A Night in the City

intro.

When I first met her, I thought for sure God had decided to bless me. That day three years ago, on the beach. She was there on Spring Break and I was there skipping school. I was walking the pier above, looking over the water when she caught my eye. A flash of black hair, a sky-blue swimsuit against dark skin. I nearly fell over the railing as I peered to see more. Her toned and golden body glistened in the water, her smile was so bright, my life lit up instantly. I hadn't even known it was so dark. She was purely angelic. She ran, her and her friends. They ran into the water, holding hands, screaming like children when they crashed into the waves. I was mesmerized. It felt like I was in another dimension, as if I were watching a tv show or a movie. And she was the star. She made even the simplest movements look effortlessly beautiful, a hair flip, chewing gum, or just laying out on her towel. I'm not sure how long I stood there, in a trance, before she yelled up at me.

"Are you gonna stand there and gawk at me all day?"

I was stuck. I could've just walked away. Speedily. Probably never would've seen-- her again. I'd been caught. But I had the confidence to say something back.

"You want me to come down there? Bet the view is better up close." My voice came out smooth and non-wavering, but my heart was rattling in my ribcage.

Her eyebrows rose, and a cheeky smile crept onto her face.

"Come down here and find out."

A moth to a flame. That's me. From that moment on, I was hooked like a crack addict. Every waking moment of her Spring Break there I was. Eventually, she had to go home. She was from a small town in Utah, she'd never seen a beach. Or a skyscraper. Her life's dream was to move to New York City. No farms, no manure smell.

The idea personally made me sick, there weren't any beaches in NYC. And it was always cold. At the time, my eyes were set on being a professional football player. As the quarterback for my high school team, I was a classic show off, but I was damn good. Plenty of Florida colleges offered me scholarships, full rides on football alone. At the time I was considering the University of Florida. But when I graduated high school, she asked me to move with her. To New York City, just her and me. After only seeing her through a phone screen for months, it sounded like heaven to me. Who needed football when I could have her all the time? Yes, I hated the cold, but I could get used to it. I would, for her. My dad set me up with a corporate job in New York.

My mother tried to talk me out of it, day by day.

"Alex, please don't destroy your future like this." She whispered this in the middle of dinner one night. Our evenings were usually boisterous and playful, but since I had announced my plans with her, dinner had become a bleak affair. You could hear a pin drop, and my mother's whispered plea was the loudest pin I had ever heard. I stared at my meatloaf and green beans and said nothing at all. I could feel three disappointed stares pointed at me, and the tension in the room locked my jaw. My sister, my usual companion and comrade, was glaring a hole into my face. Violet never hid her feelings, and she was quite transparent about this situation from the jump.

"You gonna say anything dumbass?" She was stirring her spoon in her iced tea, loudly clanking. It didn't need to be stirred, she fidgeted when she was angry. I always believed it was to avoid throwing objects or fists.

"Vi watch your language, we're at the dinner table." My father's voice was gruff, he always talked like he had a cold. He was a man of minimal words, so when he spoke everyone paid attention.

"Dad, really? You're worried about my language when your son is giving up a free education for some girl he just met? Newsflash, Alex. You don't know this chick. Just because y'all Facetime and text 24/7 doesn't mean you know her. You've fallen for the person she's let you see, but what about the girl she's hiding? Hm? Is that girl worth moving a thousand miles away from everything you know? Worth jeopardizing your future?"