Airport Girl

I had just stepped off the terminal from my flight. It was a five-hour plane ride from New York to California, but I decided to take a layover in Arizona to save some money. The crowd out of the plane was buzzing, every passenger running every which way. I kept my head down and watched my shoes as they glided across the freshly waxed tiles of the brand new Arizona Airport. My headphones were blasting whatever bullshit indie music was popular at the time. I had a two-hour wait in between flights, so I was in no hurry. I decided to retreat to a stand where they were selling different shirts and those pillows that you wrapped around your neck. I decided to try one on. Tilting my head from one side to the other I felt the plush fabric rub against my earlobes. It felt nice. My eyes closed and I thought about where I was about to be in a couple of hours. I put the plush pillow back on its hanger and thanked the man sitting there eyeing me like a hawk. I started toward my gate and watched the faces of different individuals pass me by. Everyone seemed to be in a hurry, each face blurred by the amount of speed they were using in order to reach their next flight. Blur after blur went by all mixing into one humongous blob of a brownish color. Then I saw her, this girl walking to my right in the opposite direction. Her hair was brown, but consisted of blond highlights toward the bottom. I couldn’t keep my eyes off of her. The olive skin the accentuated her light brown eyes as they glanced into mine. She smiled. I felt every heart beat and flow of blood in my veins as she walked by. Her eyes met mine and I wanted to stay in that moment forever, with her. Everything around us didn’t matter, it felt like it had all gone dark and it was just she and I. That smile and the way her hair hung over her left eye seemed magical. I heard laughter and quickly snapped back into my senses noticing she was part of a team of girls walking down the tiled floor toward their destination. They had all noticed this spark that I had had with this newly found beauty and began to giggle. Embarrassment shot up through my body and my face went hot. I went back to keeping my head down and watching both mine and the beautiful girls feet glide across the tile, but in opposite directions. As she passed and all the giggles slowly dissipated, I looked up. Turning my head to follow her walk as she passed I noticed the backpack she had been wearing with a name. Taylor. I brought my eyes up to hopefully meet the back of her head, but was instead met with those same eyes and that same smile that stopped the world around me. Her and I both knew… I never saw her again.