Neon In A Grey Crowd

It was another summer day, filled with the sun's radiance and cool ocean breeze.

I come to the beach to escape, unwind, find my center and be whole.

My happy place.

The Los Angeles traffic suddenly became worth the forty minute drive as soon as my toes touched the Cali' sand. One hand held the boogie board, while the other was interlaced around my pair of black sandals.

With each step I took, I was reminded on why I came.

I place my pair of sandals down beside my boogie board, opened my camouflage backpack and brought out my little blue book of stories.

A little blue book filled with stories of many journal entries, tear stained pages and blank sections written in emotions.

I'm oceans away from whatever lies beyond the distance.

While tying my hair into a bun behind my head, I catch the glimpse of a surfer leaning onto their board before entering the cool waves. As the surfer gains momentum and rides the currents, he glances over in my direction, smiles, and then suddenly crashes into an oncoming wave.

Taken aback, the surfer chuckles and exits the water, then begins to walk over to where I'm sitting. 

There's no doubt he's making a direct beeline towards me.

I begin to ask myself, he couldn't have meant to be walking towards me, or is he? There wasn't anyone else around me since I was the only person by the lifeguard tower, and he's walking in this exact direction. Now he was only a few steps away.

Suddenly, blond hair, pink swim trunks and a handsome surfer soon blocks my view of the ocean.

"You sure have a way of making people fall for you," he states as he approaches me.

I'm able to get a real glimpse at him. He's tall, tanned from the days surfing under the sun's rays, wearing bright pink swim trunks and water glistens from his body in the light. He was hot.

"I'm sorry. I was just looking at the water, then you popped up and I couldn't help but look, I mean look at you-" I blurted before realizing what I was saying, and all I saw was his smile pulling up even further into a grin.

"So, you were checking me out?" He asks with one hand on his surf board and the other gliding through his wet blond hair.

Flushed and now even more embarrassed,  I cover my face with my hands, shake my head; then look up at him and ask "is it too late to start over?"

We both chuckle and introduce ourselves.

For a minute, I forget the guy back home that warms my tummy with each moment we share together, and I smile at the tan surfer with the green eyes.

I hold onto the moment before it ends and we part ways on the sunny summer day.

His name is James, twenty three years young, just graduated from San Francisco State with a degree in marine biology and is currently taking a gap year before entering graduate school. It's too perfect and too easy, there's conversation flowing and it's going well; but the butterflies don't flutter like when I'm with Ethan.

No matter how many James' I meet, there's only one Ethan.

James adds himself on my snapchat through my phone, we promise to snap one another and then he heads off back into the water and I go back to my writing.

I'm left afraid of the possibility and the what if's that could be in store ahead if I go for it with James the surfer dude I met at the beach, compared to Ethan back home where we're so close yet pull away each time.

I can already hear the laughter in the background when I think about how many times I've come to the beach these past five months and finally meet someone.

I've accepted that I'm in love with movie love, the kind of love where it feels like just you two are neon in a grey crowd.