The delicate slope of her brow was a constant distraction for me. While I tried to devote myself to my studies, time and again I found my eyes lifting and tracing the cleanly delineated line of her face.

She sat by the window and behind her the yards of the school were fresh and green. The spring sunlight that filtered through the classroom window cast a lovely halo around her. I wondered if she had chosen this spot in particular. Perhaps she knew that my eyes would be drawn to the light, my body craving the crisp air and the sweet smell of roses which blossomed in thick bunches all over the walls of the school. I would later learn that she was not so calculated. She simply eased into beauty – or it eased itself about her.

She was not the first woman I had admired, but she was the first I had loved. I knew I loved her from the moment I set my eyes upon her. It was the sudden way she laughed – her still face, with all its symmetrical beauty, would suddenly break into a wide grin and there was a disruption that was almost awkward. I loved that laugh, that smile – I wanted to lick it from her lips.

I doubted very much, though, that she felt the same way about me. I knew who I was. I stood before the mirror and stared dejectedly at my wide hipped body, the small orbs of my breasts and the unruly blonde hair which curled around my face. There was no innate symmetry to my features. My eyes were wide and blue but fringed by short, unimpressive lashes. My lips were a very candy coloured pink but too small for rapturous kisses. No one would tip me back and smother my mouth with their own.

Yes, I knew who I was. I had, in some respects, accepted my lot in life. I was the admirer and not the admired. It was my duty to capture the fey way a beautiful girl tipped her head and smiled. It was my duty to draw from words the few apt adjectives that would imprison beauty in text. It was not my role to be unclothed and caressed – that role was reserved for other, more lovely creatures.

And so it surprised me when I caught her attention one day. I had been running, racing across the fields toward the school, certain I was late for class. My cheeks were hot and sweat prickled between my breasts. The thick cotton of the uniform was riding up my thighs, exposing the tan skin that covered all my flesh.

I realised that there was no reason for haste when I saw, dotted near the door, a few students casually waiting for the bell to ring. They were happy in their groups, contentedly gossiping and touching each other in a fond, amicable way. And there was she – my admired. She looked up just as I slowed my pace, but I was still breathing hard.

“I thought..” I began to explain, my breath catching. She smiled at me – that warm, wicked spread of her lips.

In the lunch break she had undone her brown hair and it hung loosely down her back. It was so very fine, it caught in the breeze and stuck to her white cheeks.

“You’re ok,” she assured me. “We have a little time. Why don’t you sit with me?”

Had she known how much the invitation shook me to the core, I doubt she would have extended it. While there were rumours of girls doing private things to each other late in the night, there was  an undercurrent of hostility felt toward such acts. Those fondling fingers and wet mouthed kisses that took place in unlit corridors and boarding rooms were never spoken about vocally. Two girls who had once been dear friends could so easily slip apart from one another – horrified by the impulses of their growing bodies.

So if she knew how fervently I felt for her, I was sure she would have turned her pretty face away. I would have been met only by the perfect, wan outline of her cheeks and the gorgeously curved back of her head.

I tried to suppress my delight and sat down beside her. I bent my legs beneath my body and attempted to smooth my skirt smoothly over my thighs. I was still breathing hard, my breasts rising and falling from the exertion of my run across the yard.

She reached out and picked something from my hair. Inadvertently, I flinched.

“What’s this?” She asked. I glanced at her tiny fingers. She was holding a small feather – mottled and grey.

“Oh,” I blushed deeply. How to explain?

I had been sitting high in the boughs of a tree at the very furthest edge of the school yard, my back along the outstretched arm and my eyes staring up into the dotted light which crept through the foliage. It was there that I dreamed my most vivid imaginations regarding a free future – a future where I loved women openly and passionately and was loved in return – a future where I didn’t disguise the size of my body or the hot look in my eyes. This girl that I was, several years hence, was such a startling, romantic thing. I loved her, though I knew, also, that I would never be her.

“Where have you been?” She pressed, tipping her head on the side.

“At the edge of the yard,” I admitted.

“In trees?” She guessed. I nodded sheepishly.

She giggled. “You’re strange. I realise that.”

What did she mean? It struck me that I may have given myself away. So deeply did I feel love for her, how could it not betray itself in my eyes?

“Will you show me where you’ve been?” She asked.

I was mute. I couldn’t possibly take her to my tree - into my dreams.

“We don’t have time,” I tried. “Class starts soon.”

“We have time,” she disagreed. “Please, I want you to show me.”

I want. I want. I want. Oh gosh, wanting is such a hard thing. She used the word so carelessly. I, of course, knew all the colours of want. Want plagued me in my sleep and sat beside me all the day. Want turned my every thought to her. Wanting made me shy, and foolish, ungainly, and ashamed of myself. So desperately did I need her, I was afraid of myself.

“Ok,” I said quietly, knowing that I would forever regret the missed opportunity.

We both rose and she dusted herself off. her uniform settled pristine around her. With her, there was never a movement out of her place. Even her gait, as we walked at a good pace toward the edge of the yard, was long-legged and lovely. I was a little behind her as we walked and so I could admire the very straight line of her back, the way her arms swung loosely by her sides and her shoulders slumped backward, jutting her small breasts out. There was an elegance to her stride that I did not possess.

At the very edge of the yard we entered a sudden copse of trees. The bright spring light which had been warm on our heads was now disguised by the foliage of weeping willows and the grass underfoot had grown sparse.

We were far from the road here and far from the school. The voices of the other students couldn’t be heard and there was nothing – no sound, no murmur, no distraction – from the serenity of the place. She tipped her head to the side again, listening. I heard them too – the birds which jumped from tree to tree and nested and roosted and called to each other.

She turned again, her lips pursed. The little feather was still in her fingers. She twisted it on its stem and looked at me knowingly.

“Maybe you’re a little lark too,” she said. “You come here and you flit around with your friends.”

She was smiling, but I felt offended. I wondered if that was how she saw me – small and ugly, with a thin beaked little mouth and nervous, flighty movements.

She turned away from me and walked directly through the bank of trees to the willow where I always sat. It was perfect for it – the base was all gnarled and mottled by cuts which had grown over to create easy handholds.

She reached high and put one foot on the base, stretching herself up. Her uniform rode up the back of her thighs. She had such pale, very white skin. I wanted to press my mouth to it. Desire shot through my body like a spark. I so fervently wanted to meet the back of her legs with my lips, close my eyes, and simply touch her skin. I thought it would be cool – like polished marble.

I neared her from behind as she continued to climb. She gripped on tightly to the tree until she was up about the leaves and crawling on hands and knees onto the steady branch where I would lie. She sat with her legs dangling off the edge. One brown school shoe looked ready to fall.

She patted the bough beside her as an invitation for me to join her.

Here, I showed some grace. I knew this tree – I knew where every bulge extended and vein of bark flaked. I could move up its steady, solid torso with balletic speed. The same steps which she took hesitantly, I took boldly until I was also in the midst of the leaves and the light was faint and dappled. I moved along the branch and  sat beside her, a hand’s distance apart.

We sat there silently. I was so rapturous, I could not think of a single thing to say. I fingered at the bark and it peeled. An ant made its weary way up my arm. And then, soft, there was a rustle in the leaves and a bird darted out, avoiding our clumsy bodies and swooping high into the air between the other willows. As it left, another small feather drifted down, carried on unseen eddies, and landed on my thigh.

I looked at the feather, as fragile as the one she had pulled from my hair. It felt like a kind of portent. Perhaps she was right about me – perhaps my true form was somewhere underneath my heavy body.

I was about to brush the feather away when I saw her hand extend. With precision, she picked the feather up by its stem and held it between us. I lifted my eyes to meet hers. She wasn’t smiling, but there was a bright light in her warm brown eyes.

“When will you let me see your wings.” She asked.

“I have no wings,” I said softly.

“You’re lying to me.” She replied.

With the feather held aloft, she extended her arm and she brushed it down the side of my cheek. Helpless to quell my feelings, I closed my eyes. I could almost imagine the feather was her - that it was her delicate white finger tracing my cheek, and now my lips, and then the line of my neck and the dip in my collarbone.

When I opened my eyes finally, my heart beat was fast and I knew I was deeply coloured. I stared at her steadily and she returned my intent look.

Very suddenly, she leaned forward. Like the unexpected wing of a bird to the air, like a lifting to flight, I felt a flash of her wet mouth hot against mine. It was so quick. In hindsight, I am sure it only lasted a bare moment. But for me, it was a moment long enough to know every facet of her face. In that kiss, I felt the fringe of her thick lashes. I learnt the scent and taste of the inside of her mouth. I finally came to understand that she was warm, not cool, and that her flesh had the texture of a peach. She was lovely. She was more real than I had ever imagined her – more visceral and meaty and sweet.

When her body moved in again, and her breasts pressed against mine, and her little fingers danced over my hands, claiming my fingers between her own, I was suddenly, beautifully, full of the knowledge of her.

Now I knew where the wings were. I felt them growing from my heart. I was no longer that ungainly girl – that weighty mess of heart and loin – I was brilliant and free, capable of soaring to such magnificent heights.