• tab Once upon a time there were two people.
    Their names were Jesse and Natalie.
    Natalie was the most beautiful girl in the world and everybody came from miles all around just to take a glimpse of her beauty. Even her presence was likely to cause fainting in a crowd. The women envied her, the men wanted her, everybody was drawn to her. One of these men went by the name of Jesse.
    tab Now Jesse was born into a lower-class family. He worked long hours to help his family make ends meet as his mother could not work due to spine problems.
    He didn't complain though, he was glad he could do something rather than nothing to make his family proud of him.
    One day, his mom told him to take the family cow out to the market to sell for some extra income. He did as he was told, and the walk to the town was filled with carefree whistling. That was, until he saw her.
    tab As Jesse entered town, Natalie was concentrating on buying some vegetables from one of the merchants in the market.
    The people around and walking past her were either staring or whispering to their friends about her.
    Jesse completely stopped in his tracks when he saw her though. Her beauty stunned him until he had to remember to even breath.
    To him, it was love at first sight. He suddenly noticed everything about her, every single detail of her from the top of her pretty hair to the feet in her newly-bought sandals.
    tab Natalie carried a bag full of items she bought during that day (much to the pleasure of the townspeople) which swayed on her arm as she told the merchant meticulously what she wanted without hesitation.
    Jesse snapped out of this beauty daze and led his family cow to a meat merchant which, coincidentally, was right beside the store where Natalie was. As he negotiated with the merchant, he couldn't help but glance at Natalie. But not too much, otherwise she would probably be creeped out. Not saying that Jesse himself was unattractive, it's just how would you feel if someone kept glancing at you or stared?
    Not that Natalie would notice, she has long learned that people will continue to stare no matter what she did.
    tab So after Jesse had gotten a reasonable price on the cow and a reluctant goodbye, he noticed that Natalie had left from where he saw her. Instantly he panicked. He went through throngs of people, searching for her. First through the market and when he couldn't find her there, he went to town square. Still, she was nowhere to be found.
    After forty minutes of constantly searching high and low, he had given up. As he walked through town again for the last time, he kept his head bowed.
    It felt like his own heart had been torn out.
    Jesse thought to himself, maybe it's for the better? He didn't even know her, all he did was use his eyes. But something else kept jabbing at him, saying but she was so beautiful! He thought just one touch would make him happy for the rest of his life.
    Instead of thinking about it though, Jesse should have been looking to where he was walking, because he was walking right into Natalie at that moment.
    tab And when I say right into her, I mean, right into her.
    He literally crashed into her and caused them both to drop on their butts onto the ground.
    He noticed as her surprised face gave way that she fell more gracefully than he did and he couldn't help to think that he finally did get to touch her even if it in this unpredictable way.
    All her vegetables had been thrown from the bag she carried onto the ground and Jesse instantly got up to retrieve them.
    Once he did this though, he noticed the people who witnessed the accident come to aid the girl who was still on the ground.
    They helped her up to her feet and surrounded her with questions, "Are you alright?" "Do you need a doctor?" She waved them away, but they kept asking as if unnoticing her pleas. She tried to look to the person who had crashed into her, but the amount of people who came to her was enormous.
    Jesse watched this, looked down at the bag, put the it gently down onto the ground, and walked away.
    tab As Jesse walked away from the scene, he was sure he had made a fool of himself in front of her. Now she'll never forgive me for what I did, he thought. He hated himself for being careless, especially in front of the one girl he had feelings for! But now that I'm gone, she could easily forgot about me and what I just did.
    He walked on for quite a bit, only stopping for an apple a little boy was selling. He patted him on the head and give him a quarter. The little boy said, "Gee, thanks mister!" and ran from Jesse. As he bit into the apple, he noticed a figure in the corner of his eye. It was her.
    Slowly creeping on him was Natalie and once she had gotten to him, she said, "Um, hi."
    This made Jesse go into a tremendous coughing fit as he still had a little bit of apple still in his mouth. This made the girl giggle a bit but soon enough, she became concerned.
    "Are you okay?"
    tab Needless to say, embarassed and confused, Jesse hastily nodded and walked over to the nearest bench to sit down and catch his breath.
    "I saw you looking at me, y'know."
    Jesse slowly moved his eyes to where Natalie stood standing with her bag in tow. Jesse thought she looked gorgeous as the sun gleamed off her skin.
    "You did?"
    Natalie giggled again for a bit, "Of course! Did you think I wouldn't when hundreds of others do the very same thing?"
    She took the pause in the conversation as a go-ahead to sit on the bench next to him.
    Jesse looked at her and said, "Sorry about that.. and about before."
    Natalie looked at him. "Oh, that? Please, that was nothing!"
    Jesse started to tremble a little bit as she talked.
    "I wanted to say something to you but those townspeople just won't leave me alone."
    "Why not?"
    Natalie sighed. "Because everybody thinks I'm beautiful, graceful, all that rubbish. But I'm not like that at all. I can't get anything right at home and when I finally do do something right, my parents just yell at me."
    Jesse pondered after a time asked, "So why do you put up with them.. both your parents and those people?"
    "Because.. they're always going to be there and always going to think about me in the same way. There's no changing it. So.. might as well just live with it, y'know?"
    They both looked each other. After awhile Natalie asked, "Do you think I'm beautiful?"
    tab Jesse looked deep into her eyes and said, "Yeah.. I do."
    Natalie looked away, but only for a moment as Jesse brought her eyes back to his.
    "But when I think of beautiful, it's different from theirs. My beautiful is love. That's what I'm feeling for you now, and that's what I've felt for you when I first saw you."
    Natalie blushed a deep-red color. "But we don't even know each other's names," she said.
    "Jesse."
    "Natalie."
    They looked again into each other's eyes and he leaned over toward her slowly until their lips met.
    tab After that, Natalie and Jesse talked for a long time.
    Even after the sun set and the moon rose, they were sitting on that bench interested in what the other had to say.
    They promised they would see each other again, here at this exact same bench, with each other's love in their hearts.
    Then they each went home, with thoughts only about the other one.