The Fool

After seeing the girl in my dreams, even though I was told that I would be hurt if I didn´t stop searching for her I woke up. Thanks to Steve´s advice of drinking water the night before I wasn´t feeling that bad. Sure I had a bit of a hangover, but it was not something I couldn´t live with. The sun didn´t hurt my eyes and I could listen in on the others talking without getting a massive headache. So all in all it had been a good night.

The schedule for today is playing some beach soccer among ourselves and some friends that were also having a vacation at the same place. So after getting up from bed, grabbing some shorts and walking down into the dining room I could see that everyone else had already woken up.

“Yo Aidan, took you long enough. But after all your delusions last night I´m impressed you even got up”
“I know Steve, the water really helped me and my dreams were so frightening and then so calming that I didn´t have any problems recovering. It is a small miracle to say the least.”
“You tell me Aidan, when you got back from the beach last night you were really drunk. Thank God you didn´t try to take a swim or something”
“That wouldn´t be me Steve, it doesn´t matter how warm or how drunk I am. I do not want to take a swim after having drunk alcohol, it was one of the things my parents told me when I was younger and I try to follow their rules even now”
“We know Aidan, we all know. Don´t leave yourself open for jokes about how childish you still are and still listening to your parents”
“I´ll have that in mind”

Eating breakfast consisting of a bowl of ceral and milk along with some sandwiches we joked about last night, I got a lot of dumb jokes about the mysterious girl that I still believed that I had seen taking a bath in the sea but as noone believed me I didn´t take it any further.

After eating breakfast we headed over to the beach to play some soccer. After having played for an hour or two, we didn´t really take time into consideration. We decided to take a break and find something to eat and drink.

As I walked a head of my friends I saw something I didn´t expect to see here. A group of guys was standing around a girl obviously trying to pick her up. I heard her telling them she wasn´t interested in going with them and found them to be rather worthless males. Maybe not the wisest of things to say in the situation she was in but I liked her personality, she wasn´t afraid to tell others what she thought of them. Her white dress and brown hair made it obvious why the guys had even tried to pick her up, she was beautiful and I feelt as if I had seen those winered eyes somewhere before. She was also wearing a sunhat and she was very persistent in keeping it on as if she had something to hide on her head.

Upping the pace I started walking towards them and when I was behind one of the guys I grabbed his shoulder

“You know guys, if you want to pick up girls you´d rather try with some girls that want to be picked up. From the looks of it this lady doesn´t want to go with you so why not just leave it?”
turning around the guy took a firm hold of my shirt and dragged me close into his face
“Dude, mind your own busniess if you know what is good for you”
“So you fall back to threats now? What were you going to do in the middle of the day to this girl if she wouldn´t go with you? Knock her out in public? You´re not very smart are you?”

Yes, I was tempting him to getting violent with my words. With the summer house and area filled with people everyone would be a witness to me using only self-defence if anything should happen, but I didn´t want to fight. I just wanted to get shift his attention from the girl to me.

Still having a firm hold on my shirt I could feel that this guy wasn´t that strong. He just wanted to prove himself to the guys around him that he was able to do things. Probably a dare or something of the sort. I kept my calm and continued to talk
“You do know what will happen if we start to fight here right? It´s in broad daylight and lots of people are watching.”
“I don´t really care what happends to you or what other think of us.”
“Oh, that´s good to know. Now if you could unhand me we could get this thing on the road”

Not releasing my shirt he started to bend his arm backwards and was about to strike me when someone grabbed his arm from the side and shook it. He released me in a hurry since he seemed to be in pain.

“You idiot! How many times have I told you not to do something as stupid as this in daylight? Why even do it if you know that it won´t work? Just give up on trying to pick up girls. You should have been at work a couple of hours ago”
a strong looking person with a angry face stood beside the one who had previously hold my shirt. He looked to be a mix of a butler and headchef for something. But thanks to him I was saved.

“Thank you mister.”
“Don´t worry, I have to thank you for telling this young master about how to behave in public.”
“All is good then. That´s good to know. Thanks once again”

With the authority of his voice and firm grip on the “young master”´s arm he led the group of boys away. I returned to look where the girl stood. Her face showed signs of disbelief, anger, mistrust and her eyes were angry but I found myself drawn to them.
“You idiot, why did you do that? I could have taken care of them myself. You could have gotten hurt.”
“I don´t think so miss, this group was mainly all talk and even though they talked big they did not walk the same way as they talked. And if my friends would come around the corner…”
saying this Steve and the other appeared from around the corner
“How did you know that we were there Aidan?”
“Well, we have been together for such a long time I could almost feel you. And if it had been a fight I know you guys would have come out to help me”
“Yup”
“So you see miss there was nothing to worry about”

Crossing her arms over her chest she took a long look at me and my friends
“You´re still idiots. What is it with males that makes them want to fight with each other so much?”
“Well, in this case when such a beautiful lady is being harassed I can´t stay still. And for my friends I think it´s the same right guys?”
“Yep, any girl that gets Aidan into confronting people is a girl we want to protect since it will be good for Aidan to find a girlfriend soon”
“That was unfair of you guys and it wasn´t the reason I stepped in”
“Oho? So that is why males confront other males? To show of their vigor and persistence to females? I can´t say I´m impressed with your methods. But I will give you my thanks”
“It isn´t necessary miss, I only did what I thought was right”
“That feeling of justice will someday get you into big trouble young man”

As she said this she turned around and started walking away. A bit dissapointed not being able to get her name, for some odd reason I felt drawn to this lady. But before I could walk away with a dissapointed face Steve ran up to the girl.

“Miss? May I ask you a question?”
“What is it?”
“We are having a party tonight, we live in the house there”
Steve turned around and pointed at the house´s direction
“And we would be overjoyed to see you there tonight. What we said about it being extremely rare that Aidan confronts other people to be nice to a girl was not a lie. It was the truth. As you can see he is also a bit dissapointed in not getting to know you better today. So if you want to you are welcome to come by our party tonight”
“Why would I want to go to a party where males will drink and act like these buffoons did today? Isn´t that to much to ask of me?”
“If you say so. Then I´ll have to make it into a suggestion as it being the way of thanking Aidan for helping you out today”
“So that´s what you want to do? I will think about it. At what time does the party start?”
“It starts around 8PM. We will be at it for most of the evening untill the sun sets down and come up again propably. So you can drop in anytime you like after 8PM”

Taking note of this and then turning around she started to walk away in the busy street. Standing a bit from the point where Steve and this lady had talked I didn´t know what to do. A feeling of sadness hit me and I wondered why my heart ached like this? Why did this specific girl make me want to protect her and tell her that everything would be alright if she just believed in me?

As I stood there and gazed after her Steve returned and grabbed me by the arm and almost dragged me into one of the places so we could get some food.

End Chapter 2