The Girl
The first time I looked into his eyes, I knew nothing would be the same.
I didn’t know I knew it, the thought didn’t enter my mind. There’s an inner knowingness like goosebumps on shivering flesh in the cold. You just feel it.
I knew we were connected in some way. I had no idea how. He was someone I had never known but I had been waiting for him to come into my life.
It was a dull, gray Saturday afternoon, and I was wandering through the narrow aisles of Murray’s Record Store. I felt right at home between the tables with hundreds of vinyl records stacked into the crates. There were only a few other people browsing the store and someone involved in a hushed conversation at the register upfront with Murray himself. The lighting was warm and soft, and the melodic sounds of Sam Cooke were playing in the background. Whoever was DJ-ing the background music had moved from classic rock to soul about an hour ago.
I love spending my Saturdays like this. Saturdays are always sacred, since I spend most of Sunday dreading the thought of being back in school. Or hurriedly completing the homework due Monday.
It had been raining on and off all morning, which meant fewer people were wandering the streets of the downtown district. True, it also meant I’d have the worst time getting back home, but I chose not to think about the thirty-minute bus and ten-minute bike ride I’d have to go through just to get back to my house. Asha sure as hell wouldn’t have driven me down here, let alone pick me up. I had asked her that morning, knowing what her answer would be but somehow hoping for something different.
“If you want to waste your time doing who-knows-what in town, take yourself there.” She huffed, when I politely asked if she’d give me a ride.
“Couldn’t Dalton take me then?” I asked.
Asha snorted. “Like he’s your personal chauffer? Is he supposed to just drive you around to wherever you want to go?”
I frowned. “…Um…well…he is the chauffer.”
She only had to give me one of her signature looks and I shut the hell up. I really need to get my own car. And probably a license.
I heard the bell above the door to Murray’s jingle. I merely glanced up at the sound, absentmindedly looking to see who had come in or walked out of the store.
I froze when I saw him. I have no idea why. All I knew is that something came over me when he walked into the store, and suddenly I couldn’t move.
I barely took in his tall frame, the dark wavy hair that fell over his eyes, or the sharp facial angles of his olive skin. I hardly noticed his dark jacket and faded, grungy jeans. It was his eyes that captured my attention. Two grey orbs roamed over the store with a look in them to match the grim expression on his mouth. They didn’t seem particularly striking—I mean, eyes are eyes, right? But for some reason, when I looked at them, I felt as if I were looking at a familiar face. My brain tried to place a name to the face I was seeing, but every attempt came back blank. So that’s how it happened that I was just standing there, staring at this guy who was only about ten feet away from me, trying to decipher this strange connection I felt.
That was when he caught sight of me and we locked eyes.
It was like being hit by a jolt of electricity. I knew in that moment that I’d never met this guy before, but even then…I knew him.
I know what you’re thinking. Who doesn’t feel that way when they see a hot guy? And yes, he was technically attractive. But seriously, he’s not the first attractive stranger I’ve seen. I have NEVER reacted that way to any other face, or to any other guy. Which only made my reaction then more puzzling.
We might have been staring at each other for minutes or hours. It felt like never and forever wrapped in a second. I probably would have gone on staring at him too, but when he raised an eyebrow in my direction, I snapped out of the spell. All at once I came back to my senses, realizing just how strange I must have looked. My eyes widened and I snapped my head down, fixing my eyes on the box of records before me. My cheeks were warm with embarrassment. It was one of those moments that made me grateful my skin was the darkest shade of black. Ebony is great cover-up for blushing red.
My fingers were all numb as I continued to mindlessly sort through the records. I tried to recollect myself.
What just happened? I asked myself. Well…nothing honestly. I just got caught staring at some guy. That’s it. Right?
Why the hell do I feel like I just took a trip through time and space?
I frowned. I couldn’t think of an answer to that.
What? My brain demanded. What was it? Hormones?
My frown deepened. Okay that was dumb. I may only be sixteen, but I’m sure my hormones have pretty much stabilized by now. And there was no way anything biological could explain what just happened.
I sighed and brushed some of the long braids dangling in my face out of the way. I ordered myself to calm down and just forget about it. I saw a guy and stared at him. Big deal.
I tried to focus on sorting through the records again.
My eyes caught sight of a familiar name and when I read the title of the album they widened in excitement. Billy Ocean’s Love Zone stared up at me, like it had been waiting for me to claim it.
Yes, jackpot! I thought to myself in glee. It was one of thirty-something albums I had been on the lookout for. You never know what you’ll find in a used records store, so I felt pretty lucky that I had decided to come into town on that very day. Now I’d have something good to show for it. Ignoring the whole staring incident from earlier, the whole day went great.
Oh, crap…I inwardly sighed. I felt my excitement fade as that whole staring-thing came back to mind. How weird was that? What kind of person locks eyes with a stranger and then thinks to themselves, ‘He and I are destined to know each other?’ Me, apparently.
But it wasn’t something I could shrug off. Whatever I had felt in that moment…it was real. I knew it was real. Which only made it harder for me to just shrug off the encounter and move on with my life.
I sighed again, this time out loud, but softly. Best just pay for the album and head home before any other weird thing happens to me, I thought.
I plucked the record from the crate, tucked it under one arm and turned to leave.
“Oof!”
I yelped as my head rammed into the person who must have just walked up behind me. Whoever they were, they were tall enough that my head bumped right into their chest. And their body was firm enough that I stumbled back a few steps and collided with the table behind me, sending a whole crate of records tumbling to the floor.
The five people in the store, Murray included, all turned to look at me. I froze, with my arms outstretched over the pile of scattered records, paused in my useless attempt to stop my current disaster.
“Heh, heh…” I chuckled nervously, “…Oops…”
From behind the counter, Murray’s deadpan expression prompted me to crouch down and start frantically gathering the scattered records.
As I’m on the floor, wondering if there’s a crack on its surface large enough for me to crawl into, another person crouches down and picks one record off the floor. That’s when I realize who it was I bumped into—and who is technically responsible for my little mishap.
“You,” I say.
He looked down on me with eyes of a still ocean. I stared up into his face, transfixed by those eyes, and said nothing.
And that’s what it was for the next few seconds. He was staring down at me, I was looking up at him. My mind went blank, and he seemed to be waiting for me to finish the sentence I’d started.
Suddenly, he lifted a hand to my face. I wanted to flinch but in my static state I couldn’t. It was like slow motion as his hand moved closer and closer to me. I was frozen to the spot. I didn’t know what was happening. Was he going to touch my…hair? My cheek? Oh, god…my lips?!
Then he put one finger to my chin and pushed up, shutting my gaping mouth. Which had been hanging open all the time.
“If you’re not going to say anything, you don’t need to have that open for so long.” he said.
Finally, I gained control of my body. I swatted his hand away from me and stared up at him with a look of justified indignation.
“What the hell was that supposed to be?” I demanded.
He didn’t seem fazed by how angry I was. “I thought you might be stuck like that. I was just trying to help.”
I felt a rage boiling up inside me. Whatever effect of paralysis he had—that was over. I stood abruptly.
“I don’t think I need anymore of your help, thanks.” I said coldly.
He stood and faced me, still calm and unemotional. My eyes went from looking down at him to looking up. Way, way up.
“It kind of looks like you do,” He said.
I was about to retort when I noticed the record he was holding. It was my Billy Ocean album. He followed my gaze to the record in his hand and held it up to read it.
“This yours?” he asked.
“Please give it back,” I asked through gritted teeth.
He glanced at the Billy Ocean vinyl in his hand. “Great album,” he remarked, “I’ve been meaning to add this to my collection.”
I balked. “Huh? But…but that’s mine! I found it!”
“Did you? Cause I’m pretty sure I just picked it off the floor.”
“Because I just dropped it. Thanks to you.”
“How is it my fault you don’t look where you’re going?” the smallest smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth, “you know, if you spend less time staring and more observing your surroundings, I bet things like this wouldn’t happen.”
No. He. DIDN’T. The boiling rage inside me became white, hot flames.
“I found that album,” I said, “It’s mine. And I was NOT staring at you.”
I couldn’t miss the cocky in his tone when he said, “Who said anything about staring at me?”
I was quiet for a second before responding. “I—um, nothing. That’s nothing…I mean, it was nothing. I just looked up and you were there, okay? I wasn’t…looking at you or anything.”
Shit. I was still outraged. But I was also kind of embarrassed. What are you supposed to do when half of you wants to claw someone’s eyes out and the other half wants to run and hide and never see his face again?
The edge of his mouth turned up into a smirk.
“Sorry, kiddo,” he said, “This one’s mine. Good luck finding something else.”
I stood rooted to the spot while he turned away and walked to the desk at the front, paid for the album and walked out the door.
Long after the sound of the jingling bell over the door faded, I let the fists curled into balls at my sides release.
I swore under my breath and turned back to the records. I picked the remaining records off the floor and put them back in their crates. I thought of looking through some other boxes to see what else I could find, but my heart wasn’t in it.
“Forget it,” I whispered to myself. “I’m going home.”
