Summer

In the summer of my seventeenth year, I worked in the mall at a place called The Juicery. I worked after school, mostly, In the evenings I would often have the front counter. It was mostly boring, except for Wednesdays. Every Wednesday that summer, between 7:45 and 8:00 pm, SHE would walk by. I never knew where she came from, or where she went, or even her name. I just knew she was the most beautiful girl I'd ever seen, before or since. And that she often smiled at me.

She was tall, and about my age. I never got close enough to see her eye color, but her hair was golden blonde and her skin was tan. She always wore flowy, flowery sundresses in pale shades, and she always, ALWAYS wore a flower in her hair that complimented the ones on those dresses.

I obsessed about her. I couldn't stop thinking of her, and for the entire week I looked forward to those moments when I watched her walk by the counter. I tried to guess her name, where she worked, what she was doing in the mall. I wrote her poems and love letters, actual letters, written by a pen on a piece of paper, ready to be sent by snail mail should I ever discover her address.

Had she asked me, I would have jumped over that counter and run away with her, never to be seen again. But she never asked, never even came near enough for speaking. And for some reason I never thought to go out into that mall concourse and introduce myself, maybe ask her out.

I'm forty-seven now, and I think of her on warm summer evenings, and I've never regretted anything more than not being brave enough to speak to her.