He tipped his hat and smiled. I faltered and gripped my fan more tightly, stationed to my space as though struck by an arrow: moving in either direction would only rip the sudden wound. I watched him pass and felt my breath even.

If only for the moment. 

I'm not what you think I am, the idea came to mind faster than I could acknowledge it. He'd accented his archery with that smile men do, that face that leads the faint of heart to believe perhaps he'll come calling, perhaps he'll take my hand.

The face that heartache comes to know is just the face of man.

I am not some flower fit for picking, though I carry myself in that way. I am not timid and scared and cowering in hopelessness, my feeble heart thumping softly on the cushion in my grasp, waiting a knight to tear through the door and restore me to my heavenly glory of life and beauty and then like thousands of purified angels receive the trump that I am of worth and astounding.

I would not object to man being that way. I would not object to surety and action. It is not a self conscious mind that lends me to seek a heart to keep and to carry, a soul to capture and with which grow old; it is a confidence that with the depth I am capable of loving, one too will come around desiring the same.

But men are not knights, not from the beginning. Men must tip their hats and pass, dropping that look like breadcrumbs they expect me to follow on a mad self-conscious chase for romance. I watch his figure disappear and fling my fan open. I am not afraid, I am not concerned. I am open and waiting for the knight to knock in the door. 

I am expectant of one who does not merely feign confidence as so many gentlemen do. I await the one who awaits a fellow heart with the surety I do.