Chapter 1
Since the beginning of time I have been called many things.. But the one that remains constant is the one you (humans) have given me... Love. I am nothing more than a presence, a spirit. I have no form or body.. I am simply a force..
I have had heard many stories and seen many great passions fulfilled in my name. I am here now to tell you the story of a great love that has passion, closeness and perhaps the worst case of bad timing that I have ever seen....
Timing, another force that I know very well... We work closely together and plot the overall stories of the lives of you humans.
Scott was a very interesting case indeed. He believed so valiantly in me that it almost was like a religion. I will now tell you the greatest story that I have ever witnessed... The case I like to call, “Love between here and Fort Worth.”
They say that love comes to you at it’s own time. That no matter what the situation, if you’re suppose to be each others soulmates, love never happens on our time. The time was seven-thirty in the morning, the flight was boarding.
December 12, 2010... Scott had three things on him at the time he arrived at the Saint Louis airport. One was his boarding pass that would take him to Fort Worth Alliance Airport... The second was a check for five hundred thousand dollars, written to him by his publisher. His book was about to be finished and he had plans... Third, a ring... The ring that set him back twenty-thousand dollars and four nights of sleep to pick it out.
“Now boarding Flight 780 to Fort Worth, Texas.” the intercom came on and announced to the surprising amount of people in the airport at so early in the morning. Scott got his ticket out of his faded denim jacket that he had bought the day before. He wanted to look good for the occasion...
“Here you go, mam.” Scott said as he handed the ticket over to the lady at the podium. Scott looked her over and wondered how old she could possibly be. Scott had this wonderment about him. He wanted to know why things are or will be. The woman looked like she could possibly be in her early thirties, but time has been unkind. He looked at the name on her badge, “Rose.” That was her name? Scott only thought that was a name author’s would use in a story about an old woman or one that doesn’t know how to share a door as a flotation device... He shook his head and kept wondering in the long hall that led him to the plane.
Scott did this a lot. He would watch his mind wonder and go off on this random thought process that would take him away from the idea or ideas at hand.
When he finally got to the plane, he walked through the big door of the passenger 747 and looked around to see his company for the next hour and a half.... Scott was surprised to say the least that the flight time was so short, but as he looked at his ticket the expected flight time was a little under an hour and a half.
Now, I probably need to let you know at this point... Scott is very young at this certain point in his life... He had the three things I mentioned and he was bright eyed, walking on to an air plane to fly a long way from home... He was eighteen and about to be nineteen in a month.. He was always doing things that seemed irrational to others... He knew what he wanted at this early point in his life.. Eighteen! Wow...
Anyway back to the situation at hand... Should we talk about the three things real quick? The boarding pass... He purchased this ticket about six hours ago, very last minute. He struggled, in his mind for the last couple days, if he should even attempt the grand gesture. But, it’s our hero, and we know full well, he was going to...
The second.... The check for half a million dollars, yes.. A lot of money to have on an eighteen year old boy. His book was about half a year away from being complete.. It was a great tale of love and lust... He based characters off his friends and his one true love. But, that isn’t this story.
He was a boring romantic in every sense of the word.. He believed that love was put here by the gods. Discovered by the select few that let their hearts break and bend to the over all will of love. Like I said, boring romantic.
The third and probably the only one you care about is the one that sits in the inside pocket of the denim jacket that he bought the day before.. The ring that cost a lot of money... He had thought about this, like I said for the last couple days.... He fell head over heels with her after one sentence after a movie and a kiss... They say that soulmates just get each other... That no matter how long or how far, they find each other.. They find each other in this vast, green and ever expanding world. Scott knew that his soulmate was on the back end of an hour and half flight.
So what did he do? He purchased a four carat ring, with a sapphire stone. There is probably a better way to describe the ring, but for our writer... It’s the only way he knew how to.
Now, I know you are asking a lot of questions... Who is this girl in Fort Worth? Why had he fallen so hard? How long did they know each other? Did she feel the same? All good questions.. They will all be answered as we take the journey from St. Louis to Fort Worth.
He found his seat near the back of the plane.. He purchased and chose this seat on purpose.. He wanted to sit and think... He needed to think. He sat down and got comfortable.
His mind started to wonder... It wondered so far, it took him to the first time he saw her.....
August 2008.... Scott was a junior in high school and was above all a Beatles fan... His hair is dirty blonde and he kind of resembled the thing that high school girls wanted in the nineties... Problem? He went to high school in the wrong age. Anyway, with our friend and grunge enthusiast.. Scott was headed down the hall to his AP History class when the gods first showed their plan to him.
The school was older than old.. Built in the 1920′s and not a whole lot of renovation since. They replaced the lockers every couple years... But, other than that it was a monument of the past. He got half way to his locker which was on the second floor of the three story building when he saw her.
She came around the corner as he turned his head... The moment that you see what you are meant to have, your legs become numb and your head starts to swivel around with millions of thoughts.. For Scott his legs in fact did go numb, but there were no thoughts... No.. There was one thing in his mind when he saw her.... The Beatles... Their song, “Here comes the sun,” started playing in his mind. Time, when you first see her, stops... The only thing moving and that matters at all, are you two. What the universe doesn’t share with you, is that after the time has started again and you come out of your trance.. Time catches up.
He focused on her and once again time stood still.. She wore a red shirt with blue denim jeans and her hair was flowing down her
back.. He remembers seeing the brown eyes for the first time, intoxicating. Her skin seemed perfect, the kind of smoothness that you only see in the movies, it was perfect.. But, Scott was not focusing on that. He was still looking at those brown eyes...
Finally, time caught up.. RING! The bell alerting him that he was now late to class, woke him up from his amazement. No one was in the hall, she was gone and he thought he would never see her or get the chance just to talk to her. He was wrong.. Anyway that was the first time that our hero realized that the stuff he believed in was real.
Back to the airplane.....
“Sir, would you like a drink?” The good looking woman asked as she tapped him on the shoulder awakening him from his daydream. Scott looked over at her and nodded his head yes. “What would you like, hon”? She said.. Scott noticed the nice southern drawl that graced her speech.. Scott was a southern boy.. Born in Louisiana and raised in the bottom of the bottom of Illinois, he too had a funny dialogue.. “Coke, please.” He said as he looked at her and grinned effortlessly.
Now, his mind skipped ahead a few months.. The first time he uttered any words towards her. The year was the same, 2008.. The months are now starting to get cold. November to be exact.
Scott was gliding through school with his usual ease.. He hates to admit it now, but he never tried.. Never thought he had to.. School, he never cracked his book, nor listened to his teachers.. It came naturally.. He had so much useless information and knowledge that he just knew.
His friend was named Edward. They would go together and ride around in Scott’s aged Chevrolet Trail Blazer with many others in the back.. Scott was always the driver and he delighted in the position he took.. He would sit in the front at the wheel and decide which road they took... The others would talk and joke and laugh... Scott would sit there with a smolder and brooding, why? No one ever truly knew, but that is the mysterious cloud that covered our good boy.
The day was November 13, 2008, about three months since Scott last had his time stopping event in the hallway by his locker.. Edward had called him and asked if he wanted to have their usual driving session.. He said yes, of course... Over the span of three hours in the Blazer they picked up three other people.. They were on their way to pick up the last. Scott never got the girls name in the hallway that day, nor did he tell anyone of the event. He thought if he said something, it was like chancing fate or bragging about what the gods of love had given him... So he said nothing.
“Who is this girl we are picking up?” Scott asked Edward. Edward had black hair and bags under his eyes for some reason.. He was skinny and had a weird presence about him. Scott, as he did from time to time, wondered why Edward had the bags under his eyes.. Did he not sleep? Did he do drugs? He shook his head... “Her name is Natalia” Edward said as he turned up the radio and started yelling the lyrics.
Scott was looking down at his phone at an article about music and how it helps with depression.. Was he depressed? Nah, just looking for some more useless information. The car door opened and closed.. Scott looked up and into the rear view mirror... And there she was.. Edward looked over at him and noticed a smile.. He would bring this up later and question Scott, but it has nothing to do with our tale.
As he looked back in the mirror another song started playing, but not in his head.. On the radio, the song “Hey Jude” starts playing.. The perfect song in the perfect moment. She was just as beautiful as that day three month ago in the hall. Her brown hair was still flowing, her skin had the nice glow. Her eyes? Still translucent and Scott got lost in them for a split second.
“Scott! Scott! Drive..” Edward shouted as he woke Scott up from the day dream. “Yeah, okay.” Scott said in a daze. Natalia started talking to the other people in the car including Edward.. Scott was just looking out the front of the car, navigating his way down the back streets of the town on Ashmore. His mysterious look on his face that most people knew at this point to write off as Scott being himself.
“Is he okay?” Natalia asked the other girl sitting in the back loud enough for Scott to hear. Scott looked back in the mirror to see what was going on... This is the first time that their eyes met.. The brown eyes of Natalia and the greenish-blue of Scott.. They met as Natalia asked the level of his sanity to the girl in the back just to the right.
The other girl giggled and leaned in to Natalia to whisper something. What she said to her, Scott never quite figured out, but whatever it was it made her smile.
Let’s skip ahead to the moment that matters.. The first time words were exchanged between the princess and the writer.. Time had flew and was time to take people home.. Edward came first, because they were the closest to his house... Then came the girl in the back to the right.. Then the next and the next, until.. Natalia and Scott were the only ones left.
“Can I come up there” Natalia asked in a voice Scott had always described as honey. Scott looked back in the mirror with his effortless grin. “If you want.” Scott said as he pushed his boyishly looking hair back out of his face.
After Natalia got in the front and got settled in, they drove off. The last girl lived off in the country. Scott noticed Natalia giving him a unusual stare.. Scott’s mind started to wonder... Was she having the time stopping moment right now? Was she just trying to figure out why he was so brooding?
“How old are you?” Natalia asked as she woke him up from the daydream.. Scott looked over at her and smiled again.. Those brown eyes could only be described as his kryptonite. “Seventeen.” Scott said only a single word. Natalia looked at him and smiled as she put her head down.. “Man of words.” Natalia said as she looked out the window.
Let set the mood for you.. Ashmore is set in the southern tip of Illinois... A lot of farmland and back wood roads... In November on that day in Ashmore it started to snow at 10:10 P.M. Illinois, dark and starting to snow... It was a night that seemed liked it was foretold by no one else but the ultimate decision makers... Love. Tonight was a night that someone, somewhere, would fall in love. It was not Scott and Natalia that night.
He got half way to her house when the next words were exchanged. “You believe in love?” Scott asked as he kept his stare fixed on the road. Natalia looked over at him in a gaze that looked like she was questioning what he meant. “You mean love in a general sense?” she questioned back. “No, love in the sense that it devours our souls and takes us over.” Scott said as he looked over at her and smiled.
“Sir, here is your cola.” the nice southern voice interrupted his dream as she handed him the can and a glass with ice. Scott nodded a thank you as he took the glass in his hands from hers.
Time, is a funny thing. Love and time go together so well, in fact, that they both have to be present for something to happen. If the timing is wrong, love cannot be permitted.... If timing is right, but there is no love, what’s the point? For Natalia and Scott timing was the enemy of a great story just waiting to be told.
Scott sipped on the cola as he looked ahead at the back of the seat in front of him. His mind went to the time he asked her out for the first time.
It was only a couple weeks after their first conversation in the Chevy that Scott got up the nerve to consistently consult her in day to day situations. It was now late December, close to winter break. I have never really understood why you humans insist on breaks from education. But, like I said, I’m just a presence, what do I know?
Scott was in the hallway and was walking to some form of class when he stopped and saw her at a locker. Her hair wasn’t flowing and her face was missing her usual smile.
“Are you okay?” Scott asked as he put his hand on the metal locker. He pushed his blondish brown hair out of his face and looked at her as he grinned his normal effortless smile. “No.” is all she said. Scott took his hand off the locker and motioned for them to start walking... “What is it?” Scott asked. She looked up at him and with those brown doe eyes said it all. He didn’t have to ask, he knew that something had happened that made her overall sad and all he wanted to do was make her smile. “What are you doing tomorrow night?” Scott asked as he stopped her and took her out of the way of traffic. She looked over at him with the same puzzled look that she had that first night it was snowing and they were having a conversation in the Chevrolet. “Nothing.” she said as she looked up at him and smiled.
Courage and love are basically the same thing. One makes a person do or say something that will either grant them what their desires or let them know they were not meant to have it. The other just gives you the right amount of chemicals that push you to do so.
“There is a movie... You want to go see it with me?” Scott asked and hoped against all hope that the answer is the only thing that he had hoped for. In the time that it took for her to look at him and for him to watch her.. Once again, time seemed to stop. “Yes.” is all she said as she walked off and to her class..
Love, sometimes, is simple.. But, other times it is so infuriating and confusing that the two participants in my ultimate game get lost and don’t understand. I am not something that needs to be understood, just obeyed. Scott went out of his way to not understand, but master me.
“We will be landing in Fort Worth in about twenty minuets.” the captain’s voice came on the speaker to announce... Enough of the wondering now.. He had twenty minuets before destiny would come knocking at his door. The ultimate question he had in his mind needed to be answered.. I was there with him on this day and I was surging through him like nothing I had ever done before.
Scott exited the plane and made his way with his three things resting in the pockets of that jacket. The first thing he thought of when he got on the plane was Edward’s words of advice to him before he went on his trip. “Do not do this... I can tell you she does not feel anything for you.” the voice echoed in his mind. He was on the escalator when another thought came into his head, “What if the answer is the exact one he didn’t want to hear? Or what if it was?” He walked out of the airport and onto the sidewalk... He could take a right and be at the doorstep of the one person that he knew would make him happy forever... Then again, he could take a left, cash the check and buy a quiet little place to finish his novel and regroup. He went left... For another time like many others, timing was not on their side.
