Writing group

I finally managed to make it to a meeting of the local writing group, what a pleasant experience. I met Anne, one of the organizer's, at one of the Benvenutto Varese meetings (the B.V. is a group of mostly expat women, who speak english and help each other settling in and making connections). I was lucky to find out about their group, and I decided I wanted to be part of it.

This is my first attempt to writing fiction:

The first time they met, Sara was younger, much younger. She remembers the strong smell of licorice as the dark background of their encounter, the flavor of anise forever linked to the end of her childhood. Nothing was the same after that. Even today, she can picture the moment her eyes met his, and the way he looked at her without seeing her; she felt invisible but whole. She knew then, that his eyes were the only mirrors worth reflecting into, the only place worth running towards.

Sara saw him again and again. There were times when she could read his lips, if she had wanted she could have sounded the words he said. She knew by memory the inflections of his voice, the slow and rhythmic dance vowels did in his mouth. She knew to listen when he spoke, to listen every time, to listen in silence.

To say that hers was an obsession would diminish the overwhelming feelings bursting inside her inexperienced heart. She stopped playing with dolls and started wearing make-up. Her once blissful skip of a walk became a serious performance of equilibrium on high heels. No room left for jumping and splashing in puddles, no time for running behind colorful balls, no space big enough for the two of them.

Sara kept all of it a secret. She told no one about him. He was hers alone, and the idea of sharing even his name with anybody was like breaking the beautiful mirror her grandmother kept in her room. Such beauty! Sara had spent many an afternoon hiding in the dark corners of grandma’s room looking at her own reflection. It was forbidden for her to get her little hands on the tear shaped mirror, it could break into a million pieces to never be again. She was drawn to it because of its beauty, because of her own beauty when reflected in it, but must of all, because it was prohibited for her to touch it.

The mirror never broke, Sara’s heart did. Today, She takes out the precious heirloom from the lost corners of the unforgettable, she dusts off the layers that time has piled on it and she sees her young self looking back from the past. She reapplies her lipstick and smiles the broad smile of a child. Today, she is going to see him again after many years; she can almost hear her heart skipping a beat.

She is telling no one about this, nor her husband, nor her best friend. She walks firmly with the experience of someone who has been there before. She sits in the middle of the room and carefully unwraps a piece of licorice, the lights go off and his face fills the screen, again.

prompt: In the movie theater