BLESSED - A Worthy Novel

†PROLOGUE† 0.5

Stooping down, I hurry and tie the shoelaces of my black leather Converse in the shade of my dark hotel room, careful not to wake my sister in the next bed over. Her little snores cutting through the silence a good asset to my escape. I sneak over to the bedside table and grab my wallet and hotel key, slipping them in to the pockets of my Ed Hardy hoodie. Tiptoeing over to the door, I turn the knob carefully edging open the door until I can slip out and close it behind me with a quiet slick.
The electronic hotel doors open automatically at my approach allowing the uncontainable outside heat to blow in to the hotel lobby. I step out in to the midnight summer air; the sound of distant music, cars driving by, and people still out and about reminding me I'm not the only one on a mission out this late. Turning down the sidewalk, I make my way toward the Marina.
***
National Harbor, Maryland.

This place will forever be etched in my mind as the place I met him. Him, that no mount of cliches could describe. I smile taking a moment to reflect on that. I've always heard there is a time and place for everything, but I've never been more sure about that until I met him.
I remember the first night my family and I arrived here. We met up to walk the pier and somehow I ended up walking independently watching the setting sun drop behind the city silhouette in the distance, my family somewheres behind me. Leaning against the banister, I watched the sky merge from gold to orange to indigo when a sudden awareness pushed at all sides of my mind, hastening the beat of my heart. I thought it was a panic attack coming on - I was known for having them - until I looked around to my right and a young man stared back standing with two other teens; another guy with short cropped dark brown hair, olive tan skin and green eyes and a girl, Indian, with deep copper skin, long ebony hair and blue grey eyes. The punk teens brown eyes bore a hole in to mine with a slight look of surprise, yet so sure, as if his recognizing me was everything, but couldn't be sure until now. If I hadn't felt so sure - I would have told him to take a picture, it lasts longer, but he was so (omit word here) hot.
His platinum blonde dyed hair stuck out in every direction, oddly reminding me of Cloud Strife. He really was like a character straight out of an anime - the animations my sister, Ashiya were so fond of. She would flip if she saw him. Filling out a black fitted tee and khaki cargo pants, his tall and toned build made him appear tough and hard to deal with his punk exterior. He smiled lightly and looked over to his male friend, who was talking to him and politely excused himself from his friends walking over to me.
Down the pier, I could hear my dad calling me having found me. I looked over to him and he waved for me to come along, ready to head on to where ever else. But I couldn't. My heart bucked for me to stay then I heard him speak.
"Hi," his smooth tenor greeted me.
I wasn't prepared for how that one word affected me.
"Hi," I breathed.
"Anisse!" I heard my younger sister scream my name.
"Anisse," I repeated curtly, knowing he already heard it from my baritone sister.
"I know -," he smiled, taking my offered hand and holding it, "I'm Arick," he introduced himself in a thick British accent.
His accent surprised me, despite him being Asian. It oddly made me think of those old Starbursts commercials with the Scottish Korean talking about contradictions, never having actually met or seen a British person of Asian descent.
"I know," I replied, halfway making fun of him.
He smiled seeming to enjoy my little jab at him and right there I felt as if destiny had been met.
***
I walked down the stone steps curtained with mosaic glass walls of smiling seamen meeting Arick near the bottom and take the open space beside him. He makes no move to acknowledge my presence, but stares ahead out on the water mourning taking over his eyes. I look out over the Marina myself seeing the boats docked, moon glittering off the water and the twinkling lights from the city off in the distance. It's dark and barren now of people, except for one late night straggling couple passing by. I lean my head on Arick's shoulder and instantly he puts an arm around me.
"I don't want to do this." I hear him say, his voice vulnerable and whispery with emotion.
"I don't want to do this, either," I agree.
"You know we can't," Arick says objectively.
I turn my head and look at him.
"We're not ready where we are right now," he says, not willing to look at me.
I don't say anything. My mind is a jumble of what if's, who's to say, screw what we said when we started this, but - he's right. I was leaving for California tomorrow and he for Ireland. No matter how hard we fell for each other, this couldn't last. No more sneaking away from the hotel during the family meet-ups to see Arick. No more dancing to the AM at the restricted night club at the top of Arick's hotel. No more hanging with him, Renin and Kahr on their families boat. No more seeing any of them. Now I'm left in the aftermath of that blast. Arick takes ahold of my hands in my lap and intertwines them in his own. I look down at our interlocked hands and can't help - can't help, but think that this could be forever. We could stay like this forever. No having to leave for continents neither of us want to go to without the other; No heartbreak. I look up at him and he peers up from our hands with a smile.
"You will never be too far, where I can't find you."
You liar, I think with a derivative laugh. Tears prick behind my eyes and I smile trying to push them away the bubbling sob in my throat threatening to escape. I think about how good it would feel to just let go, then -
"Please," I beg through my tears, gripping his hands harder and I want to slap myself for sounding so needy. "Please, I- "
And Arick just smiles, moving in closer, and pulls my hair over my left shoulder. He leans in and I can feel his breath near the back of my neck, then the delicious sting of pain.