I opened the door to the gym, and stepped inside. There was a herd of kids of all shapes and sizes all around me. I walked to the stage that was set up at the back of the room. I propped myself against the wall and leaned my head back to take a breath and close my eyes. See, I had been called in to compete in this speech tournament about an hour ago, my coach called in a frenzy, asking me when I was going to show up, and where I was at that moment. This was running through my mind as I closed my eyes. I opened my eyes, and I looked into the sea of people. As I looked away, something caught my eye. It was like nothing I had seen before. I had to take a second look, and upon second glance, I saw what was attracting my attention was a girl. She was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen in my life. I knew I had to talk to this girl, but I was too nervous that I would embarrass myself, so I just staid on the wall. I could not stop myself from looking at this girl, it was almost like she was illuminated. None could compare to her beauty. She was wearing a white dress, her blonde hair flowed down from her head past her shoulders. She was shaped like an hourglass, and she had a smile that could brighten up the darkest of places.

I walked over to my friend, and I asked him about her, “Hey dude, who is that?”
“That’s Amanda, she’s a freshman from a charter school, but I don’t think you have a chance with her bro.”
“Why not?” I asked in an offended, yet disappointed tone.
“Because she’s completely out of your league, many have tried to get with her, not a lot of have succeeded.”
“I will. I can’t let this opportunity slip through my fingers, that would be the worst mistake of my life.”
“Okay dude, but I’ll come with you and introduce you to her.”

We made our way over to her, my heart was pounding out of my chest, sweat was pouring out of my palms, and I could barely breathe. I tried my hardest to play it cool, and I think I was mostly successful in my attempt. I looked directly at her as my friend was talking to her. I was in a group of about six people, including myself and my friend. As my own thoughts cleared, I could hear her angelic voice. She was talking to my friend, but it was not serious talk. She was making fun of him, and the jokes were funny, I couldn’t help but laugh at them. My friend looked back at me and said, “Really? She’s making fun of me, and you’re laughing?”

“Yeah dude, it’s funny, don’t get all butt hurt.”

My friend was not introducing me to her, so I knew that I had to take it upon myself to meet her. I stretched out my hand, it was shaking like a leaf. She shook my hand, looked directly into my eyes, and said, “Hi, I’m Amanda Murphy, nice to meet you.” I could barely speak, but I uttered the words,

“Hey, I’m Marty. Nice to meet you too.” I could not believe that I actually met this girl. There have been very few times that I actually felt my heart flutter like a bird, and felt like I was floating on a cloud. Actually, this was the only time I felt so strongly for someone that I barely even knew. Sadly, that was the extent of how much I would get to talk to her that day because I had gotten sick.

The next day, I texted another friend of mine that I knew had her phone number, and I had to almost beg her to give it to me. Almost as soon as she gave it to me, I texted it and asked if it was her. The two minutes I waited for a response were the longest two minutes of my life. I stared at the screen of my phone until the speech bubble popped up and said, “Hey:) it’s Amanda, and yeah I remember you from the speech tournament, how is it goin?”. From there, things were like a rollercoaster, up and down, up and down. It took two months of me talking to her to finally make her mine, and on November 29, 2014, she said she would be my girlfriend, and I’ve never been happier.