When we first met I was scribbling some code on a napkin and she was watching her drunken sloth of a mom try to sing karaoke. People did always tell her she should have been a singer, or a graphic designer, perhaps a painter? Her mother's dreams and aspirations were based on what other people thought of her. Much like her mom she could never think for herself and this would be her undoing.

She sat down next to me with a glass of white wine and I struck up a conversation with the lovely lady. Her cousin, the flamboyant ice skater no one in her family thought was was, thought in his wafer thing brain that I was hitting on him. This is the same prick you'll learn more of later, he encouraged bad habits with Alex. Much like her, he wants everyone to be ass selfish and miserable as he is.

Despite the future lessons I had not learned yet, she and I talked for hours and became enchanted with one another. From the first moments I fell head over shit in love with her. It felt warm like a dive in the shores of Hawaii, surrounded by natures beauty with serene warmth spreading over my body. As with all things in nature, there is always a shark in the distance. I would not see that shark surface for 2 months.

Before we finished our drinks we stepped outside for a few cigarettes, I have a habit of smoking or biting my nails when I'm nervous. Cigarettes are my outlet for that twitchy kid inside of me that wants to run around screaming. In the moment I couldn't think of a better way to spend an evening and that feeling remained for years.