One of the things that Julia loved about Jamie was the way such beautiful things seemed to spill out of him whenever she least expected it.  Though she should learn to expect it all the time, the thought.  It was as though he was full up with liquid loveliness that overflowed at the brim whenever he moved, like an overfull glass of milk balancing on a tray.  She knew of Keats of course, and had even read him, though she might not have known anything about him if it weren’t for the way Jamie talked about him, like he was beauty itself.  

Julia smiled.  She shifted back around to face the piano, and let her fingers trace lightly over the keys without pressing them.  “You aren’t twenty yet,” she said.  “Twenty is old.”  She started in on a mindless children’s tune, eventually transitioning into another piece from last summer’s lessons.  She always liked Jamie’s songs, and she was fairly certain that she wasn’t the only one.  Most of them were love songs, and she suddenly wondered if other people thought that the songs were all written about her.  Did her classmates hear those songs and think that he sang about their secret love relationship?  Did they think Jamie and Julia snuck off to the music room to fool around with eachother instead of with the piano and the guitar?  Julia could feel herself blushing and bit her lip, trying to concentrate on the music, which was getting worse and worse as she went along.  

“You just need proper inspiration,” she said after a while.  “You need some real romance to write about.  Somebody to get really sappy and heartbroken over.  It would be good for you.”



Life unfolds in proportion to your courage.