Chapter One: The First Glance
I was sat in my favourite coffee shop, COSTA, ordering a Red Berry smoothie, because I hated coffee. I had my art book out and I was sketching a drawing of the sunrise that I'd watched that same morning. It was an oddly quiet morning in the coffee shop, especially for a Monday, which made it much nicer and more relaxing for me. I sat there peacefully for a couple of hours where I just sketched and coloured consistently, hardly looking up. I was content within my idleness from the world, that was, until, this one girl sat a few seats in front of me. She had silky brunette hair that touched her shoulders perfectly, with a neat grey jumper, ironed white shirt and a tight pair of green pants. I felt her brisk past my shoulder as she went to sit down and somehow felt the urge to gaze at her physique. The way her tight jumper fit round her perfectly rounded breasts. I stared at her flat waist and the fact that her hair bounced every time she moved even an inch. She was gorgeous, and I loved it. I dropped my pencil down and my eyes fixated on her – I couldn't move them. She held a cup of a vanilla latte so firmly as she wrote onto a sheet of A4 paper so calculably. I wanted to speak to her, so of course I didn't. I couldn't. So I just stared. She quickly looked up and we made the most awkward eye contact I have ever been apart of. Yet… it was so wonderful. I'm not one to believe in love at first sight, in fact, since I broke up with my previous boyfriend, I've been doubting that love even existed at all. But, somehow, I felt something with this girl. She gave a sharp look with her eyes and immediately forgot about it whilst getting lost in her work. Why was I so attracted to her? Why did I feel the need to keep staring? I stopped myself before I tempted her to file a restraining order – she looked like the type. I went back to my drawing and found it incredibly difficult to do so.
The drawing was becoming pathetic – I was usually so great at this but somehow I couldn't get it to match the picture that I had taken with my iPhone. So, I frustratingly turned over the page in defeat and decided to draw something completely different. I looked up for inspiration and I found it immediately. This wasn't creepy. She wouldn't know, and, it's art. It's just for artistic purposes. It was nothing more. I swear! I sat there with my left hand under my chin whilst my eyes were fixated were fixated on the girl. I drew her rounded head with her pointy chin, I made sure that there were three shades of brown in her hair, one of which matched the colour of her eyes, and her clothing was all of one shade, as she had that ideal touch to her attire. By the time I had finished drawing the portrait, I looked up to see something that I wish I had never seen. Those small and pink lips that I eagerly drew on the piece of paper were touching another person's! Her hands caressed his muscly arm as the kiss became more passionate. My love struck face dropped into one of pain, despair and a selfish betrayal. I don't know why I felt this way; I didn't know her, she didn't know me, we hadn't even exchanged names! But then things turned for the worse. After the kiss ended, I saw the guy's face. He turned over and immediately noticed me. His face replicated mine, but it was more of a surprised and guilty look.
"Gwen?!" he shouted across the few tables. "Gwen?!" He wiped his mouth, as if he were in the wrong place at the wrong time and had done something he shouldn't have. This, my friends, was Duncan. My ex boyfriend. He was a jerk. He lied to me consistently, cheated on me multiple times and even stole from me on several occasions. He hurt me and left me scarred for so long, and here he was, across the border in another continent, kissing the girl that I'd been admiring for the past hour. It was silly of me to even have these feelings, selfish even, but to see the boy that robbed me off of everything that I once loved now in the city that I adored with the girl that I had similar feelings for… That rubbed me the wrong way. And my angry tears were too hard to fight back. They dropped down slowly, and then all at once. It was such a fast moment that I had to rush out of the coffee shop and into the streets to make sure that neither of them saw my true emotions.
I lay my head on the brick wall as tears fell down my face. I sobbed so loud that I knew that I was receiving odd looks from people around me. As I lay on the wall, a hand grabbed my shoulder firmly. Duncan.
"Get off of me you jerk, I never want to-" I stopped myself as I turned around to push him away. It wasn't Duncan. As I turned, my eyes met the soft skinned, wide eyed beauty that was across the coffee shop. It was the mystery girl.
"Are you okay?" she asked. Even her voice was angelic. "You seemed pretty distressed back there. Is there anything I can do for you?" Her eyes batted slowly, it almost made me smile. But before I could even respond her hand was grabbed by somebody else and she was pulled behind a large figure with a stained black t-shirt.
"Hi Gwen. Nice seeing you here," Duncan stood there with a smirk smile as he looked down on me. "Nice to see you… moved on, like me." Jerk. "I'll see you around." He laughed and pulled the girl away, and I was left there. No name, no number, nothing to remember her by besides her voice in my head and the drawing in my art pad. I didn't know why I felt so intrigued, attracted and hurt, but what I did know is that it meant something.