“Kiki, wir mussen in halb Stunde gehen,” Bettina woke me up trying not to startle me.

I opened my eyes slowly letting the light in. I glanced over at the clock on the nightstand, I was late. I must’ve turned off the alarm again and gone back to sleep without noticing. I jumped off the bed and thanked my friend and host with a smile as I ran into the bathroom. In a swift movement I put my hair in a high bun and disrobed to step into the tub. I grabbed the shower head and let the warm water run down my body. I closed my eyes and a memory from two weeks ago clouded my mind, the same memory that had been haunting me every time I let my mind wander. I remembered his blue eyes, his pink lips, the jawline, the lashes, the way his hands on my hips had felt, the electric feeling of his mouth on mine. I opened my eyes hastily and shook my head. “He’s not thinking about you, idiot,” I could hear myself in my head all day. But I was thinking about him, all day, every day. My mind quickly raced back to the comments my group of friends made the very next day after meeting JC. I could hear their voices, 

“Oh yeah, they must do that every night. Meeting girls must come with the job.” 

I smiled politely at them and tried to ignore them, but I knew they were right.

So I finished my quick shower and jumped into a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, undid my bun, brushed my long dark brown hair and finally pulled two thick strands back into a half ponytail. Went downstairs, grabbed a piece of toast and a quick sip of juice and was out the door on my way to school. 

The day passed as most of them did, school, lunch with friends, and then volleyball practice. I signed up for the volleyball team as a spare because I was obviously not going to be around the whole year to train but I loved it and they took me. So after volleyball practice I started walking home with Rike, one of the girls on the team who lived nearby. We talked about her boyfriend, about her plans for next year which would be senior year. She asked if I had made my mind up about applying to colleges in Germany and the truth is I hadn’t. The thought of deciding something about my future made me tremble a little. 

I stepped into the house, took off my shoes, took off my coat and was ready to settle down for the evening when I heard the phone ring. Frau Janssen, Bettina’s mother, answered it as she always did, I didn’t pay any attention when suddenly she called after me: “Kiki, Telefon fûr dich!” I turned around with a bewildered look on my face and looked at the clock on the wall behind me. My parents usually called until later at night, and they usually just called me once or twice a week, because long distance fees, and we had already talked that much this week. I walked into the kitchen towards the phone and put the speaker up to my ear as I pulled out the stool beside the breakfast table and sat on my foot. 

“Hola?” I said expecting my mom to answer me. 

“Hola? that must be the cutest thing I’ve ever heard,” he said and chuckled. Thank God I was already sitting down because I would have stumbled right there, after hearing his voice. 

“H-h-hi,” I managed to whisper after collecting myself. He chuckled softly again. 

“Hi, there pretty girl.” My mind started racing, my heart beat a million miles per hour. 

“I’m sorry I hadn’t called earlier, it’s been crazy here on my end. I’ve been thinking about you, though.” 

“Yeah, me, too,” I said in a more normal voice this time, not really believing he was on the other side of the call. He began telling me how they had left Dusseldorf the day after meeting me and spent 3 days in Kôln in rehearsals and photo shoots and then a couple days later they resumed the Club tour going south to Bonn, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, all the way down to Munich and then they started up north again and now they were stopping again in Nordhein-Westfalen for a couple days to go east towards Berlin. I loved how he had a hard time pronouncing the German city names and imagined he had written them down and was trying to read them. I laughed. 

“So my German is that awful, huh?” 

“You’re cute.” 

He took a deep breath.. “So we had today off, we’re back in Dusseldorf. We walked by the hotel where I left you, I really wished you were there. We had some nasty potato pancakes, too. I really like the trains.” He rambled and started talking very fast, I had the feeling he was nervous about something.  “So anyway, we have a couple days off after the meeting tomorrow and I was just wondering, I mean, I know you have school and stuff, I actually wanted to call you since early today but I assumed you had class, and I remembered you usually do stuff in the afternoon so I had to wait, I was very bored,” he took a deep breath. I was filled with anticipation. “I know it’s a lot to ask, but, I was looking up the map and I realized we are not really that far from each other and supposedly there’s a cool town just a few minutes from here called Essen? Which is funny, because I thought essen meant food.” I snorted very loudly this time. 

“What?” he asked. 

“You’re right… I mean, it means eating You’re funny.” 

“Um… yeah, so, do  you think you could meet me there? At the town called eating?” 

My heart skipped a beat. “I looked it up, it’s only like half an hour away for you, by train and like 40 min away from me. I mean, I guess I could come to you, too but the tickets get kinda expensive then and we’re sorta getting by on allowance here…”

I started thinking about my schedule without saying anything, already moving things around and thinking about what I was gonna wear.

 “H-h-hello?” he said, with a little panic in his voice. 

“Yeah- yes! Of course yes!” I said a little too loudly and then cringed a little. 

“Really?” he sounded more relaxed then, I think I even heard a little sigh of relief coming from his end. 

We chatted a couple minutes more, he said to check train times and he’d be calling tomorrow, at the same time to coordinate schedules. I hung up the phone with butterflies still flapping around in my stomach, I walked out of the kitchen into the hallway and into the living room where Bettina was watching TV. She turned to see me, I must’ve looked like an idiot, she motioned for the phone with her thumb, opened her eyes wide and asked “Ja?” as if asking if JC had called and I just shrugged and nodded my head with an idiotic grin on my face. We then proceeded to talk about him the rest of the evening. 

We were to meet at Essen Haupbahnhof at 10.15 which is when my train would arrive. JC’s train would get there 15 minutes earlier. I had not told my guest parents that I would not be attending school that day, only two of my friends knew where I would be just in case I needed to contact them. I woke up extra early that morning, no sleepy turning off of the alarm, I was up way before it went off. I did my usual routine, shower, breakfast and off to the S-Bahn station, but instead of going the direction of school I went the other way, downtown to the main train station. I sat and waited, I was more than half an hour early but I didn’t care. It was cold but the mere thought of JC was keeping me warm. 

I stood on the platform at 9:40. The train was scheduled to be there at 9:43, which it was. You have to love German schedules, always on time. I boarded the train, found a rear facing seat in the middle of the car to avoid the cold of the doors when they opened and closed and took a deep breath. A million thoughts were running through my mind. “What if he doesn't show up? What if we have nothing to talk about? What if he doesn't like what I look like in light of day?” I shook my head lightly and ran my hands through my hair trying to think of something else. I grabbed my bag and took my compact powder case, opened it and checked my make up quickly. Put on some more cherry red lip gloss on and went back to trying to stay calm. 

Four train stops away the Essen Hauptbahnhof was announced over the speakers. I stood up and walked over to the door holding on to the rail. I put on my gloves and stepped on the platform after the train came to a full stop and the doors opened wide. I walked over to the building looking from side to side, searching. Finally, I could spot him about 100m ahead of me. He was standing in front of a wall that had a mural on it, his head tilted upwards, mouth open. I smiled as I started walking faster. He must have felt my gaze upon him because he turned his head in my direction and his face lit up completely when he saw me. He started walking towards me until we were standing right in front of each other. We just stood there for a couple of seconds, he was actually there. Baggy blue jeans, white sneakers, a dark blue jacket over a black wool sweater and a gray beanie. His hands were in his pockets and he swayed from toes to heels a couple of times with a foolish grin plastered on his face. I smiled wide and said “Hi!” 

“Hi,” he replied as he took his hands out of his pockets and started towards me to embrace me in a tight hug. I squeezed him a little as his scent filled my nose and made me a little dizzy, a mix of tang and musk emanated from his skin. He also pressed me against him with one hand on the back of my neck and his nose buried in my hair. I could hear him inhaling next to my ear and it made my heart flutter. Slowly we parted, he ran his hands down my arms and held my hands in his. 

“I’ve been looking forward to seeing you,” he said with a shy smile. We started walking out of the station, his hand still holding mine. 

We walked for a couple minutes unsure of what to do next. We kept the conversation light, we talked about the weather, the food, the awesome trains. It was a beautiful day, it was cool but the sun was shining. I had checked the map the day before and learned that there was a pretty park with a pretty little lake not far from the train station so that’s where we decided we would stop first. We walked by a small café. 

“You hungry?” JC said. 

“Sure, you?” 

“I can always eat,'' he said, flashing a million dollar smile. We walked into the café and decided to get a snack to go. JC glared over the pastries and decided on two chocolate croissants and two hot chocolates. When we were in front of the line he looked over at me nervously, I took the hint and ordered for us, he quickly stepped up when it came time to pay. We walked outside towards the lake. There were benches all around, the air was fresh. We sat down on a bench with shade. I started eating slowly, nervously. I turned to look at JC and he had more or less inhaled his food and was now blowing softly on the hot chocolate cup, the steam rising from it slowly. He put his free arm around me and pulled me a little closer. I welcomed it and laid my head on his shoulder. We both sighed at the same time and then laughed quietly. 

“So, I was just thinking how reckless I am. Coming all the way here without knowing if you are a serial killer or something,” I said trying to break the silence. He chuckled. 

“How do I know you are not some crazed fan that followed me all the way from the states posing as a cute Guatemalan.” 

“Ooooh look at you knowing your demonyms.” 

“Look at you with your big words.” We laughed.

 “Actually,” he said as I turned to face him. “I had to look up Guatemala, I had no idea where it was,” he said, turning a little red. “I had to go into a bookstore and browse an encyclopedia.” I laughed. 

“Yeah, don’t worry. Most people don’t know where it is. Everyone here hears Central America and they don’t have any idea. They think America is only the United States.” 

“Yeah, well one less thing I don’t know. Sounds super lovely, though.”

“It is,” I said looking to the lake and then back at him with a smile. “But I’m more interested to know more about these crazy fans that follow you all around the world to stalk you.” He laughed, throwing his head back. He then grabbed my chin with his left hand and started playing with my hair with his right hand, bent in and pecked me on the lips. I could feel my cheeks turning bright red. He chuckled softly and kissed me again, this time a little more deeply. 

“Hmmm,” he grunted as we parted. 

“So did you always want to be a rockstar?” I asked as I scooched closer to him and put his arm around my shoulders, my back pressed against his chest and started playing with his fingers. 

“I didn’t. I mean, when I was a child I always wanted to build stuff. We would move around a lot with my mother, like we didn’t have a steady home for a while so I used to think about building us a house.” He got really quiet suddenly. I could feel him shift a little awkwardly. “But then after I got adopted and started having a more normal life and attended school and everything and was introduced to music everything changed.” He had mentioned he was adopted in passing during one of our conversations. I didn’t want to dig deeper, though. I wanted to wait until he was ready to talk about it. “I got dared to enter a dance contest and after that I used to want to dance all the time, I actually kind of had a dance group and we would rehearse after school. It wasn’t until my mom really encouraged me to audition for the MMC that I considered doing this seriously. I loved every minute of it. From awkwardly singing and dancing in front of the producers, to the training camp they sent us to, everything was just so incredible. I mean, I knew nothing about nothing. I believed I was good, I could dance and sing but the vocal coaches and the choreographers and the writers, it always blew my mind how much you learned every day. It was hard work with school and everything but there were a bunch of us and we all were going through the same thing so it was very cool. And you could really feel yourself getting better, you could see the hard work paying off in how the audience reacted to your performances. And performing, whew,” he took a deep breath. “Nothing beats it.” 

I found myself staring at him, in awe of how genuine he seemed, how humble. He already had been a star. Plus I had seen him perform, he was amazing at it, and yet here he was so hungry to be better. I also felt a little jealous. He already had known what he wanted to do with his life since he was 13 years old, and there I was at 17 with no clue. 

“And being adored by girls everywhere didn’t hurt I’m sure,” I said part joking, part jealous. He laughed. 

“Well, it doesn’t suck.” He laughed harder. “No, but seriously, it’s not why you do it. I mean, don’t get me wrong, when you’re on stage and you feel the energy of the crowd and they want more it just feeds into your own energy and it’s electric, and it’s incredible. But when I’m off stage it can get a little awkward. It’s amazing to feel loved, though. And it’s also amazing to share it all with the guys.” I nodded in understanding.  

“So, you picking up girls after shows is not something you usually do?” I said trying to play cool and looking away from him. I could see him from the corner of my eye as he narrowed his eyes and glared at me. 

I turned to him and smiled coyly, he pulled me closer and wrapped both hands around my waist and planted a big loud smooch right under my ear. I squirmed and laughed. 

“Seriously?” he started. I nodded. “Of course I’ve hooked up with girls, I mean, yeah…” I started to get a knot in the pit of my stomach, “But to actually want to see them again… that’s not so frequent. Actually going out of my way to meet them in the middle of nowhere, even when they are probably huge stalkers… never.” We both laughed. “Plus, I swear, this is the first real time off we’ve had in months.” 

After a while we decided to visit some sites which included two coaling museums, a few WWII landmarks and the local theater. We stopped to eat lunch at a small quaint pizza place and then we did a little more walking around. It surprised me how easy it all seemed. How freely conversation flowed, how his hand managed to find mine every time, how familiar his embrace felt. 

As the sun started to go down, we were back near the lake. I shivered slightly as a cool breeze blew right through us. He stepped behind me and put his arms around me. He slowly spun me around forcing me to walk backwards slowly. He stared right into my eyes and smiled. We stopped when my back was against a tree. He grabbed the side of my face and caressed my cheek as I slowly closed my eyes and sighed. As I looked up at him he was softly biting his lip as he started to bend towards me. Our lips touched as a bolt of electricity ran up my spine. His free hand traveled to the small of my back causing me to arch my back slightly. The taste of his tongue in my mouth and his breath on my face was intoxicating. We just stood there, kissing, lost in each other’s embrace as the time to say goodbye slowly crept closer.