The Smile Collector

I noticed her before I even knew I was looking.

She stepped out of the bookstore on Elm Street, arms full of poetry volumes. Their spines were cracked, their covers soft with years of love. In her other hand, a paper cup steamed, the scent of bitter coffee cutting through the city's noise. She moved with calm assurance, not hurried but purposeful, as if the world had agreed to move at her pace. Her eyes, dark and unwavering, carried a quiet gravity. And her mouth—God, that mouth—tilted into a smile that stopped me mid-step. She offered it to an old man feeding pigeons, and it felt like the sun breaking through clouds. Warm, unguarded, and entirely disarming.

I stood across the street, my journal a weight in my coat pocket, my heart stuttering in a way it hadn’t in years.

I wasn’t obsessed. I was captivated. Drawn to her like a moth to a flame, not to possess, but to understand.

The first time I felt this way was at seventeen. Emily. She used to sit by the library window, sketching flowers into the margins of her notebook. She had this way of tilting her head when she laughed, like she was sharing a secret with the sky. I never spoke to her. I just watched from across the room, trying to sketch her expression when the sunlight touched her cheek. That summer, she moved away. I never saw her again, but I kept the sketches. I kept the echo of her smile.

This one, though, became a ritual.

Each afternoon, she left the bookstore and wandered the city. She paused at the corner of Fifth and Maple to listen to street performers, ordered black coffee with no sugar at the café on Rose Avenue. She always sat by the window, her posture straight, her neck tilted slightly like a painting in motion. I would sit in the back corner, sketching her from memory. Always memory. Never photos.

I learned the curve of her lips, the way her fingers danced across the edges of her books. One evening, I lingered too long outside her building and memorized her door code. Four, seven, two, nine. I memorized her smile.

At night, I lay awake replaying the way she walked, the way her hair shifted when she turned. I imagined sitting across from her, laughing over shared lines of poetry, her eyes meeting mine, her voice filled with recognition.

When I was twenty-two, there was Clara. A barista near my apartment. Always humming softly while she worked. Her smile was shy, like an apology for being noticed. I sat at the counter sketching her hands, her quiet rhythm. We spoke sometimes, about the weather or music. Then one day, she was gone. A new job, they said. But her smile stayed in my journal, a souvenir of almost.

This one was different. Her smile wasn’t just warm. It was alive, like a spark behind glass. I drew her constantly. Her eyes, her hands, the way her hair curled near her jaw. I followed her sometimes, from a distance. Just enough to feel tethered. I told myself it wasn’t stalking. I was an artist. She was my muse.

One evening, I found myself outside her building. Her windows glowed with soft light. I imagined her inside, curled up with a book, barefoot, peaceful. My fingers brushed the journal in my coat. I imagined knocking. Saying her name. Hearing it on her lips.

There was Daniel too, when I was twenty-five. A guitarist outside the subway. That crooked smile, full of secrets. I sketched his hands, the glint in his eyes when he played. We talked once. Twice. Then one winter, he vanished. Maybe he moved. But I kept his joy in graphite and ink.

I followed her for weeks. Careful. Distant. Thursdays meant poetry readings. Fridays, tea instead of coffee. Saturdays, a walk through the park at dusk. Her coat swung gently at her knees. I filled my journal with her. Notes, sketches, shadows. I told myself it was harmless. Reverence. Art.

I began dreaming of her. Not in romantic ways, exactly, but in quiet moments. Sitting beside me. Smiling. Eyes full of understanding. I would wake with my heart hammering, my hands reaching for charcoal.

The last one before her was Lily, the librarian. Quiet and patient. Her smile was like a promise kept. I spent afternoons in the library, pretending to browse while sketching her movements. The way her hand hovered over spines before making a choice. One day, she transferred to another branch. But I had her still, captured in lines and shading.

The night I chose was moonless. The sky above the city stretched black and wide. She took her usual path home. I followed, my journal in one pocket, a blade in the other. Not for her. Just a habit. Protection. The streets were quiet. The air thick with the weight of coming rain. She turned down an alley. A shortcut she sometimes used.

I stepped closer.

My hand brushed the blade. Not out of malice, but instinct. I was going to speak. To reach out.

“I was hoping it’d be you,” she said.

I froze.

Her voice was low. Smooth. Deliberate. She turned, eyes locking with mine. Calm. Knowing. Something in her gaze cut through me like ice.

“You’ve been watching me,” she said, stepping closer. “But I’ve been waiting for you.”

My breath caught. My hand tightened. Not to hurt her. Just to hold on to something.

And suddenly, I knew.

I wasn’t here to know her.

I was here to take her.

Emily hadn’t moved away. I followed her one night. My hands trembled as I pressed the blade to her throat. Her smile was soft. Forgiving.

Clara didn’t get a new job. I found her behind the coffee shop, her shy smile still lingering.

Daniel, in the subway tunnel. Lily, in the library basement.

Thirty-two smiles.

All mine.

I raised the blade.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered. Not to her. To myself. To the version of me that thought it was love.

She moved first.

Pain lanced through my gut. I looked down. A sliver of black obsidian was buried to the hilt. She twisted it once, clean and cruel. My knees gave way. The knife fell from my hand.

“You think you’re a collector,” she said. Her voice was soft. “But you’re just part of the shelf.”

She pulled a book from her coat. It was thick, bound in dark leather. She opened it. My face stared back at me, sketched in charcoal, beside dozens of others. Names. Dates. Smiles.

The world blurred, but I could still see her. I could still hear her.

“Do you want to see the first smile?” she asked. “The one the universe made when it was born?”

I collapsed.

When I opened my eyes, I wasn’t in the alley.

I was in a mirror. My reflection wasn’t mine.

I tried to scream. No sound came. I smiled, but it was her smile now, wearing my face like a mask.

She walked away. Her steps light. Her shadow disappearing into the dark.

And I remained. Trapped behind glass. A ghost. A sketch. A smile.

I see the others now. Emily. Clara. Daniel. Lily. All lined up beside me. All grinning.

She let me follow her.

She knew I would come.

And now she is out there again. Poetry books in her arms. Coffee steaming in her hand. Waiting for the next one.

Waiting for the next smile.