The Perfect Day

She’s over there. She’s right there. She’s standing right there, looking over the side of that bridge. I see her.

A smile spreads across my face like butter when I noticed her glancing around, searching for me, even though I was standing over here, under this lovely oak. It was an overcast afternoon, promising to rain within the next half hour or so. It was absolutely perfect.

I glanced around myself, because I realized that I was staring for a bit too long. People were starting to wonder why my eyes locked on that one and only woman. One lady pushing a stroller with a baby in it had stopped and was starting to approach the one I had my sights set on. The lady was over near me, and my love was all the way across the park. I stopped her.

“Excuse me ma’am, but, please, would you not?” I asked politely.

She looked around, obviously thinking I was in with the wrong crowd, “Would I not what? Go warn the young lady over there that you are staring at her?”

“Yes, that’s exactly the thing that absolutely cannot happen.” My eyes flitted nervously from the plump mother standing in front of me to the lady by the bridge. I was afraid that I would be seen, now that I had left the safety of my tree. I’ve been waiting not very patiently all day for the afternoon to arrive before approaching my target. I knew that if I went too early, my timing would be completely off. I had about a few minutes or so before I planned on going over to where she stood. And I would not let any one get in the way of my evening’s plan.

“And why not?” The lady had a very British accent.

“Because,” I said, “I’m trying to surprise her. She’s my girlfriend, and we met online on one of those dating site thingies. This is the first time we get to meet eachother in person and I have it all planned out. Please don’t ruin it.” My voice wavered as the thought of the whole afternoon being reduced to rubbish blocked my mind.

The lady sighed and agreed. “Alright. But only for the sake of young love. Be safe.”

I smiled, “Thanks, ma’am, have an awesome day!”

I didn’t have enough time to hear whether or not she said anything after that, because I had checked my phone and was already a minute off schedule. I didn’t mind, though, because we still had a while before the rain would begin to fall. I shuffled my way across the park until finally, I was behind her. I was awestruck by the way her hair shimmered in the sun. I had almost mistaken it for gold. I wanted to reach out and stroke it, but I caught myself before I did. And instead, I took my phone back out of my pocket, and dialed her number.

An unfamiliar tune played out of the jacket pocket of the lady standing in front of me. She only let it ring twice before she picked it up.

“Hello?” That all too pleasant voice of the one I loved played both right in my ear and in the background of it all.

I leaned in towards her left ear and softly whispered, “Hi gorgeous.” And just as quickly as I leaned in, I was standing on the other side of her, hoping she didn’t catch me just quite yet. When she didn’t see anyone on her left side, she turned to the right, and locked eyes with me. Red started to flush across her pale cheeks, and it was apparent that she was blushing. Her eyes flitted towards the ground and back up at my face a couple of times before she realized she was still on the phone with me. The call was cut short a few seconds later.

“How are you?” I finally asked, breaking the growing silence.

“I- I…” Then she giggled, “I can’t talk today.”

“No that’s alright. I’m pretty distracted by your beauty so I- I… can’t talk well either.” I smiled. This made her face grow even redder. “I should introduce myself. My name is John. And you are?”

She smiled uncontrollably before saying, “My name is Emily. It is nice to finally meet you.” Emily stuck out her hand for me to shake. When I reached out to take it, she dropped it and rushed in to give me a hug. I was a little stunned at first, but then I registered it and everything was all good. I wrapped my arms around her back and craned my head over hers. She was definitely right about one thing: I certainly kept growing, and she certainly stopped growing. Only God knows how long we stayed together like that, but it felt like an eternity in Heaven to me. When we finally pulled away, it was a little bit darker, and I could tell the time of rain fall was getting closer and closer every second. We sat down on a bench a few feet away and caught up with our lives including what hotel and room number Emily was staying in. It was room 147, on the fifth floor out of ten floors.

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About twenty minutes later, we were caught up with eachother, and the rain started to fall very lightly. We both smiled and looked at eachother, and it was then that I first took notice of Emily’s beautiful sky blue eyes. They were real jewels, sparkling every time a piece of light bounced off of them. Her pupils dilated almost to the point where they were the size of her eyes, but that was only when she looked at me. I supposed that mine did the same, because I was almost positive I was in love with her. It was just the old block from my past that was in the way of my initial decision.

I gingerly took her left hand with my right, and pulled her out of the cover of the tree that shaded over us. The rain started falling quite a bit harder as I did so, hard enough to actually get us wet. She complained a little bit about my dragging her into it, but I pretended to pay little attention to her, when really, I felt sad for her. I’m sure she knew that, too. But it was all apart of my plan.

I led her over to a small patch of purple and blue wildflowers. Since I knew right off the bat that her favorite color was purple, I plucked one out of the ground, trimmed the stem a little with my handy dandy pocket knife, and handed it to her, “Here you go, my lady.” Emily took it while blushing (she blushed a lot, probably still getting used to meeting me in person), “A beautiful purple flower for a beautiful young lady who’s favorite color is purple.”

She looked confused for a second before saying, “Purple? That’s not my favorite color.”

“Huh?” She must have changed it… “Then what is?”

Emily still had that confused look for a few more seconds before it changed to an amused look, “I was just messing with your head there. It’s still purple.” She smiled, “You should’ve seen your face, and you looked so worried there.” And she laughed. It didn’t take me long until I joined in with her. After our little laugh time, we rejoined hands and took a stroll through the park. We talked for awhile, and admired the scenery. At one point, a butterfly had landed on the flower she was holding, but Emily accidentally scared it away; she had thought it was a bug. We laughed a little bit more before carrying on with our evening.

At around eight ten, the rain started coming down in heavy sheets, so we had to run and take cover under the same oak I first stood beneath earlier this afternoon. I told her that I was watching her from under here.

“What? You’re such a stalker!” Was Emily’s reply, and it was playful. She then pushed me out into the rain, soaking me down to the bone. I smiled, took a hand full of rain, and splashed it onto her. Then she said, “It’s on.”

“Like Donkey Kong.” I agreed.

We continued to splash eachother and play under the tree as if we were seven years old. Neither she nor I ever pushed eachother out into the rain like that again for a while, because the water was very cold, and we had to walk in it to get to our homes, anyways. And as we played, I was actually waiting for her to push me out again, but that didn’t happen for about a good fifteen minutes or so. At last, with a devious look, Emily shoved me out into the rain, but not very hard, so as not to hurt me. I doubted she could, anyways. But I grabbed her wrists and pulled her out with me, and we stumbled simultaneously around in the soggy grass. Finally we came to a stop, and I had to keep her from falling backwards, so I wrapped my arms protectively around her back.

Emily’s arms were looped around my neck at the last moment. I was arched over her, she was the water running under my bridge, and it looked as if we were doing a move in the “Tango”. Her beautiful eyes searched my face, pausing on my lips a few times. How she had never kissed anyone was a mystery to me. I noticed that her lips were the shade of a cherry, probably because she was wearing cherry Chap Stick. I watched her apply it a few times while she waited for me.

Slowly, I leaned down until my head was above hers, until my lips were hovering a few centimeters over hers. That was too far for me. Emily wanted to close the little gap between us, I know she did, but I knew that she would never make the first move. So I did. At last, the little space that was ever between us dissolved into thin air, as our lips turned into one.

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When we finally pulled away, the rain was pounding on us so hard, that I thought I might get a concussion from it. We ran down the street, heading in the direction of her hotel. Finally we arrived. She and I bust through the doors, and we were lucky, because the only other person there was the front desk person. I led her over to the elevators and pushed the up button. It only took one glance at her face to know that she was very afraid of elevators.

“Are you going to be okay?” I asked her, “Would you like to take the stairs?”

Emily tried to swallow her fear before talking (but it didn’t really work), “I- I- I think I’ll be fine.”

The doors pulled open and I led her inside. She nervously pushed the button for floor number five. As the elevator ascended towards the stars, Emily looked more and more faint. I could tell that to her, the screen announcing the floor number ticked by too slow. She stood right next to me, though I could tell that she desperately wanted to grab hold of me and never let go. I smiled and took her left hand into my right hand. Like earlier. Then she wrapped herself around my arm and gazed up at me. She never looked away when I gazed back down at her.

Neither of us seemed to notice that the elevator doors had opened.

When Emily did, she tried to hop out, but I still had her in my grip, so I playfully pulled her back in. She let out a “Hey!” and tried to get her hand out of mine, but she was laughing, too. She finally managed to free herself from me and was halfway down the hall before I caught up with her. We were both smiling from ear to ear, but hers was a little bit more nervous-looking. I could tell that Emily really was afraid of elevators. We strolled down the hallway together, my arm around her shoulders. When we arrived at her door, room 147, she stopped and looked at me.

I took her hands and placed them on my shoulders, then wrapped my arms around her waist. She let it happen, and I could tell she had butterflies flapping violently inside her stomach. I couldn’t notice it in the rain before (heck, I could barely see my hand in front of my face in that rain) but her face flushed, turning pink instead of red this time. She took one of my hands and placed it on top of her chest, allowing me to feel the race her heart was taking place in. I smiled again. She made me smile. A lot.

Then I leaned in and kissed her. Again. That was twice now. In one day.

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After we finished, Emily fumbled around in her pocket, clearly looking for her room key. She had troubles getting it in because her hands were shaking so badly, so I did the honors for her. I pushed the door open and allowed her to go ahead of me. I followed closely behind. Shortly after I shut the door, she came out of the bedroom with one big blanket. She placed it around my shoulders, and then hustled into the kitchen.

“I’m making you hot chocolate.” Emily announced. “Just go ahead and take a seat on the couch.”

I smiled once again, and walked over to the couch. I sat down and turned around to face her. She moved fluently around the kitchen, filling two coffee mugs with milk, and then putting them into the microwave. After about a minute or so, it dinged, and she took them both out. Emily then tore open two packets of cocoa powder with the mini marshmallows and poured them in. After stirring, she had successfully made hot chocolate. Bringing one to me, she smiled and placed a blue mug in my hand. She had a purple one. It made me laugh.

“So,” Emily asked after I took a sip, “how is your first ever glass of hot chocolate?”

“Awesome,” I said between gulps, “I missed out my whole life.”

“Yes,” She agreed, “Yes you did.”

I opened up the blanket so she could come and cuddle with me underneath it. That was probably her plan the whole time. Emily leaned in to me, resting her pretty little head on my right shoulder. I clicked on the T.V., and an older romance movie in black and white was playing, so I kept it there. She liked old movies. When we finished our drinks, we placed the cups onto the coffee table. Then I put my arms around her. I was very tired, and I could tell that she was, too.

Emily’s eyes were just drifting closed when she whispered, “I love you.”

It was then that I could feel the darned block drifting away, dissolving into nothing, and leaving behind a strong loving feeling for this woman that I felt so deeply about. I had never felt anything like it before, and I’m glad that it was for Emily, too. I had a feeling that I was going to be with her in my future. It was my initial decision to spend the rest of my life with her. I just hoped she felt the same way.

“I love you, too.”