• And there she went. 5’6’ of pure beauty, and grace, strawberry-blonde hair in a swirl, mixed with snowflakes. Her eyes were like emeralds, shining green emeralds that could captivate my soul for hours without end. If only she would ever notice me.
    Hayley Farrow, the girl of my dreams………walking away. Forever away. I can only watch her wheel her suitcase along behind her, as she leans her past-shoulder length hair against the fur inside the hood of her jacket. The binoculars were starting to bruise my eyelids, so I barely managed to tear my eyes away from Hayley.
    Suddenly, my cell phone began to vibrate in my pocket. Fiercely. I’m not kidding, this thing vibrates like a beast. The first time I used the vibrate setting and it went off, I punched it, trying to dislodge whatever small furry animal was attacking my leg.
    It was a text. Stalker much? From Hayley. Figures, I ruined that too.
    I sighed. Where’d she get my number anyway?
    My thoughts flashed back to the crummy Valentine’s Day card I had sent her last year. I had carefully wrapped the heart shaped, brick-colored card in a pink box, decorated with crummy hearts, and crummy, naked cupids holding arrows. I forgot that I had added my number at the end of that embarrassing episode.
    I fingered the keypad on my EnV2, and thought about texting back, but decided against it. That was attention I didn’t want. Besides, in a few hours, Hayley would be out of my life forever.
    I heard loud noises coming from the terminal, and I stood up. I had been sitting in one the uncomfortable airline chairs, and my bag was on the seat next to me. I had a flight to catch also, but mine was five hours into the future.
    I watched in awe as Hayley came running from down the terminal, a determined look on her face, which made her look even more beautiful. She had a sky0blue scarf around her neck, and was holding her cell-phone to her ear. I suddenly envied whatever lucky sap she was calling.
    My phone began savaging my leg, and I realized she was calling me. I hurriedly extricated my phone from sinking it’s teeth into my hamstring, and answered the call. Sure enough, it was Hayley’s voice on the other end.
    “Hayley? Um, don’t you-Aren’t you supposed to be on that plane?” I stammered.
    She turned in a 360, looking for me. “Yeah well, I changed my plans. Where are you?”
    “By the ticket desk.”
    She turned and saw me. “Got to go.” And hung up.
    “Um…ugh…” I slowly hung up my phone, setting it on the chair with my bag.
    She headed towards me, the snowflakes falling out of her hair in a flurry. She made an impressive scene as she strode up to me, in her rather, uh, kinky boots. When she neared me, she motioned to me. I hesitantly walked up to her, about halfway across the room.
    “I forgot to say goodbye.” She wrapped her arms around my shoulders, and planted a kiss on my cheek. I was speechless. I think I just stood there, arms limp at my sides, and said something intelligent along the lines of “Duh…er..ugh…gah…”
    Hayley pulled away from me, and punched my chest. “don’t go getting’ any ideas on me!” She turned to walk away when I noticed something interesting: The plane had already left, and she had left her suitcase on it.
    “Um, Hayley, you kinda-”
    “Oh shi-” She started, but a stern glance from a nearby mother halted her foul mouth.
    I honestly did feel bad for her, but I think I was laughing too hard for her to tell. Like, seriously, I was bawling because I was laughing so hard. I think a couple people we’re calling for security, but I didn’t care.
    Hayley looked like she was about to cry, so I managed to stifle a few laughs, and put my arms around her. When I could talk correctly, I said, “You could stay at my place until they get you a new flight.”
    She pulled back, and smiled at me, a dazzling smile that set my heart on fire. “Oh, really? Thankyouthankyouthankyou!”
    I think I must have said something that reflected my I.Q. like, “Ugh, um, gah, eh, erm.”
    She seemed to find my lack of experience in communicating beyond a kindergarten level humorous. “ You’re so sweet Robin!”
    I hate my name. It’s either a bird, or a young girl’s name, but never a sixteen year old guy’s name. NEVER, DO YOU HEAR ME, NEVER! Sorry, got carried away. Robin Murphy. Seriously, were my parent’s on something when they named me?
    Hayley was still waiting for my response. Oops. Kinda phased out there.
    “Oh, um, yeah, sure just come over whenever.”
    She squealed and hugged me tighter. I almost yelped, her hands were ice cold.
    “Um, shouldn’t you get your bag and stuff?” She suggested.
    As I waltzed over to retrieve my bag and cell-phone, I found only a vacant, gaping hole where my bag and phone had once been.
    Hayley winced when she saw. She wrapped her hands around my arm, and looked at me with sympathetic eyes.
    “I’m sure they’ll have just moved it to Lost-and-Found.” She said, but she was obviously trying to convince herself as well.
    As we walked up to the counter, my mind froze. A girl walked out from behind a group of tourists. Her hair wasn’t exactly curly, but defiantly more than wavy. Her skin was tanned, and her eyes were a startling silver shade. She was carrying her purse, and was wheeling a suitcase behind her. When we met eyes, my blood froze. She was gorgeous, she outdid Hayley by eons.
    Hayley tugged impatiently on my arm. ‘We’re next. C’mon!”
    I stammered something, and turned back to the mystery girl, but she was already gone.
    I re-told my story to the lady behind the desk, who seemed more interested in her game of Tetris than me. She nodded every now and then, and maybe made an acknowledging noise when she felt like it, and at then end of my tale, she pointed a bin full of suitcases, jackets, and plush dogs, and said with a heavy accent, “It would be in they-a, hun.”
    We sifted through the bin, Hayley and me, until we found my cell-phone and bag, nestled underneath a scrapbook full of torn pictures featuring an enormously fat woman next to her three, each overweight and painfully ugly, children.
    I shuddered at the sight of her husband, and threw the scrapbook into the trash bin next to me when the attendant was too busy moving to level two.
    Hayley triumphantly held up my bag when she found it. “See!” She said. “It was right here all along like I said!” She sounded as surprised as I was.
    “Right. Thanks Hayley.” I took my bag and phone, and began the tedious process of inspecting every little pocket and corner, making sure everything was intact.
    Despite a few pieces of someone’s chewed up gum inside, everything was fine. Hayley grimaced as the gum landed with a wet Plop! on top of the unsightly family’s lost scrapbook.
    “C’mere, let’s go soon. I’m freezing!” Hayley shivered, so I wrapped my arms around her as we left the airport. Outside was even colder, it had to be at least 5 below zero. I stared at the gray horizon, and the large piles of snow, piled up along the boundaries of the sidewalk.
    Hayley practically dragged me to the car. Somehow, she knew which car was mine, but she was full of surprises today, so I just got in, and turned on the engine and heated seats. The car roared to life, and we were off.
    I turned up the radio to avoid any, well, uncomfortable chatter. I wasn’t sure how cool Hayley was with this, and I was still in shellshock from the girl I saw at the terminal.
    She tapped me on the shoulder, and lowered the volume knob. “Where’s your house? Are your parent’s cool with this?”
    “About another five miles thataway’.” I responded.
    “But what about your folks?”
    I shrugged.
    Hayley shrugged as well, and turned the volume back up on the radio. She began to raucously sing along to “Let It Rock”, until I was about ready to open the door and shove her out, traveling at sixty miles-per-hour.
    Finally, when I thought I could take no more knives thrown at my ears, my house was in sight. The dashboard lock read 11:56, and I wouldn’t be up at noon if someone threw snakes over me, blew a trumpet in my ears, and stuck me with needles.
    Okay, maybe I would wake up, but that’s not the point.
    “ So, do you really think I was stalking you?” I yelled over the radio, which was now playing a song I didn’t recognize. Hayley looked at me and smiled. “No. It was sarcasm.”
    Ah. Like the cell-phone-turning-into-a-dog-and-biting-me charade.
    Suddenly I banged my head against the wheel, causing the horn to go off, and getting me several dirty looks from a group of pedestrians walking by. I just hoped I hadn’t woken anyone up.
    “What’s wrong?” Hayley was leaning all the way over, resting her arm on my back.
    “I forgot to catch my flight.” I moaned.
    She gasped, and put a hand to her mouth. “You were catching a flight! My God, why didn’t you tell me? Oh, I never would have dragged you through all of this if you had told me!”
    “Too late now.” I banged my head against the wheel once more, just for good measure.
    “Where were you headed?” She asked.
    “Maine. Visiting my grandparents.”
    “Oh. Well that’s nice of you. I was moving to Chicago, my parent’s are already there. I’m sure they won’t mind if I’m a day late.”
    “I knew you were moving.” I said, sitting up, and paying attention to the road again. “Everyone does. It’s the talk of the school.”
    Hayley looked down at her feet, and inspected each perfectly painted pink toenail. “Oh stop, you’re exaggerating it.”
    “No really. Every guy in the school has shed a few tears over you so far.” I was starting to grunt my words, there was a car in front of us that refused to move at anything other than a glacial pace.
    Hayley sighed. “It’s not so much about me. Whenever any cheerleader moves away, everyone’s bound to miss her.”
    I grunted.
    Hayley frowned. “Your knuckles are bone-white. Unclench your fingers Robin.”
    Oops.
    I loosened my death-grip on the steering wheel, and relaxed. I laid back farther into the seat, and Hayley propped her feet up onto the dashboard, just as we pulled into my neighborhood. “How much longer?” She was examining her fingernails now.
    “We’re in sight of my house.”
    She took her feet off the dash. “Good.” She yawned. “I’m tired.”
    As we pulled in, Hayley removed a lighter from her purse. ‘What d’you need that for?” I questioned.
    “No reason.” She gently opened the lid. “I Just like to watch the flames.”
    I hadn’t counted on Hayley being a pyromaniac. Many precious things in my house were extra flammable, I only prayed she could control her fire-watching urges.
    Leaving the car, I grabbed her things for her once she was out of the passenger seat. She just nodded to me, and began up the steps to my door. Each step was painted lilac, a way you could tell that my mom was still the owner of the house. Only one more year until I was officially my own person though. Only one year until I moved out.
    I tossed Hayley the keys, and she, with some difficulty, attempted to prop open the door. “You gotta’ shake it!” I called from behind her purse, which was resting on top of her suitcase, which I was carrying at shoulder-level.
    She tried valiantly, but in the end I had to open the door while she carried her things. My parents were in Michigan for the summer, visiting an aunt I hadn’t seen since I was first born. More freedom for me, I suppose.
    The first thing Hayley did when she walked into my house, was break a vase. She bumped her suitcase into an end-table, and the entire thing fell onto it’s side. My mother’s priceless lilac flowerpot fell to the wooden floor, and shattered into a million tiny shards, some of which became embedded in my heel.
    “Ohmygod I’m so sorry!” She apologized. “I hope it wasn’t too valuable.”
    I Just grunted.
    However, when she said “Ohmygod”, she had brought her hands to her mouth, which left her suitcase free……to fall on something else.
    Her suitcase then crashed into the shoe-rack, which toppled, and I watched in a state not unlike a stupor as the plastic snapped, and following that, a picture fell off of the wall, and the frame bent, and finally snapped on impact. The picture itself was torn on one of the glass shards.
    “Oh! Oh, oh, oh!” Hayley jumped back, into a mirror, which in turn fell, and broke.
    “Oh-!”
    “Hayley stop moving!” I yelled.
    She stopped, hopping on one foot, and I carefully guided her to the family room, and set about the tedious task of cleaning up her mess.
    When my palms had blistered over from abrasion with the broom and dust pan, I realized that I was finished cleaning. I put the broom away in the closet in the front hallway, just to the left of the front door, along with the dustpan. The glass, and picture frame both went into the garbage.
    Hayley was watching American Idol, which was in the audition phase, the one I hate the most. Some of those people need to record themselves before ever trying out. I would never audition un-rehearsed. Never.
    Hayley grabbed my arm as I passed by her on the couch. “Look!” She pointed at the screen. “This girl’s gonna’ sing something’ by Taylor Swift. I hope she doesn’t screw up, I like Taylor Swift.”
    In the end, the girl, who was wearing a silver knee-length dress that had a purple tint to it, and heavily shaded sunglasses, managed to get three yeses out of four, Simon being the only one to say no.
    I couldn’t help but agree with him. The girl was practically shrieking the words, but Hayley seemed pleased when they let her through.
    Suddenly, I was realizing that Hayley and I really had nothing in common. She appreciated the crispness of a winter morning, while I preferred to stay bundled up beneath a mountain of blankets against the cold. We were like night and day. At least, to me we were.
    Hayley was chewing on a cherry popsicle, and making a mess all over her shirt. At least it wasn’t the couch. I only hoped she didn’t shift positions. I sighed, and together we watched American Idol until it ended, and then we curled up in blankets, and watched Adult Swim on Cartoon Network until the night was over.

    Fin. Comments and criticism are appreciated.