The Yellow Diary

Introduction

"I really never had a problem with women.

In high school, there were many women that looked my way. As a linebacker for our football team, I held the interest from those who just wanted to wear my practice jersey during homecoming, to those wanting a quick kiss behind the bleachers after school. My short, curly brown hair and green eyes were two things in particular that people always commented about me. My height as well--some people just love someone who is taller than them; almost at a towering length. Women, mostly. Men commented on my ability to tackle someone half my size by just putting a hand out in front of them.

Yet, not one person held my interest for long enough for anything to become serious. Because of this, I was able to focus on school and football, giving me a scholarship to get into Stanford University here in California. When I got here, I formed a friendship with two people from my computer mechanics class--Reilly and Corey. We've grown close over the past few months, and it was all because of a competition in our class. We were pitted against students all around the country to see who could do a various amount of different tasks. The reason we were in a competition with people from outside of our college was to teach us that computers, these days, are our deepest connection to the problems of the world that needed fixing.

However, I found a different connection.

Because our group did so well, we were invited to a conference held at Stanford to meet our competitors face-to-face. We met people from Harvard, Princeton, MIT.. all of the big leagues. Then, there was one girl from Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Now, mind you, computer science is still a growing program; and at least from my few months in the major I can count on one hand the number of women I saw in the program that were actually any good. And by God, this one was great. I'd never even heard of Ann Arbor before I met her, and I wouldn't have normally paid her any attention if she didn't immediately catch my eye. Her long, straight red hair was down to her waist, held back by a pair of bright blue sunglasses that bounced light off from the computer monitors around the room. Her face was sparkled with freckles, about as dark red as her hair. And when she looked my way, with her tantalizing smile, I knew I was sold.

We spent the entire conference together--all of four days. Her name was Rachel Bennett, and being around her was intoxicating. Her smile, laugh; she knew how to hold your attention and make you feel like you owned the room. To this day I'm still not sure if I dreamt her up or not. Perhaps my brain was tired of competing with dorky men who were just like me--my subconscious wanted someone who would challenge me.

That Sunday, Rachel and I went to the small cafe where my mom works as a waitress, and I introduced them on what I would have considered our first date--Rachel says it was a "no-date" since I hadn't kissed her.

'If you kissed me, when you kiss me.. I'll know it's real then.' She had said with that beautiful, bright smile.

Later that night, I brought her to the pier. There was always something going on down there; we rode the ferris wheel, and played all of the rigged fair games you could think of. I somehow won her a purple giraffe that looked like it had been stolen from a nearby convenience store as a last minute prize--but it made her smile when I gave it to her. We walked along the water, and the sun hit her hair just right... I felt like I was walking next to a crystal prism. The way she made me feel the entire day, and how much I had made her smile was a slow building high for me. My breath caught in my throat as I viewed her profile.

It was our last day together, and I wanted to make it count. I grabbed her hand, slowly turned around, and leaned down to kiss her. Our kiss was electric, the way she ran her hand up my neck and curled her fingers around my hair. The blue ring she wore on her finger caught on my hair, but I didn't care one bit. I could feel her red lipstick smear on my face, and I made it my goal to have it all of by the time we broke away. When we did stop to breathe, I leaned my forehead against hers and swore to never forget about her. Tears rolling down her cheeks, she swore the same.