On a Saturday morning, one unnaturally warm for the usually brisk Pacific Northwest region, a girl woke up early.
Her first thought was not of the time, 6 am. She had woken up at this hour many times before, every Saturday in fact. Nor was her first thought about the unnatural warmth of the air seeping through her window. Her first thoughts were not of her legs tangled in her blankets, of the large breakfast she wouldn't eat, or of the last remnants of her dreams.
Her first thoughts were of a boy.
As were her second.
Her third. Her fourth.
Her fifth however, was that she should probably get ready to leave.
That summer, the girl had spent every Saturday morning 3 miles up the road at a small farm owned by a family from her church. Her father, the pastor with a history of dairy farming, had encouraged church goers to head up to the farm to help pick the bushels of fruits and vegetables being grown for his churches personal food bank. The girl simply assisted him.
The boy was on her mind every other minute, as she dressed, washed, loaded her allergy medication into a bag and trekked out the door into the misty morning heat. All through the drive she was silent, wondering if he every thought about her. Her father was all but indifferent, speaking of little but weather patterns and permaculture.
The farm was large yet quaint, owned by a woman who evidently had an unfulfilled dream to become a Barbie doll. Farm animals were littered unnecessarily around the property, serving little purpose but to appear cute. The girl supposed they succeeded.
45 minutes of plucking kale leaves offered little satisfaction to the girl, her fingers shaking and *****, aching for contact with the boy who she admitted to herself had probably never given her a second thought. However, this thought was in fact her 67th consecutive such one about the boy. She was unaware of how her 79th thought about him would happen to coincide with the gentle vibration in her pocket. A small blue box with an early morning greeting would appear on her cell phone screen, making her dirt covered hands oddly still.
She was unaware that the boy was motivated to send this particular message by his 104th consecutive thought about her that morning. She was unaware that, much like her, he had thought of little else over the previous month. She was unaware that hours of conversation would lead to revelations of startlingly similar music preferences, opinions and thoughts.
She was unaware how deeply he felt for her. Yet she was all but unaware of how deeply she felt for him. She was unaware that two years from this warm Saturday morning she would be laying in bed at 1 am, rediscovering her writing talent while recounting the beginnings of a love story. Her own.