgusted me. I hated the idea that she considered the cat as her friend and not me. After all the effort I did. I had never planned to be friends with her, but when this private conversation happened, I began to wish she would consider me as one. But the cat beat me to it, and it didn't even talk.

"She looks sick like she's gonna die," I said, still looking daggers at the animal. I considered it as nothing special and I know it was horrible of me and trust me, I wish I could give my younger self a proper lecture.

"She's not going to die. I'm feeding her to make her healthy," she replied.

I snorted a laugh. "You're so weird, Autumn."

Finally, she turned her head to me and smiled in response. It was a different kind of smile this time. A tender curve of those thin lips. It's hard to explain, but it's like when you see that kind of smile, you'll feel warm and at peace. She seemed to be genuinely happy with what she was doing, who knew?

I never told anyone about the meeting, and I don't think I even should. For me, it was like we had invented a secret world—albeit it lasted for a short while— where everyone else was denied any opportunity to enter. I continued the day as normal.

However, the strangeness of this girl lingered in the back of my mind. And I found it weird how it was possible for such a simple smile to make me go red in the face.