The beach must have been beautiful that day but I missed it because my gaze was too busy following her. She turned to me then, laughing, the sun bouncing off her.

'Come on then, James Song. I haven't got all day'

'I'm coming!'

I chased after her, grinning and probably looking like a maniac for doing so but I just couldn't help it; her happiness was contagious. I caught up with her and, in a moment of pure impulsiveness, I grabbed her round the waist and pulled her down to the hot sand with me.

'James! What the fuck! That was uncalled for!'

'If you say so. I actually felt as though it was very much called for. After all, we had to stop and sit somewhere and here seems like a perfect spot.'

'Well I suppose I can't argue with that.'

She smiled at me again and the strangest emotion swept over me. I felt weak as though she was draining me but it didn't matter because I could see the same feeling reflected in her eyes and so I knew that, even if she drained me completely, she would support me so long as I supported her. And I would.

'What is going on in that head of yours?'

The sound of her voice dragged me out of my reverence.

'I honestly don't know.'

And it was true. I didn't know.

'I bet I could decipher you'

'I bet that you could too. Go on then. Prove us right. What is going on inside my head?'

She pondered for a moment and I could see her retreating back into her mind so as to organise her thoughts into something coherent enough to decide exactly what she knew about me and what she had been able to determine. Her eyes raked over my entire body and when she seemed content that she had her answer, she locked them with mine, and for once, despite my introvert nature, I didn't feel the need to break away like I usually would. It was strange because this girl was essentially a complete stranger and yet already I trusted her.

She spoke then, once again dragging me away from the recluses of my mind.

'You're nervous. You want to make yourself new here, start over because your life before this sucked. But you don't know how to go about any of this because, really, despite the persona you're trying to invent for yourself, you're just shy and that means you're not very good with people. Either way, you're hoping uni will be different but you're going to need someone and the way you've decided against all your instincts to follow me to this beach suggests that you're hoping that person will be me.'

Shit. Am I really that easy to read? I'm gonna have to follow that with some kind of witty comment. Well, here goes nothing…

'Wow, nice. If you gave me three goes to guess what you're here to study, my first would be English.'

She laughed at that. Proper full on laughing. The kind, that even if nothing's funny, you find yourself laughing too because you're laughing at them laughing. If that makes any sense.

'Well James, you may have skirted my undeniably brilliant interpretation of you, which of course tells me I was right by the way, but you can have kudos from me for that comment. I don't remember the last time I laughed so hard! But yes, you're right; I am an English student through and through. And you? What are you here to study, James Song?'

'Photography. Kind of lame I guess but that's just what I wanna do.'

'That's not lame! That's fantastic! I hate people who come to university to do some academic they hate and end up failing just because they've taken society at its word and decided that the thing they actually enjoy will never get them anywhere.'

'Exactly! My parents kept trying to tell me that it was useless, getting a degree in photography but whatever. Let them be disappointed. So long as I'm happy now, I can prove them wrong later.'

'I like you, James.'

And now it was my turn to smile. She smiled back of course and it was then that I noticed that the sun was no longer illuminating her form from behind but instead, she was being threatened by a huge, black storm cloud. Just at that moment, the rain began. That is, if you can really call a sheet of water rain. She wasn't much impressed by it.

'Shit! There's not a building for miles around!'

Think, James, think.

'Over here! There's a little cavern in the rocks I think.'

I grabbed her hand without even thinking and we ran, laughing and attempting in vain to shield ourselves, to the cavern I knew was somewhere in this cliff-face.

There! I pulled her with me into the entrance. It was a crevice, no more than a few feet wide and went back no further either. I had never really noticed how small the space it enclosed was until now but then, I'd never come in here with a girl before.

She was pressed up against the wall, her chest moving up and down due to the fact that she was breathing so heavily after our run. I could feel the heat radiating from her, I was that close. I was breathing heavily too, even more so now that I had realised how close we were and I swear her reaction was the same. Well, I suppose it must have been or she would've hit me.

She was looking up at me, expression filled with expectation and I took it. I pushed off of the wall behind me, took the one step towards her, placed my hands on the wall either side of her shoulders. She didn't move at all except for the almost unnoticeable change of opening her mouth slightly wider. I wouldn't have noticed it at all were it not for how aware I was of my desire to press my mouth against hers.

It overwhelmed me then, the desire. I closed the final gap, leaning down so as to meet my lips with hers and the effect was immediate.

It was tentative at first, our lips gently caressing, each of us carefully testing the want of the other, but then it quickly became heated. She wrapped her arms around my neck, fingers entwining in my hair and I took her lead, pushing my tongue into the heat of desire that was her mouth whilst moving my hands down to circle her waist, pulling her hips forwards to meet mine.

She sighed into my mouth then and I pressed her up against the wall, lifting up her shirt so as to gently graze the smooth skin of her abdomen. I didn't go any further though. In all honesty I didn't want to. You probably won't believe me though, assuming that all I wanted from her was sex but that wasn't true, I promise.

I broke away then, pulling my head back but not letting go of her waist. She slowly opened her eyes, lips still parted, and I could see the lust that must be coursing through her veins by the deep shade of green her eyes had become, like uncut emeralds.

And then returned the smile.

'Well, James, it appears that the rain has stopped'

And with that she pushed me back and ran out of the cave, laughing as she left, leaving me to lean back against the wall to think. Think about the girl that had waltzed into my life, hoping to God that she hadn't bought herself a return ticket. Nora Amare; the girl who was set to change me forever and neither of us even knew it yet.