Maturity (2013)

The sun was burning brightly the day she arrived. The moment she got off the plane she could feel the hot wind blowing into her face. This was the first time she travelled alone – without her parents, without friends. Just her, on her own. She would wake up in the morning when she felt like it, eat whenever she wanted to and go wherever her legs would take her. At night she would promenade along the shore and maybe she would meet a nice young boy, fall in love and cry her heart out when she had to fly back home. At 18, she felt like her whole life was ahead of her. Anything was possible. It had taken her almost a year to convince her parents to let her go on a holiday alone. In a few weeks she would start university.

A few hours later she found herself sitting in a small bar at the beach. He walked up to her, smiled, got her a drink, complimented her, made her laugh. She blushed, completely taken in by this first wave of affection any guy had ever shown her, inexperienced and overwhelmed with the situation, unable to tell right from wrong and see beyond any façade, so beautifully created by young men out to seek pleasure. She felt that at this moment, she grew up. From one moment of the other, the girl she had thus far been was now a woman.

The next day she spent with him, watching the waves hit the shore, feel them crash against her body. She tumbled, with every wave that hit her, almost unable to keep any kind of balance, to tell up from down, and left from right. Everything was beyond her, exposed to everything at once she felt as if she was watching herself from the outside being a different person. Everything happened so fast that she was unable to comprehend a single moment, give any of her actions a single thought. Another wave. She felt his lips on hers. His tongue touching hers. His hands running up and down her body, taking off her top and shorts. His fingers found their way to those parts of her body she had hidden away so far. Those parts that you don’t talk about.

A short pinching pain, she screamed, then it was over. He collapsed on top of her. She found it hard to breath. Then he got up, put on his shorts and shirt and walked away. She wanted to scream ‘Wait, where are you going?’, but she didn’t. She was overwhelmed with the situation, embarrassed, alone, not able to understand what had happened. She quickly put on her clothes and ran back to the hotel. The rest of the holiday she spent in her room, only sometimes she would walk down to the beach, looking for him. Maybe he was looking for her.