The Book of Plot Twists

Derailed

If there was one regret I had about my life, it was the fact that I never celebrated Christmas. This joyous holiday filled the hearts and souls of nearly every human being in the world...except me. Now, it wasn't exactly my fault that I didn't celebrate it as a kid. When you're eight, you don't get a lot of say about your life. But when I became an adult and moved out two years ago, I still neglected the celebration. I wanted to have a giant, colorful Christmas Tree with silver wrapped presents underneath, believe me, there was just no one to do it with. And what's the point of a holiday if there is no one there to experience it with you?

Then again, I could have celebrated Christmas, but I broke. I could have had someone, I just chose not to. See, being social wasn't exactly number one on my to-do list. When I moved out of my small hometown and across the country to make it as a professional singer, I realized that the only reason I had any friends was because there weren't many other options. In a population of 2,000 (1,200 of them being families with small children), it was not hard to fall into the trap of trusting what you know. What I knew was baseball players and basketball cheerleaders. Never expanding my connections further than the 700 students at my school.

Then I packed up my small collection of band posters and their accompanying records and headed over to the biggest city in the country without any guidance whatsoever. I was officially out of my comfort zone...
And that was about as far as I would ever go.

My music career went nowhere and people in New York were just about as nice as you'd expect them to be. All except this one person.

"Can you help me? I'm lost." The first kind words anyone had spoken to me in three months and they were coming from the voice of an angel. I spun around to face the most beautiful girl I had ever laid my eyes upon.

"Uh, sure. Where are you trying to get to?" I responded with ease. She smiled vibrantly and thanked me for my help.

"I've asked so many people but everybody ignores me!" She exclaimed.

I chuckled. "Yeah, the city can be like that. Lucky for you, I come from the south and actually know what manners are."

That earned me a laugh. There was nothing more beautiful than the eccentric sounds escaping her lips.

"Well I've never had a bad hair day, so I am pretty lucky. I was actually supposed to meet my sister at Lombardi's Pizza but I don't really know where that is?"

I beamed from the inside out. Lombardi's Pizza. It was on my way to work at Thieu's Produce, which was where I was walking to now. 

"I'm actually heading that way. If you want, I could show you there?" Every part of me hoped that she would say yes. I had never actually spoken to a girl who didn't automatically know everything about my family and I was pretty excited about that. Maybe if she went with me, I could finally have a reason for staying in this God-awful city.

She grinned, glad I had suggested it like it was what she was secretly hoping to hear all along. "That would actually be fantastic."

I was bursting with joy as we started our twenty minute walk. I expected to find a lot in NYC, but she was not one of them. It was a pleasant surprise. 

We talked about many different things on our walk. She told me that she was from Gainesville, Florida and that her older sister had moved out here a few months ago for college. I told her where I was from and that I had moved out here to accomplish the dreams of everything I was told I couldn't do. She smiled at me with her piercingly red lips and violently white teeth. Every time I saw it, it felt like I had been given a gift. Something so valuable that I had to protect it at all costs because someone was bound to come and take it away.