Silly Blunders

She sat sitting indian style with her chin resting in her hands. You could tell how involved she was in the crossword puzzle she tore out of the morning newspaper.

It was the only reason she ever bought a newspaper.

I pretended to get dressed, read email, change the light bulb that's been out for a few months now, but I was only wasting time to keep looking at her. I thought she had caught me at one point, and I'm not saying that I wasn't allowed to look at her...I just didn't want her to know how involved I was in her so soon.

"6 down, Consider an imaginary animal? Three words, letters are 4,2,4. Any ideas?"

I didn't understand the question but only because I was caught off guard.

She said it again, verbatim, "Crossword puzzle, Chris. 6 down, Consider an imaginary animal? Three words, letters are 4,2,4," but this time she said it with comedic impatience.

I asked, "Oh, well...do we have any letters helping us out?"

She motioned for me to come sit next to her on the hardwood floor. We meant to carpet it but we just never really got around to it.

She pointed to the puzzle to show me the letters, "I have a B, an R, and a D."

B _ _ R
_ _
_ _ _ D

The missing letters kind of seemed to fill themselves in for me.

"Consider an imaginary animal. Bear..in..mind. Bear in mind."

I'm not really sure why but it wasn't very hard for me to figure out the clue. I just assumed it was a lucky guess.

She held in a smile and wrote in the letters as she moved onto the next one, asking me for more help,"Ok, next one, Ones who never think of flying? One word, 10 letters, no letters filled in yet"

"Autopilot! I mean..autopilot." I couldn't control my excitement at another correct answer.

She looked at me again, suspiciously but content. She asked me if I did this puzzle before. I told her the truth and said, "No, I just think you and I are like a right hand and a left hand, ya know? One washes the other."

This time the look she shot me was the kind that agreed with me.

"See? That is why we keep each other around... to fill in the blanks," she followed.

I laughed and smiled but all I could think about was the time I spelt her name wrong minutes before she said goodnight.