That Girl

I was always a believer in love. But at 18 years old, being five foot ten inches tall with sandy brown hair and a rather skinny physique, it was kind of hard to picture myself with anyone. Apart from my occasional casual relationships and the drama associated with them, I led a very boring existence. Actually, the only thing that made me stand out from any of the other normal was my striking hazel eyes. My mom used to tell me they would help me with the ladies, but I had long since ceased to believe her.

When I was 17, I had lost my virginity to a girlfriend (who will be named C for privacy reasons) whom I didn't love. I know many people have terrible experiences with their first time having sex and while mine wasn't the best, I didn't regret doing it, I just didn't feel anything after it was over. I didn't feel any different than normal after we were done; I didn't even look at her any differently than I had before. A few months later, after a few more times of having sex and a boring relationship, we broke up with each other, going our different ways.

This did not bother me, I had been single before and knew what to expect, but what I did not expect was how I would feel a couple months later after scrolling down my Facebook and noticing she was dating someone else. It wasn't so much that I was jealous, but it did bother me that she had moved on so quickly while I hadn't even thought about being with anyone else. After that, I started to think about how lonely I had become; I had stopped going out with my friends and even really talking to people. I was certainly not at my best. So when my mom suggested that our family go on a cruise for spring break during my senior year in high school, I gladly accepted.

This is where my story begins. We got on the cruise ship around noon on a Sunday in March and the first thing I did was to go find food. When I got to the buffet, I was awed by all the options for different types of food. I filled a plate and sat down on the back of the boat watching the busy port and thinking about the trip. I figured I would start out by going to one of the hot tubs on the boat to see if I could meet people my age to hang out with for the week. I went down to the bottom of the boat to find my cabin and threw on my swimming trunks. Saying bye to my mom, I walked out the door and took one of the eight elevators back up to the top deck of the boat where the hot tubs were. As soon as I found one with people my age in it, I slunk into the warm water and introduced myself to the group of girls there. I found out their names were Dana and Nigel, two teens from Canada who came on the boat with their families and each other as a couple. Dana was a fairly attractive mid-height girl with a tiny waist and a favorable pair of legs which told me she hit the gym quite often and Nigel was a strongly-built hockey player at his high school. After a little while of getting to know each other, they politely excused themselves to go prepare for the formal dinner being held that evening around the time we would set sail.

I decided to stay in the hot tub and allow the water to soak through my skin and pull out all of my stress and my worries caused by school and my own thoughts. Around the time dinner started the deck became like a ghost town and with every one inside I began to stare into the sky, reflecting on my thoughts. I was so wrapped up in my thoughts that I didn't even notice her until she splashed into the water next to me, startling me. I was about to say something until I looked at her. The words caught in my throat like a fish struggling in a net. She was beautiful. Not the kind of beautiful that socially awkward kids spend dimly-lit nights peering into their computer screens at, or the kind of beautiful that is found in advertisements which are only given through hours of photo-shop and a mask of makeup. No. She was beautiful in the very way she looked at me for the first time. I couldn't get past her eyes; dark brown and richer than the wealth of kings, with a look of sadness wrought by tears from experience.

It took me a few seconds before the net in my throat broke and the words jumped free. But they weren't words. More like the sound you hear when someone is choking; guttural and pathetic. This made her laugh, clear and bright as glass of wine, reverberating in my ears like a song I had heard too many, but not nearly enough, times. And then she was smiling, and I was too. I had made myself look like an idiot to this goddess, but I was perfectly happy with that. Wait... I was happy. It had been so long since I had felt, that I didn't even know it was still possible. But it was and I was also.

A billion thoughts flashed through my mind in an instant, and I knew what infinity was. 5 seconds of giddy silence later I decided it was time to say actual words. I opened my mouth to speak... Unfortunately she had the same thought at the same time too. After that awkward introduction I said the most intelligent sentence of my life. "Hi."