The young girl felt strangely serene with Hayden in the room. His tangled wad of greasy hair, his tight pants tattered at the knee, and the sour-weed-stench he dragged around like a long-lost friend all exuded a tragic helplessness that made her heart flutter. Dreadfully, Hayden much more preferred Hayley Banks. As the young girl sometimes loved to convince herself, Hayley’s perky, orange hair was so bright that it made her eyes ache. Unfortunately, the young girl could not grumble about any other of Hayley’s physical features without exposing her darkly swelling envy. For example, Hayley’s eyes were absolutely beautiful and glowed green like peeled kiwis. And Hayley always sported the pouty, doubty expression that made boys’ hearts spin like tops (the young girl once overhead them purring about Hayley‘s “innocent confusion”). Furthermore, when Hayley’s lips quivered it supposedly looked sexy. Whenever the young girl’s lips quivered it was due to one of her many irrational fears or her worsening anxiety or something painfully pathetic!
Though the young girl recognized each and every one of Hayden’s foul attributes, she couldn't wriggle out of her love for him. This love bulged and swelled, tripling in size every time he limped into class like an injured animal. That was what she saw him as(!): the battered, bruised and bent animal starved of a little TLC. Immediately, the young girl remembered her parents and wondered whether her dangerous desire was a genetic trait passed down from her mother. After all, her father--a stubby, hairless creature--lacked any strengths other than his ability to fix the living room coffee table. That, however, was only after he broke it, so perhaps it didn’t even count. According to wedding pictures, Trang’s mother was once a slender, shapely specimen with grapefruit breasts and eyes that shone like the full moon.

An Evening of Change.

The evening perplexed the young girl, who teetered on the edge of her seat the entire night--her eyes wide with innocent fascination at the colorful lights skipping from one wall to another, and at the ancient Persian women denying their true ages with lipstick four shades too bright, high-heeled shoes and body-squeezing leggings. The young girl spied the oldest woman blow the musician a kiss, her wrinkled hand outstretched, her blindingly pink lips pursed in a pathetic pucker. The night continued on with a stern look from the teenage waiter. The young girl interpreted it as a poor attempt (on his part) to appear strict yet seductive. It was the “I mean business” look flung so readily at young, pretty girls who frequented the restaurant as often as the cook frequented the gym--this number being so small that it would prove a waste of both time and ink to discuss it. The night ended, in a flurry of wet kisses, tender handshakes and genuine promises to meet in the future, perhaps at the same restaurant…The young girl stepped outside, an indescribable fire inside her heart suddenly ignited while a greedy need for male attention hummed within her. She strode forward into the light, so that her new-found confidence became brilliantly illuminated, and one young male passerby could not help but notice.

Before Forever.

The young girl felt hesitant--she could or she could not, her two options shone clearer than the crystal chandelier blinking overhead. She decided upon the former choice, just as a quote expressing the stomach-twisting discomfort of regret snapped awake in her head. The young girl could see Peter, positioned near the punch, discreetly attempting to ease the itch in his left foot with the toe of his right. She smiled to herself, for he entertained her: here was this man who craved appearing suave and slick, yet who could not even scratch his own toe without looking clumsy. Nevertheless, he looked handsome, as always before. Although secretly, the young girl hoped that Peter's excessive party-going would one day get to him. Perhaps he’d awake, late one afternoon in mid-July, the unexpected sting of sunlight sharpening the pain in his left eye, and miserably discover that his black hairs had all turned gray, that his skin had worked with gravity to droop around the delicate nape of his neck, and that his eyes had transformed into a listless blue. At the same time that she hoped such a tragic episode take place, the young girl also wished against it, primarily because she loved his looks and the memories they reintroduced.

Time was running short, the party crowd already thinning while the smooth silver platters, once colored by stuffed squid, jiggling gelatin and puff pastries, offered nothing but a diverse array of crumbs--the evidence of mindless nibbling strewn for everyone to observe. The young girl shuddered with the thought of leaving without muttering even a single word to the gentleman who apparently had, during the thick mulch of her miserable musings, disappeared! Her heart hiccupped. She couldn’t quite believe herself, her one chance had vanished like the appetizers! Helplessly, the young girl scanned the staircase, longing to spot Peter’s lithe, delicate form, yearning to watch him transfixed by the beaming cluster of Picasso paintings, or by the marble Henry Moore sculpture…Suddenly, the young girl received a painful jab in her right shoulder. At that moment, her simmering feelings of sadness and regret swirled with frustration and anger. Furious, she swiveled around, her mind violently piecing together the most bitter of reprimands, when she realized, deliciously, that it was him.