Mimicry

I like to mimic him. When he turns his head just so, I do the same. I try to follow him from every angle, every tilt of his head. He moves so gracefully, in wide arcs, unlike the way I move. My movements are like light and his are like sound, and it is delicious to slow and follow instead of dart and flee.

I’ve followed Jensen longer than any other human. When I first saw him, he was small, and I followed him out of curiosity. He liked to run and to be in the sun. I stuck to walls, then, afraid of what might happen if I allowed my body to ooze onto the ground. But when I saw him, saw the way he moved and heard the voice he spoke in, I knew that all I wanted was to follow him. And I have.

He moves his head again, dips it down towards the woman, and my chest grows heavy. She is thin, but not ghastly. Her hair billows around her in a halo that I will never have. It’s the hair I want the most. They all have that same hair. Long and flowing. What must it feel like? To have hair. To be held. To have Jensen.

Jensen has never touched me. He’s never even seen me. He is light and color and I am shadow and darkness. I can’t stop looking at him, but his eyes never rest on me, even when I am tangled with his own shadow. Jensen’s eyes never reach my body, and I am too afraid of frightening him to manifest myself. My people have never had luck with humans and corporeality, and I cannot be the source of Jensen’s perceived insanity. I love him too much.

Instead, I trace the edge of his jaw. I slip down the curves of his fingers. I watch his jaw meet hers.

And I mimic.