By Chance

2 - Genevieve

We spent the entire plane ride reminiscing on memories, mistakes, trials, tribulations, and outcomes. If I haven't said enough already, I am Genevieve Grant. I'm 19 and hail from the U.S. state of Massachusetts. I've never been outside of the country before, and I have been aching for this sort of adventure since I realized that the continent I lived on wasn't the only one out there begging for exploration. It's just my mom and me, but we get along fine. As for my dad, that's a story for another day. But back to the current story. Our plane touched down at our first stop, England, at around one o'clock in the evening.

We felt the aches and pains of the last journey and took a few minutes to stretch our legs before gathering our belongings. When we were finished, we made our way through security and began to get our luggage. Mine, however, was quite stubborn. I pulled with all my might, but the tag wouldn't come out of the underside of the conveyor belt without a great fight. My battle between bag vs man must have been noticed among the current bystanders because the sudden presence of a young man was now beside me. He startled me, but his looks surprised me even more because he was absolutely breathtaking.

"Can I help you with that?" he politely asked while I snapped myself out of my shameful girlish trance.

"Uh-yeah," I managed to stupidly get out while starting to be weak in the knees.

There was never a time where I've never mentally facepalmed myself more. As he was doing the same things I tried moments before, I ignored my friends, who pretended not to know what was happening whenever I looked their way.

The young man had curly brown hair with eyes that matched and seemed around my age. He was only a tad taller than me, and his slim figure completed his 'string bean' essence. His accent, however, was a completely different story. He was obviously from England, and I couldn't determine the precise location, but I could tell you that it really does things to the female mind.

Upon hearing it, I thought I would swoon like a 14-year-old girl at a Justin Bieber concert and fall over onto the airport floor. All this girly screaming going on inside my teenage, immature mind brought up something that has remained 'inactive' until now. When on the topic of love lives, I really didn't have anything to compare it to. I've just never really been too interested in someone to date them.

But recently, upon turning 19, I've pondered the thought of finding someone to share life with more and more. But alas, here I was, getting way too ahead of myself (not like that was anything new). He was a complete stranger who just wanted to help me, and I was a puddle of goo upon seeing the man whose name I didn't even know. I seriously needed to get a grip. My eyes diverted to my rather loud piece of luggage hitting the ground beside me with a hard thud, startling me.

"There ya go, love!" he huffed as he let go of the heavy suitcase. I did a double-take as I heard the name, then remembered it was normal for people to call each other that here and it didn't mean they were in love with you...unfortunately.

"Thank you!" I told him gratefully, still shocked he was able to get it detached from the conveyor belt. I bent down to pull out the handle and was greeted by his outstretched hand.

"Hi, I'm Harry." He smiled, causing my mind to mentally faint as I could feel my knees nearly buckle. After shaking his hand, I felt wobbly once more but was quick to stabilize my mildly shaking legs for the final time.

"I'm Genevieve," I introduced timidly, trying to conceal my sudden lovestruck admiration for a random guy. How could a person be so good-looking and sweet? I barely knew him. Heck, I don't know him at all.