It was the single most terrifying moment of my entire life. As the bus slowly wheeled its way in to stop, I recognised the familar feeling in my stomach not to be the shake of a bus travelling along Welsh roads, but a wildfire of nerves. God, I couldn't face her like this. Not this nervous. The bus came to a direct halt and I peered to my left out of the window; mercifully, she was nowhere in direct sight. I sighed in relief at the precious seconds (minutes, if Lady Luck was on my side) to calm myself down and psyche myself up.
I grabbed the cold steel rail on the back of the seat in front of mine, pulled myself up from the uncomfortable seat and scurried off of the bus like a rat and sat down on a small, brown brick wall, took a deep breath and closed my eyes. I was calmer now. Not as nervous. The butterflies were still raving in my stomach, but out of excitement more than nervousness. This is how I would meet her: calm, pulled-together, confident and charming.
I opened my eyes to summer's blue above the town. It was a beautiful day. A few shoddy excuses for clouds in the sky's solitude with the sun beaming suprising (for Wales) warmth. I felt comfortable... Too comfortable. The butterflies errupted in my stomach as the realisation of what I was doing finally hit home. I was meeting her. Her! After all this time. I would have her in my arms again.
"chanseyin'ell," I said to myself under my breath. I looked up from the ground, decided that the coast was clear enough for me to smoke, pulled out my pack of Lambert & Butler cigarettes and navy blue lighter, placed the fifth from that pack into my mouth, swept my coarse, dark hair out of my eyes and lit it up.
Exhaling the first drag in a singular beam of sacred-white smoke, I felt myself relax. With a few more drags, the feelings in my fingers began to numb and my head felt ever so slightly lighter. In this state I felt most comfortable. I closed my eyes again to appreciate the work that nicotine was doing to my body. About to put the cigarette into my mouth for another breath of relaxation, when I felt the thing get pulled out from between my fingers.
I opened my eyes to see her standing in front of me, my half-smoked cigarette between the ring and little finger of her right hand. She stood about the same height as me, with long brown hair in a side-fringe, smooth, light face, bright red lips and two elegant emeralds for eyes leering at me playfully. She wore a black Nirvana t-shirt, grey skinny jeans and Converse trainers.
"Smoking kills, y'know," she said, giggling.
"I do know," I answered, probably too nonchalantly, "I keep getting reminded by the damn packet every time I want one." She gave me a sweet little grin and I felt a dumb smirk cross over my overly-serious face. Her arms shrugged to suggest a hug, so I jumped forward from the wall and flung my arms around her shoulders as her arms tightened around my back. She dug her face into my right shoulder.
"I've missed you," she sighed, "so much."
"I've missed you, too," I say back to her, digging my face into her right shoulder, "I-" I stopped and realised that the moment was getting the better of me; as easy as the three infamous words were to utter to someone via text messages, to speak them to her in that moment would have not only been a crime against romance, but a killer of my aspired image of cooler than a cucumber. The leather jacket, The Strokes t-shirt, jeans and hi-tops I was wearing were meant to be an aesthetic representation of it, but it was more than just looks.
"You...?" she asked, still clutching tightly to me.
"Never mind," I grinned to myself, "all in good time." We let each other free from the prisons of each others' arms and started to walk. "Can I have my cigarette back now?" She threw it on the road.
We walked to the beach; at that time of year, on that type of day, it was almost as stunning as she was. The white-hot sun made the sea sparkle like a blanket of earthly stars and the sand to look like a bed of gold. We made small talk to pass time for a while, how school was going for each of us, the latest gossip, stupid jokes and what we'd done hundreds of times whilst texting, question each other. No real thought process went behind the questions, they were ones such as "favourite song at the moment?" or "favourite animal?" or "what did you last dream of?"
We sat down on the cushion of sand, giggling. It was absolutely perfect. Sunshine, warm beach and the company of the girl who said she loved me. Whilst texting, we'd always talked about a romance between the both of us. How we'd cuddle in bed and how we'd kiss and how it'd be perfect, and yet, as much as I wanted to, I couldn't bring myself to go into blitzkrieg-flirter mode (or badass, as previous lovers had called it,) she was far too perfect a friend.
The laughing stopped as I gazed into her eyes and she back into mine. I could only feel pity for her, I was staring deep into her gorgeous green pools whilst she had to stare into my boring brown ones. I started to feel the butterflies again. The damned butterflies, I thought, must they arrive unannounced at every pseudo-romantic moment of my life? She smirked at me, from it I gathered that the look on my face mirrored my thoughts. Her lips opened slowly.
"So..." she whispered, flirtingly. This was it. Now or never. Do or die. Get busy living or get busy dying. I psyched myself up. There was no chance in Hell I was going to let her get away from me again.
"So...?" I smirked, trying my very best to be flirty. She gave a sigh of playful impatience.
"Are you going to kiss me yet, or what?" She'd caught me off-guard. I knew this was it, but I didn't quite expect it to be so blunt. I clenched my fists in the sand and closed my eyes again. I let my face smirk, to show that I wasn't shy (my God, was I feeling shy,) pulled a cigarette from the inside of my jacket, lit it up in my mouth and opened my eyes. Much to my amusement, she didn't look impressed.
"Depends, sweetheart," I started, I could feel the one they called 'badass' taking over, "you mind kissing a smoker?"
"Uch," she groaned in disgust, "fine. Put the bloody thing out though." So I took three more monsterous drags in quick succession and stubbed the cigarette out.
I slowly fixed my hands to her gorgeous hips as she cloaked her arms around my shoulders. Our faces edged slowly towards each other. Her jungle-green and my swamp-brown eyes fixated on the other's. I tilted my head subtly to the right, as did she. Our lips collided.
For a few beautiful seconds, our eyes remained open as we kissed, still staring deep into one another. I felt the chill of nervousness leave my body with each warm kiss. We fell onto the sand, the soft impact nowhere near enough to stop our kissing for even a second. I brushed my left hand through her hair whilst my right remained on her hip. I'd always wanted to do that, and now was as good a time as any.
After the kissing, I felt about a thousand times more comfortable. I lit up the cigarette that I had stubbed out (which was in my pocket; waste not, want not) and began to smoke. I felt amazing. I'd finally gotten my girl. I fell back onto the golden bed so that I was facing the sky, she came and rested her head on my chest and held my right hand with her left. I looked at her and she at me, both of us smiling now.
We lay there on the beach, me smoking and her telling me how bad it was for me until the stars in the sea were sent home for the night and the stars in the sky appeared.
