With the mid-morning sun warming me, I sat there, head between my hands, and deep in dark thought. Tears were not so far from my eyes as memories of my old friend, Michael, came back to me. He was an old school friend I had not seen for two years, but I knew I would miss him; that dark wavy hair, his laugh, and running circles around him on the football field. He hadn’t been that good at soccer.
I never expected to return from a lad’s holiday abroad and learn Michael was dead. Killed in a motorbike accident when I was away, enjoying myself. People were not meant to die at our age, eighteen.
“For fuck’ sake, eighteen is no age at all,” I muttered to myself, my words lost in the gentle breeze.
It was late July 1983, the year compact discs went on sale in the United Kingdom, a year when Margret Thatcher won the election yet again. But to me, 1983 was far more important than either of those things, as it was the year that I realised I needed to face my future and start to grow up—to become the man I am today.
My story, or more correctly, our story, starts with a visit to my local beach on the south coast of England on a Saturday morning in late July 1983. The visit had been sparked by two things, the sad news of Michael’s death, and a Scottish girl whom I met on holiday; her name was Kirsty.
There was the realisation that I would never see either of them again. The raw emotions I was experiencing were new, real, and hard for me to understand. I had always been a person who needed to understand and think things through before any action.
But, first, let me introduce myself…
I am David, eighteen, with my nineteenth birthday fast approaching in mid-September. In appearance, I have been told by girls that I am quite attractive, in a handsome sort of way. Yes, maybe I am a little arrogant, though I did not quite see it myself!
It was true that when I tried, which was not very often. I never had any issue with attracting the attention of good-looking ladies, but looking to attract girls was not really me. I simply didn’t understand them. I was happy playing sports and being single, but recent events made me reconsider, and try to set myself some life goals.
I am six foot one inch tall with quite an athletic build due to all the sports I play. I have green eyes, high cheekbones and slight dimples. My dark brown hair, which I keep fairly short, has a fringe and a parting on the left-hand side.
Currently, I am living at my parent’s house and studying engineering whilst completing an apprenticeship at a large local company.
Until the sad news, I was happy having just come back from a Mediterranean lad’s holiday with my two best friends, Mark and Tony. We had a terrific time. Having got up to all sorts of mischief, which included meeting an eighteen-year-old ginger-haired Scottish girl called Kirsty.
It wasn’t like me hooking up with a girl so easily, but Kirsty was different. We just clicked. During the holiday, I had taken her virginity and then had somehow, fallen semi-in love with her as we fucked and then made love for the entire week.
Holiday love, the lads called it when they teased me, but it was new for me. After loving and leaving; my internal feelings, my emotions, just seemed to be all over the place.
That, coupled with the horrendous news I received about Michael shortly after my return, had sort of shocked me. Life was precious, and it started me thinking about my life, my future, and where I wanted it to go.
To get some time to reflect in peace, I took the fifteen-minute walk from my parent's house down to the local beach. I just sat there on a bench seat that overlooked the calm sea with the sandy beach slightly below me.
A family sat there, the blonde mother reading a book while the father and two young boys were building an enormous sandcastle. Just in front of them, an older, fair-haired girl was paddling at the edge of the sea. I wondered if she was part of the same family group. It was not so clear.
I sat there, taking in the sea air and began thinking, reflecting, and even assessing what I wanted in life; my goals. It is at this point that this story, our story, really begins.
I noticed a young, tall girl just to my left. She was leaning over the railings that defined the rear of the beach, to the footpath and the bench where I was currently sitting.
She seemed to be doing the same thing as me, looking out to sea and reflecting, though she also wore a slight grin as her yellow crop top blew in the gentle breeze. On an older woman, you would say she was dressed provocatively in her tight white shorts.
I just could not help but stare at her as she had that essence of future beauty about her, though she was probably only in her mid-teens. There was something about her that just caught my eye. It was her hair, cut in a long bob, but it was not the style that caught my eye, it was its unique natural colour.
At first, I thought it was golden brown, but there was also a lot of flaming red, and then I saw the blonde streaks peeping through the curtain of red and brown hair. It was mesmerising as it fluttered in the wind. I had never seen natural colours like it before, or for that matter, since.
She looked around. I got caught staring, though she grinned.
“Sorry,” I embarrassingly said.
“It’s your hair. It’s got so many colours in it,” I then innocently remarked.
