The boy had seen her, of course. He was staying at a hotel with his family- and over a day of that would have most teenagers begging for any kind of social interaction with similarly aged people; even if it was only imaginary.
Having only seen her, he wasn’t ready for the second of eye contact that sprung up on him when he caught her face-to-face, standing by the buffet table. He panicked. Though to say that that was his initial reaction wouldn’t be entirely true.
She had straight, blonde, perfect hair. Her big, brown eyes were rimmed with eyeliner, and they stared straight back at him. Everything about this girl screamed that she had found what she was looking for, whether it was on TV, or the Internet, or a magazine, and she had taken it, and owned it. And because of this, he felt an emotion that was a cross between disgust and disappointment, that halfway through that second, almost lapsed into anger.
Then he remembered panic, and the near-anger faded away into ambivalence and into that hair-raising feeling he should’ve been experiencing. Frantically searching his mind for some sort of action, he raised the right side of his mouth a fraction, raised his eyebrows, and walked off to where the drinks were, as slowly as he could.
And as the first half of the second was the disgust-into-anger and the second half was panic, so the next second was devoted to a mild curiosity. As he had turned away he had seen her talk to a dark-skinned Asian man. He wondered to himself. Does she know him? Are they related? Is she just asking some random guy something?
Walking back to his table with a plate in one hand and a glass in the other, he scanned the nearby tables, searching to see if she sat nearby. Sitting down, he ate, ignoring the breakfast conversation and thinking, thinking, thinking.
Finishing his food, he grabbed a key card and headed back to the room. Keeping an eye out, he was rewarded for his efforts when he saw her at a full table, on a lower level. Walking down the stairs he noticed that everyone else at her table appeared to be Indian.
He walked past them as slow and as fast as he dared. After walking through the doorway he came to a halt. He turned around, staring past the concierge-type person at the girl. Her profile was lit up by the bright morning sunlight streaming through the window, and she looked silent and out of place.
Heading towards the growing crowd by the elevator, he hoped that he would bump into her again; he didn’t know what he would do if he did, but- he wanted to. And never did.
3 comments:
i had to write this thing twice. TWICE! agh. computers. i'd say i hate technology if it wasn't the source of me, the writer, getting the writing to you, the reader.
"Everything about this girl screamed that she had found what she was looking for, whether it was on TV, or the Internet, or a magazine, and she had taken it, and owned it."
i like the way you worded this.
why is he angry/disgusted? is it because he wants what she has? or is because she's so generically "perfect" and he knows that there's more that meets the eye but she's hiding from it. seems as though she's a babe and yet he sees thatshe's out of place in the end. hmm..
haha interesting that all the people she's with are "international."
cataclysmic curiousity.
and she.
lovely seeming.
is bursting at the seams.
with something.
that could be.
{cataclysmic. catastrophic?}
seemingly bent.
on disaster.
and the clay-man
is marking circles.
prodding here.
there adding curiosity.
bicycling through
the perfection.
half-angry
mild rancor.
at her belongings.
Post a Comment