Part 1
That Marissa knew little of love was obvious.
She did not often think about her parents or her siblings, for there had been such little love there to begin with. She had not seen her father since he'd left just before she began High School. Her mother had no fondness for her own children, so Marissa had taken to avoiding her as soon as she was able to leave the trailer in which she'd grown up; she took the scholarship to Crystal, found a place there in the dorms, and never looked back.
Her older bother had been absent the longest, joining the air force when Marissa was only seven years old. He never looked back, and she felt no bitterness toward him for it. They exchanged cards during the holidays, accompanied by pictures of their respective children, and they'd spoken over the phone a few times throughout the years, but Lawrence had little interest in returning to Destiny City even to visit. Marissa could hardly blame him.
Her older sister was the closest even now when they hardly spoke, when Gina looked at her with bitterness in her eyes and spoke with a voice full of venom. Their relationship had not been the same since Paris was a toddler, since she'd expressed a fondness for pink and declared that she wanted to be a ballerina.
Marissa was little better with her children. She would be the first to admit that she'd made a number of mistakes, particularly with Paris. Yet it was with Paris, and with Paris's father, that she learned the most about love.
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Marissa met Paris's father when she was only seventeen, fresh from graduating from Crystal a year early and entering her freshman year at DCU. It was late September, that time of year when the temperatures fluctuated between the mid seventies and the low eighties, only to dip more consistently in the weeks to come.
The year was 1992—an eventful year by Marissa's standards. It was the year the first President Bush vomited into the lap of the Prime Minister of Japan, the year the Cold War was formally declared to have ended, the year of the Los Angeles riots, and the year the space shuttle Endeavor made its maiden flight. Hurricane Andrew hit the Bahamas and the southeast of the United States that August, just a week before. Cartoon Network would make its first broadcast in a month. In November, Bill Clinton would be voted the 42nd president of the United States.
But what Marissa remembered most about that year was entering a quaint little art supply store with one of her classmates, and noticing the man who sat behind the counter.
She wore cut off shorts, a tattered looking Nirvana t-shirt, and a blue plaid button-up tied around her waist. Her hair was separated into two braids which draped over each shoulder, but the sight of the man behind the counter had her hastily unravelling them. They were childish, she thought. She should have outgrown them long ago.
Her classmate noticed the motion and snorted her amusement. “He's too old for you,” she declared.
Marissa refused to respond, simply made her way around the store to find the items listed on the syllabus for her Intro to Art class. The man behind the counter flicked his gaze up at them every once in a while, probably to make sure they didn't steal anything, but otherwise gave no indication that he even cared that they'd entered his store. He didn't say anything in greeting, and he didn't offer to assist them in finding anything.
Once she'd collected what she needed, Marissa took her purchases and set them on the check-out counter. She observed the man as he went about scanning the items. His nose was a little large, his face covered by day old stubble, but his eyes we gorgeous, fringed by naturally long, dark lashes, and his cheek bones were high. His hair was a dark brown—wavy and a bit shaggy, like it could use a trim but he hadn't bothered taking the time to stop by the barber shop. He wore jeans frayed at one knee, and a plain white t-shirt.
He was decidedly average. If it weren't for the eyes, Marissa likely wouldn't have given him much notice at all.
“Thank you,” she said once he'd bagged up her items and finished the transaction.
His response was a quiet grunt. He barely looked at her. Once he was done, he went back to working on the crossword puzzle in the paper.
Marissa stood there until her classmate nudged her in the back. She stepped to the side and attempted to be a little more covert in her observations of the man behind the counter. She looked for some sort of plaque or name-tag, but found nothing to identify him. If she had to guess an age, she'd guess mid-twenties.
Too old, indeed.
Her classmate looked at her in exasperation, shook her head, and when the man behind the counter handed her the change she uttered her thanks, grabbed Marissa's arm, and dragged her out the door.
It was not the most auspicious of meetings. The man behind the counter had given absolutely no indication that he'd thought of her as anything more than just another customer, but Marissa was unable to get him out of her head.
It was not love at first sight, but it surely was infatuation. He was quiet and brooding; his refusal to speak to her in more than a grunt could have very easily been interpreted as rude, but Marissa could not forget those eyes.
She didn't want to.
Later, she wouldn't have to.
The infatuation would change her life.
