I started out feeling a lot older than I should.  Twenty five years old and felt ugly and out of shape. No convincing me the cigarettes and anti anxiety pills had anything to do with it. I remember not so long ago when I was young, I could have swept any girl off her feet, had a good time with nothing at hand to use as conversation. Precisely delivering every word out of my mouth like a surgeon with a scalpel. I would drive pretty girls to the mountains; roll around in fields to grin wide eyed at their thighs. I was young. Complete with friends I grew up with who lived down the street, I honestly felt like I didn’t belong, if they were swimming I was drowning, if they were strong I was weak; when they were sleeping I stayed up shaking. Anyways everyone experiences some sort of solitude growing up. I met a young beautiful girl one night in the street, while she was walking by I said hello and she asked “what do you do around here?” I quickly answered “look for people like you.” It was a cool summer night when I had convinced her the next day to meet me down the street from the hotel her family was staying in. The Colony hotel, complete luxury and high life. Her name was Lilly. She had a strong British accent and I immediately loved her. We were standing on the porch of the Nonantum Hotel . People walking by checking in and out. We sat in the wicker chairs for 4 hours talking about life as if we had lived many lives before. I was seventeen, she was nineteen.  She told me to stand up and when I did she pushed her body against mine and we both pushed up to the post that ran up to the roof. She looked at me and swore to me I had to promise no matter how long, any matter of time pass, I find her so we can spend the rest of our lives arm in arm. She then leaned in and kissed me till I couldn’t breathe. Long passionate and full of emotion, she meant every poke with her tongue and curl of her lips. An older lady walked by and said loud enough for us to hear, “it must be nice to be young.” She had forgotten and I felt like we belonged in the movies as two lovers in a dramatic ending where the women cried in theatres and the men consoled their own heartbreak. We kissed for a while longer, and then I walked her up the street back to the hotel. She was gone, I’d never see her again, nor do I have any plans to find her now. I had the best part of my youth robbed as we all do, and I don’t think I could love her now the way I was sure I could love her then.