It can be the flash of a camera, rather than the steady lights of a stage. It doesn't need to be six novels long, trying to record how a frown became a smile. It can simply be the quirk of the corner of a pair of lips. A focus on the blossom of a secret grin. Ignore the surroundings, the hands, the feet, the other people. Just the one set of lips, shining with petal pink lip gloss, off-white teeth peeking from behind. The slight dimple forming on one cheek. Perhaps, perhaps, the crinkle of an eye, sparkling and warm.
I don't need to write that the lips are smiling because of X and Y and Z, in that order or maybe not. I don't need to write that the hands are clasped to a locketbookflowerforkwaterbottle of indefinite shape. It needn't take 672 pages to tell the whys-whos-wheres-whats-whens.
It takes as much skill to tell all that in 15 pages.
This is perfect.
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