My name is Night Silver, and this is a true story. A true story of what happened to me and what could have happened. It talks of what I wished had happened today and what didn’t. It also tells of 3 broken hearts.

I am 16 years old as of last November, and I’m far from being a shy person. I was shy growing up however, and now I’m what society sometimes calls a “social butterfly.” I get along with kids wonderfully, my having been a babysitter since 12 being clear proof of this. I can talk to teens my own age and become friends without much of a trouble, and I can even waltz up to an attractive guy and flirt with abandon, and possibly later ask him out. I’ve done this 3 times in the past in fact.

I’m not afraid of being with a guy. I’m not afraid of romance. Although, you could say I might be afraid of love.

The first time I had a boyfriend, I was 12 years old. This was the only time that although I initiated the flirting and conversation, he was the one who ended up asking me out on a date. His name was Bocaj, and he was sweet. He was 16, tall, and with a head of short brown hair. And I have to say, looking back; he was the best one at conversation and impressing my parents, 2 big brownie points. He called me up with plans for where to go, and always remembered to call me on the holidays. He even came over to my house, surprising me, on a day when I was sick. He brought a homemade basket with chicken soup, and a small frog stuffed animal that I found adorable. (None of my other boyfriends did that.) Bocaj took me on trips every year, to the outdoors that he knew I loved. For a year and a half we were together, and we held hands, he kissed me on the cheek, and he called me up just to chat. He even made a habit of opening the door for me every time I would get into the car, and would say, “Your chariot awaits Madame.” After a year and a half though, I broke up with him. I didn’t love him, and I saw no love in our future.

After 4 months of singleness, my being now 13, nearing 14, one day went to a park day meeting for teens, and met a new boy. We chatted for hours about Star Wars, which was a large interest of his. I didn’t ask for any contact info from Ttereve, but we ended up seeing each other at a teen dance two weeks later. There, we got along fantastically, and at the end, I got his number out of him. We started going out soon after that, and I have to say, he was the best at being a gentleman. He was so elegant and so graceful. He was kind of dark, (vampiric in a way) but impressed my parents by chatting and later, goofing around with them a little. Something I distinctly remember him doing, was one day my parents were driving him and I somewhere for a date. My mom asks the car a rhetorical question,

“We need a gas station.” She says, and for a moment, no one answers.

“Like that one?” Ttereve suddenly replies, pointing out the window. My mom wheels around.

“Where?” She asks, and he grins smugly at her and shrugs.

“I don’t know.”

Ttereve had a great sense of humor. He was the only boyfriend of mine that ever really was okay with sharing food, or goofing off. He was open to so many things, and was always patient with me. He never did anything I was uncomfortable with, and we had a special honesty between the two of us. If something bothered of us, if either of us wanted to change about our relationship, we called each other up, or arranged a date, and talked about it. Even though Ttereve lived an hour and a half away from me, he always made a point of staying in contact with me.

12 months into the next 2 and a half years of Ttereve and I’s relationship as girlfriend and boyfriend, Bocaj called me up. It was Valentine’s Day, and he said he was listening to all those romantic love songs on the radio, and thought, “why don’t I call her up and give it a try?” I didn’t know how to say no, and nor did I want too. And so, I dated both of these guys at the same time. I wasn’t cheating. I told them both about each other, and even introduced them to each other at one point. Gosh, that was the most uncomfortable handshake I ever did see! Anyway, 2 and a half years later, I had broken up with both of them. Bocaj and I stayed in contact a while, but then he moved to Reno. Ttereve and I became friends, and in that friendship, we were closer than we ever were as boyfriend and girlfriend.

Was I done with romance for a while? Nope. I broke up with Ttereve in spring, and in August I had asked another guy out. His name was Irtimid, and he was 17, and by this time, I was just about to turn 16. He was gorgeous. He was darker than the other 2. With long dark curls of brown hair, darkly toned skin, and soft hands, Irtimid and I were together a long time. A good way to give an example of him, would be to say he was like a prince, but a quiet one. He was reserved, and romantic, and gorgeous. We were together for six months, and then I broke up with him.

It now being spring, I am still single. All my friends wonder how long it will last. They all wonder how long it will be until Night Silver finds another man and breaks his heart. Yes, all 3 of the boys I have dated since I was 12 say they fell in love with me. All three told me it several times, over and over again, and alas, I did not love any of them. One of my friends has even called me the “Heart Exterminator.” It’s not a nickname I care for, I assure you. They were all wonderful to me, and I find one of the things I miss most about a romantic relationship is French kissing.

I am a romantic person. I write about it, dream about it, gossip with my friends about it, (who doesn’t?) so I am not a stranger to it.

Have you ever had a day where you could picture something happening so clearly, believe it to be possible and so likely, that you don’t see how it couldn’t come to pass? Where it’s so clear in your mind, you can even see the phantoms of it happening before your eyes? I did. Today I did. And I wished this daydream had come to pass.

Today, I went to a picnic at a park my mom had heard about. As soon as I arrived, I knew I would be spending most of the afternoon with my parents. Everybody there was either under the age of 12, an adult or a parent. There were no teenagers I could see, other than my 14 year old brother. My two brothers spent their time with the other kids, and my parents spent their time talking to the parents, and I hung with them. I snacked; I enjoyed the blustering wind, and the peaking sunshine. I walked around, delighted in the smells of the forest I love so much, and it wasn’t until the last hour and a half that anything especially notable happened for me.

A group of boys arrived in the field of green grass my parents were lounging on with other people, and next to the playground my brothers were playing in. I had just gotten up from sitting on the warm grass in the sun, and was making my way over to the building we had left our lawn chairs under, when I saw the 7 boys arrive. I watched them with unwavering eyes, as they made their way to a volleyball net. I went and got the lawn chairs, and when I came back, I saw that they had somehow messed up the strings that came out of both ends of the net, anchoring it into the ground, so that the net was now lying on its side. All 7 of them were working to get it back up. I walked by them, letting out an amused chuckle.

“So,” I mused aloud to myself, “How many males does it take to fix a volleyball net?” I laughed at my own joke, and went back to join my parents.

Eventually, my family and I moved away from the adults and sat lay out a blanket we had brought on the grass. We all lay down, my brothers still over by the playground. I sat cross legged on the edge of the blanket, and watched the boys 40 feet away from us. They were all handsome, and I was finding myself thoroughly enjoying watching them try to set up this volleyball game. Several of them were just playing with two different balls, while 3 of them kept playing with tangled string. Out of these 3 males, one wore a pair of yellow kaki pants, so that’s what I called him. His two fellows I called Dark Skin, (when I asked my mom, she said she thought he was the most handsome) and the other I called Loose Shirt, because it was such a large shirt on him. For the life of me, I could not figure out what the string was for, and why they couldn’t play without whatever purpose it did serve.

I was watching for a mere 15 minutes, when I finally realized that all 7 of the teenage boys weren’t speaking English. They were speaking Russian. This only made them more attractive to me.

“You should go over and play with them.” My dad said, and I sighed at myself.

“But they’re such good players. It’s hard to flirt with them if their beating my butt through the whole game.” I replied, and this time my mom put in her opinion.

“I bet the fact that you’re a cute girl would make all the difference you need.” She told me, and I smiled. She was probably right about that. My mom was right about a lot of things. So far, as is unusual in the life of a teen at my age, my parents had both liked my 3 boyfriends. Bocaj was friendly with them, and they really liked his parents. Ttereve talked to them, and they thought he was quite the gentleman, and they liked Irtimid too, but they had hardly known him. Overall though, my parents had liked my boyfriends, and both had given me countless times, consoling and advice. My mom helped my break up with my boyfriends, helping me take why I didn’t want to be with them anymore, and put it into words, which she then helped me sugar coat. I loved her.

You may find it crazy sounding, even silly, but I sat there for the next hour and a half. I just watched them, and listened. I found myself fascinated by the words they spoke, and how I swore I heard a bit of English every now and then. Eventually, when they finished untangling it, I realized the white string was actually used to mark the perimeter for the volleyball field, and as the out of grounds line. The 7 of them put it into place, and then, after almost 45 minutes spent just trying to set it up, they actually began to play. They were great players too! I loved watching them run about, making their hands in fists, jumping into the air and reaching for the ball at odd angles, and the way they spoke. Sometimes I whispered the words I overheard to myself, tasting them and playing with them.

My favorite was one of the ones playing on the far side of the net. He wore an orange shirt, and was the best looking of all 7 in my opinion. He had short wind blown blond hair, and was very agile, as they all were. He was a great player, and seemed to jump higher than the others. I watched him the most.

“You should go over and play with them.” My mom would say to me again, as she had said, my dad had suggested, and something I kept repeating to myself, but I would always come up with excuses for why I didn’t.

They spoke Russian. How would I follow the game? The points? I had no way of knowing if they spoke English or not.

They were great at volleyball. I felt if I were to flirt with them, I needed to be at least good enough to hold my own. Sure, I did one season of volleyball as a child, but that wasn’t enough to count here, against these 7 skilled young men.

Also, the one time when the Russian girls that seemed to always stay separate from them, tried to come over and join the game, they immediately sent them away. I felt uncomfortable trying to play because of this reason as well.

Over the next hour though, time began to pick at my excuses. I heard at more than one moment, the boys speak in English and without their accents. (Their voices sounded really good then too!) My mom pointed out the holes in what I said was their “skillful talents.”

“And besides,” my mom said, “You said yourself if you leave without playing the game with them at least a little, you’ll feel mad at yourself.”

She’s right too. I already feel mad at myself. I keep pushing myself, saying “get up already,” but my mind just shoves excuses into my face again. I know as soon as I get in the car, I will ask myself why I didn’t just push away my fears as I do every time I go on one of my many summer camps. Those times when I have to push myself to jump into a waterfall, or swing over a river. Those times I had to push away my fear and anxiety, and I always did, so why was this so much harder for me? There wasn’t any threat or physical injury, or worse, death, so what was the big problem? I didn’t know. I was usually social. I had already had 3 romantic relationships, and had been the one to end all 3. Talking to boys wasn’t new to me.

I continued watching them. Several times the ball would go out of bounds on my side, so one of them would come running toward me after it. Kaki Pants did this, so did Baseball Hat, and Loose Shirt. Every time, I would nod at them with a bright smile, and a tip of the red velvet hat on my head. They would always smile back at me, and then run off with the ball again, but I never let one of them come over after the ball without grinning at them.

Eventually, the sun decided to make up its mind between hiding behind clouds and blessing us with its warmth. The blustering wind died down, and the sun decided to let us have its blessings. For people like my family and I, lying on a blanket on the ground, it was a perfect temperature, but for the 7 boys playing volleyball, it must have gotten really hot. Why do I guess this? Because 5 of them took off their shirts! My mom and dad had both been lying down on the blanket behind me, resting against each other, but when I said, “They took their shirts off,” my mom sat back up again. She sat next to me, and I heard my dad chuckle behind me as he heard me giggle at the comments my mom was making in my ear. We loved to joke around about attractive guys, and compare notes, but I knew my mom was completely devoted to my dad. I’d never had any worries there, and I didn’t plan on having any either. There wasn’t any reason for it.

They had good chests. There was no doubt about that. They had great butts too, but I wasn’t looking at those just then. (I had done that earlier!) My eyes were focused on their sweaty muscled chests. Now watching them play was all the better. I watched Orange Shirt the closest. Every time he ran, or served the ball for another play, the sunlight would sometimes reflect off his chest in just the right way so that it shined gold. He looked kind of like a wild guy, and even though I couldn’t understand half of what he and his friends said, I could tell he was one of the leaders among the group. I could this by how he directed the other people on his team, and how he called to the guys on the other side of the net. It was really interesting to watch, trying to figure out what was going on by how they moved, and their tones.

“I bet they don’t even realize I’m watching them.” I said to my mom at one point, and she gave a laugh.

“Oh?” She replied. “I bet they do. It’d be hard for them to miss a cute girl like you watching them. I bet it has something to with why they took their shirts off. I think their very aware of you.”

I glanced down at what I was wearing that day, and grinned. I didn’t wear normal clothing. I didn’t dress as most 16 year olds these days did. I didn’t dress in all black, and I didn’t wear make-up every time I opened the front door of my house. I didn’t wear tiny mini-dresses, and little shirts that showed my belly-button. (Not to say I NEVER wore these, but they weren’t generally part of my everyday style.) I wore what has sometimes been referred as “Bohemian.” Today, I wore a gray, (almost black) dress, and the ruffles of the bottom half of which went down to just past my knees. It looked almost Victorian, with the lace up the chest, and over the breasts. The sleeves only went down to my elbows, and it had ruffles on the shoulders that I had fallen in love with when I bought it at a Thrift store in my families area.

Considering that I wasn’t wearing everyday wear for a teenager, my mom might be right. I knew I was cute. I won’t brag, because I hate when people do that, but I think today I really was. So, maybe she was right. Yeah, they probably had noticed me, and yeah, I was probably cute enough to make up for not being that good at volleyball, and yeah, the fact that I didn’t speak Russian probably wouldn’t have bothered them, and they might have switched into English for me, but still…I didn’t get up. Still, my incessant brain shoved excuses in my face.

At one point, my mom and dad drifted off to the building that had the tables with the food. In the few moments they were gone; I slipped my hand inside my purse, and got out one of my Business Cards. I looked at it, and then glanced up at the 7 people playing Volleyball. I thought about Orange Shirt coming over to me as we left the park, and asking for my name and number. I pictured him smiling, and brushing his wind blown blond hair from his eyes as he took the business card I would hand him. When he touched my hand to take the card, his fingertips would be soft and gentle, yet strong and callused. I smiled. I folded the card in half, and then slipped it inside the sleeve of my dress on my right arm.

A few moments later, my parents returned. The end of the picnic was near, and so my family rose to gather our things together. I stayed sitting for a bit longer, and once they were all standing, I got to my feet and gathered my things as well. I sent 5 glances over my shoulder and back at the field where the boys were still playing. I tried to catch the eyes of one of them every time, until I passed out of sight of them. When all I could see of them was their forms jumping into the air after the ball, my family and I reached the car.

I felt a tap on my shoulder, and turned around. There, before me stood Orange Shirt….without his shirt. He looked even better up close. I paused a moment, trying to find something to say. Even if I couldn’t get up the courage or logic to get myself to go play volleyball with them, I would NOT allow myself to be speechless right now!

“Hi there.” I said to him, and he smiled that bright smile I remember picturing back in the field. “How can I help you?” I asked him cheerfully, smiling in a friendly way back at him.

“I saw you staring at us for all that time. You should have come and played.” He said, and brushed his blond bangs away from his forehead, only to have them fall back into place with the next gentle breeze.

“Nah, I’m not that great of a player, and besides, you guys seemed to be enjoying yourselves.” I replied to him, and he shrugged. He looked awkward for a second, and I could tell my family was all sitting in the car, kindly giving me space for a second, but I knew both my parents were listening intently even if they were pretending they weren’t.

“Anyway,” Orange Shirt went on, and glanced at me nervously. “Maybe you’d like to try another time?” He asked, and I felt my heartbeat pause a moment, and then leap into a full gallop. It was like a starter gun to a horse, and the horse wasn’t waiting any longer.

“I would like that.” I replied, being more polite and formal than I probably needed to, but the fact that I was talking at all was impressive.

“Is there some way I can contact you then?” He asked me, and my grin widened in a very obvious way I knew I couldn’t hide, just like I knew I couldn’t hide the redness coming to my cheeks. I withdrew the card I had placed inside my sleeve, and noticing the amusement in his eyes, I handed him the folded piece of paper. He glanced at it, and then back up at me, his blue ocean eyes shinning brightly in the sunlight, just as his bare chest had back on the volleyball field. “Night Silver?” He asked me, and I nodded. He thanked me, and then ran back across the parking lot, onto the grass, and across the field to the volleyball net again, where the other 7 boys no doubt waited for him with congratulations for talking to me, and for getting my number.

I turned away, and climbed in the car once Orange Shirt was out of my sight. I saw the bright amused grins on my parent’s faces, and knew I was in for teasing from my brothers, and my own congratulations from my parents. I might not be single for much longer. Was Orange Shirt going to be boyfriend number 4? My friends would love to hear about this! Was he a good kisser? Was he romantic? Could he impress my parents? What about a sense of humor? So much to find out about!

Of course, this is what could have happened. It could have. Orange Shirt could have run after me when I left the field and headed to the car. He could have tapped me on the shoulder and told me he’d noticed me watching him and his friends. He could have come and asked me for my number, but he didn’t.

I could have left my business card out on the field where my parents and I had laid out the blanket. I could have left it there, and maybe Orange Shirt might have found it. Maybe months later he would contact me, saying I had accidentally left my business card behind, and I would laugh, knowing he didn’t yet know I had left it there on purpose, hoping he would find it. But I didn’t. I didn’t leave my card in the field across from the volleyball court, and Orange Shirt didn’t come after me, and neither did any of his friends.

Instead, this is what happened.

A few moments later, my parents returned to the field. The end of the picnic was near, and so my family rose to gather our things together. I stayed sitting for a bit longer, and once they were all standing, I got to my feet and gathered my things as well. I sent 5 glances over my shoulder and back at the field where the boys were still playing. I tried to catch the eyes of one of them every time, until I passed out of sight of them. When all I could see of them was their forms jumping into the air after the ball, my family and I reached the car. As I opened the door, I pictured Orange Shirt tapping my shoulder and turning around to face him. When I sat down in my seat, I pictured him coming and stopping me from closing the door. I closed the door, and put my seatbelt on, and imagined Orange Shirt tapping a finger on the glass, and asking me to slide the door open again. The car pulled out of the parking lot, and last, as we drove onto the winding road that would lead back to the highway, I looked behind us, and back toward the field, picturing so vividly the image of that handsome shirtless wind blown blond haired guy running after me. We pulled onto the highway, and I turned my gaze to face forward.

That’s what really happened. I got into the car, and drove away. A few minutes after leaving, I got mad at myself as I expected I would. I kept asking myself why I didn’t get up and talk. Maybe one of those images I got in my head would have happened if I had helped it along a bit. I kept attacking my excuses now, and asking myself why I couldn’t push away my fear. I had all those boyfriends; I shouldn’t have let my cowardice take control of me. I wasn’t one to allow that.

I withdrew my business card from my sleeve. I unfolded it slowly and looked at it. A soft grin came to my lips.

I was mad at myself as I thought I would be. I was wishing I had done something as I knew I would once in the car. And the business card? I returned it to my wallet. Maybe some other time.

My name is Night Silver, and this is a true story. A true story of what happened to me and what could have happened. It talks of what I wished had happened today and what didn’t. It also tells of 3 broken hearts.

Have you ever had a day where you could picture something happening so clearly, believe it to be possible and so likely, that you don’t see how it couldn’t come to pass? Where it’s so clear in your mind, you can even see the phantoms of it happening before your eyes? I did. Today I did. And I wished this daydream had come to pass.

But what happened did. Things are as they are. I will accept it, even if I can change it later, I can accept it for now as being what it is. Maybe I shall try again later, and change it, but for now, this is how it’s going to be. More guys will come along, and maybe I will not fall cowardice then.

People say “in the future lies great possibility.” Nope. The future isn’t happening. The future will never happen. As an example, it’s like how you’ll never actually reach tomorrow, because when you do, it will be today. In the same way as this, you will never reach the future, it will always be today. You can never reach the past. You can remember it, dream about it, but it will never “happen” again. There is only Now. There is only Today. Which is why I should have taken a leap today, but I didn’t, and now its in the past.

“In the now lies great possibility, and it always will.”