They had met just yesterday. In the Principle’s office.  Two juniors, seventeen.  Kicked out of school, out of two different classrooms, for praising selfishness. Each had not known of the other’s existence.

A faint bit of light almost whispered a poem of almost cheer over the eastern foothills. One minute passed, and then another, and the almost became real and the poem was seen, was heard in the eyes that held it, till the listener rose and stood and spread her arms out, smiling an echo with her whole body, and the dawn spoke on her forehead, and he, lying on his back down in the dark, opened his eyes and heard the slow-soft beginning of joy, saw the innocent triumph of the waking day to come, and the gentle, silent poem of the end of night.

He rose straight up, as into the poem, to stand beside her, and they turned face to face, and as their lips almost spoke together the edge of the sun lightly edged the hills. And then, they did.

He said, looking at her dark eyes, “You’re so beautifully selfish.” She, reaching a hand around his hips, said, “Yes l am.”