Black hair flew with a spiraling rain, soaking the equally stirring thoughts of her typically sullen mind. Sometimes her eyes would close, just in case of a particularly euphoric state of being, and sometimes she looked as though she were bored to tears. Sometimes she would look at me, but not in the way she had ever recognized my existence in any other given moment beyond this one. Right now I was a stranger, a portrait in a brain in which through countless hours of study, I could never fathom.
She didn't know I existed right now; all that mattered was that she was sitting on a stoop in the middle of town, in the midst of a rainstorm, and smoking a cigarette.

This was the third time in a week now that she had been here, and each time the length of our visit was longer and longer. The first time we had gone I was so frustrated over not being able to see what she was doing that I would begin reading instead of resigning myself to the long wait, the final "moment" in which I was free and her epiphany or whatever it was, released itself at long last. She wouldn't care; my job was to be there when she needed me, and that was all.

The second time was insatiable. What was it about being here that she loved so much, and why in the pouring rain? Why would she smoke a cigarette, just that one cigarette, when she knew that it would die out within a few puffs? And why would she just sit there on the ground, in this dirty slum where even the air smelled putrid, when just the other day she had been so careful about not ruining her fine linen jacket? That very beige jacket, now victim to hours of city slew, was now an off shade of grey, sloshed about in mud because she had quite literally rolled in it and soaked it through completely because spring jackets like hers were never meant for such adverse conditions as these. She knew this, and normally she cared in her conscious state of being; now she was seemed to be off in another world with whatever she was trying to hold on to. Why, why would she spend such relentless hours wasting her time like this?

All these scattered quandaries filled my mind and I boldly looked into her eyes just as long as she would sometimes look at mine. I remembered it was just yesterday that she would give me such yearning eye contact, trying to see through me with her piercing blue eyes and my being so afraid to look back. Every time I felt them I'd turn away, afraid and back to my novel but the pages were soaked and I lost my place ages ago, and she knew it. Still, cowardly, I kept right on as the words bled down the page, showering with the world.

But this time I was so overwhelmed with myself that I knew I had to look back, and especially since I knew it didn't matter right now. She was studying me, so would it be so out of the ordinary that I was studying her right back? I knew to be silent as she had always requested it during these times, but the one thing I begged to know is what she could possibly be thinking, feeling, what she knew about my face. Perhaps she took enjoyment in my looking back at her, a new development indeed and one that forced my heart to continuously skip a beat.

There was still nothing to be said however, no new insights. After I drove her back to her studio where, in continued silence, she sat in front of her laptop with a blank face of exasperation, I dared to ask if there was anything more I could do. Make any phone calls, do her laundry, advice? Anything to stay longer, to hear even a word from her lips. What could I say, I wondered, to get her to tell me her thoughts about this day and the last one, for her to tell me why she does this and where her real job snuck its way in between, what she saw in me and why I was always there for her and being paid handsomely for barely doing a thing. Sometimes I was to clean her apartment because she couldn't concentrate with its being messy and sometimes a certain Indian spice was to fill the air so that she could use it for inspiration. Conversely, sometimes all she wanted was for me to be there, just exist. Leave the apartment a mess, because she couldn't concentrate with its being clean.

Mostly, though, my job was to take her places and that in particular was precisely the thing that made this gig worth my time and what made me feel like a viable resource. I was a part of that inspiration, I had to be. She could never go to any of these random places without watching me, without studying my interactions with our environment. Sometimes it was at a specific location in the midst of a hiking trail, or we'd be ordering a creme brulee at a fancy restaurant dressed in mini skirts and heels. Sometimes we'd absolutely have to do it again the next day because this day we didn't do it right, to which I could only laugh at my never-ending enjoyment of her random presence in my life. This is what I am doing with myself, I would murmur as she'd fly back into her dream world.

Now as I stood next to her and she stared at her blank slate, the word pad in which she would create her masterpiece, I asked one more time if I could assist her with anything her heart desired. She jolted slightly as I had at last brought her out of her reverie, and turned to look at me with warm eyes. It was not at all the look I remembered earlier, the sharp look that made me feel like I was on a stage with a million eyes watching me. It was a look of affection, of consciousness, of self-awareness but also an air of mystery as though she were hiding something. She had never quite looked at me this way before and I wasn't sure which look I preferred, I found myself thinking as a chill wove sharply down my spine.

"Just be here tomorrow at nine," she said in the midst of my thoughts as she touched my face, bringing me back to peace. This was why I would always be bound to her, why my frustrations didn't matter anymore, why she was my home. She smiled because she knew.

"We'll be back as we were, right in the same place."