Gaia - Worlds Apart, Book One

Chapter One

Athens

I first saw him in a crowded street, in a crowded city, on a sunny summer day. I was on vacation with my family, visiting Greece for the first time. I was eighteen, with long, ash-blond hair and hazel eyes always on the verge of changing to a dark green.

Athens was warm that day, the sun kissing my skin, the radiance of the daylight caressing my eyes like a lover's hand. My father had just parked the car, and I was happily basking in the Mediterranean light while the constant humming of the engines passing nearby made me feel drowsy. The only sound out of register was my sister Clara's crystalline voice laughing at something silly I had just said, which kept me from falling asleep right there on the sidewalk.

A playful wind tangled my hair and brought to my sensitive nose the smell of freshly baked honey-dipped pastries. I smiled, turning my head to see where the bakery was, when a single sunbeam touched only my lips, warming them. Then, something happened. The air stood still, the sweet aroma disappeared, and the wind stopped moving my unruly hair—even the luminosity waned, coloring the ancient city in an ethereal light. I became suddenly aware of something—someone.

A sudden sparkle of electricity in the air gave me goose bumps. My whole body reacted as if magnetized, and I turned my head slowly toward a precise point in the middle of the street, where I singled out one car slowing to a halt. I don't remember the make or the color of the car at all, but I will always remember his eyes staring back at me—light blue, with a hint of green and lots of gold, full of wonder and relief and sadness all at the same time.

I had only a few seconds to contemplate his face, but it felt like a lifetime to me. He was tanned, with regular features. His nose was beautiful and straight, his mouth a faded pink, cracked by exposure to the sun and the sea wind, his curly, untamed blond mane equally sun bleached. He had a Mona Lisa smile, his lips curved upward even though he wasn't smiling at all.

I existed out of time, content to be pulled by the invisible force emanating from his eyes. I had never in my life experienced such an overwhelming attraction to another person, but I wasn't scared. On the contrary, I felt serene. Whole.

And then, all of a sudden, I was brutally thrown back into reality. The spell was broken. His car moved, and everything seemed to come to life once more; the traffic was humming again; people were walking by like nothing had just happened; my sister was still chuckling at my silly joke.

The moment I lost contact with his eyes, sadness possessed my soul. The world seemed less cheerful, the aroma from the bakery less tantalizing, the sky not so blue anymore. I felt I had just said goodbye to a loved one. That sensation of being alone burned my heart and stayed with me the rest of the day. That night, I lulled myself to sleep with warm thoughts of calming, light-blue eyes and smiling lips.

His memory didn't fade, and it kept me company during the rest of the trip. My parents noticed my mood swings and asked several times if I was okay. I honestly didn't know how to answer, and after a while they let me be. My sister was more insistent, but for all her prying, she didn't make me confess. I just couldn't talk about it.

What was I going to say, after all? That I'd had a vision? That I couldn't forget some stranger's eyes? It wasn't romantic; I sounded delusional. Clara would surely laugh at me, but only after diagnosing me with a clear case of heatstroke and dehydration caused by the Athenian sun. So I kept my thoughts and my memories to myself, and I tried my best to enjoy the rest of the trip.

Not that I had to force myself to like Athens. That summer, I had graduated from an Italian classical high school, and all my studies about the great civilizations of the past were still fresh and ingrained in my brain. The trip to Greece had been a special graduation gift. I was grateful my parents were giving me the opportunity to see with my own eyes all the places I had only studied in pictures.