The Only Thing Left

“I hope you know that it is extremely dangerous for you to be up there.” Samuel jumped at the sounded of the voice from behind him. They didn’t speak loudly, but they had broken the quiet silence that he was enveloped in. His secret place of escape was quickly ruined by an idiot who obviously thought they ruled the ship. Samuel thought it was probably one of the people who worked here.

He turned around, expecting someone in uniform, but was surprised to find a very thin and frail looking young lady. He took in her appearance, noticing her peasant clothing. She had on brown pants that were too small on her and looked like high waters, an off white short-sleeve shirt that looked too big for her, and brown shoes with holes in the front of each, showing the tips of her dirty socks underneath. Her light brown hair was pulled into a bun in the middle of the back of her head. She had dark brown eyes that complemented her light hair.

Samuel kept on looking at the girl. He wasn’t carefully taking her in because she was of lower class than him, no. But he simply felt that he had seen her somewhere before… possibly known her. As soon as he looked in her eyes it was as if the world stopped. Butterflies erupted in his stomach and he couldn’t take his eyes off the woman in front of him. Apparently, she thought he was looking at her for different reasons, because she immediately broke eye contact and looked down at the floor.

“I just thought I’d let you know,” She said before turning around and started walking. Samuel jumped down from his spot and hurried over to the girl, for reason he will soon find out.

“Wait,” He said as he caught up and stood in front of her. “Might I ask your name?”

The girl squinted up at Samuel, not sure what his abrupt gesture was for. “Anna.”

Samuel took Anna’s hand, and then bowed down and kissed it, all the while looking in her eyes. “It is a pleasure to meet you, Anna.” He stood up, but never let go of her hand. “My name is Samuel.”

“Nice to meet you,” Anna simply said. She couldn’t understand why someone of the upper class was talking to her; they barely ever even look at her. She studied his face for a while, trying to see if it was possible if this boy could even have any flaws. His perfectly blond wavy hair looked like it had been combed to the side at one point, but it was now free to fly every which way. Anna thought it looked like he could’ve brushed it out with his hands. His eyes were a bluish-gray color, and they looked dull in the moonlight; lifeless almost. He was wearing a black three piece suit; vest, blazer, and dress pants, with a white button down shirt underneath it all. Black, shiny leather shoes covered his feet, which to Anna looked pretty big. And to top it all off, right around his neck was a perfectly tied black bow-tie, making him look older than he really was. Anna wondered just how old this young man was. He looked too young to have all this stress and worry etched onto his face, but then again maybe he could have had that new surgery done that the doctors were talking about to make people look younger than they really were. She didn’t know if it was actually an effective procedure, but looking at the man in front of her, it answered her question.

Anna took her lingering eyes off his body and looked at Samuel’s dull ones. “Why were you standing on the railing of the ship? Don’t you know how dangerous that is?” She asked. It bewildered her that a man as wealthy as he could even think of putting his body in such harms like that. Anna, on the other hand, would do that any day of her life, but of course she was poor and had nothing to her name; nothing to lose.

She noticed that he still had not broken contact with her hand, and let her eyes linger there while she awaited an answer from him. She heard him sigh. “I just needed a place to relax; a place to get away from all the chaos in my life.” Anna lifted her head up to see Samuel had been staring at her. She felt her face flush and instead look at the bow tie around his neck.

“Well, I’m sorry if I intruded on your relaxation. I just thought I’d warn you.” She dared a glance back up at him, but quickly looked back at his tie once she found he was still looking at her.

“Do not apologize, my dear. I knew very well of the dangers I was putting myself into.” She saw him smirk in her peripheral vision, but still would not look in his eyes. “But thank you for the warning.”

“You’re welcome.”

A few minutes went by in complete silence. Anna was very uncomfortable and didn’t enjoy the silence, while Samuel did in fact enjoy it. He thought the silence was a peaceful one, the silence he had been looking for the entire night. It only made it better with this beautiful girl here in front of him.

While they were both contemplating on their own thoughts about the other, Anna’s stomach suddenly growled. Samuel knitted his eyebrows together and kept his eyes on her. “Are you hungry, Anna?”

She finally looked up at him. “Well, you did kind of take me away from my dinner,” She said smugly.

“It is not I who came up to you to tell you how dangerous it is to be on the railing, my dear.” He smirked at her, knowing he got her stuck in place. And she was. She averted her eyes away from him, trying to think of a good comeback, when in fact there really was none. He was right. She had been the one who started it all, and she suddenly felt stupid for trying to blame him.

“Well, I guess I better get going.” She changed the subject and took one last glance at him before turning around and walking to the lower class dining hall, if you could even call it that. It was more of a plain room with wooden tables set up here and there for people to sit down and eat. The funny thing was, no one ever really sat down to eat. People would stand and eat their food with their hands, or they just wouldn’t eat at all and dance the night away on the tables that were meant for eating.

Samuel stopped Anna yet again, standing in front of her as she rolled her eyes at him. “Wait,” He said, “let me join you for dinner.”

Anna looked at him like he was suddenly growing a third eye. “Why? Didn’t you already eat with your upper class people?”

Samuel stiffened when she included him in the same group as the upper class people. Of course, he was rich like they were, but he never acted like they did. He didn’t exactly enjoy showing off all the stuff he has and can buy. In fact, if it were up to him, he would give most of his money away to the poor. He hated having to be in the same class as those snotty freaks on the upper deck.

Samuel closed his eyes to try and calm himself. “Actually, I did not exactly eat with them. I was so… frustrated and annoyed that I could barely finish my first entre, and that is how I ended up out here on the railing. I wanted to free myself from the torture up there.” He explained.

Anna gave him a confused stare. She wanted so badly to reject his request, but there was something about him that made her never want to leave his side. She’d only been with him for a mere fifteen minutes and already he was growing on her. She knew she might regret this later, but shook her head and complied. “Um, yeah, sure. You can come.” She looked at his clothing once more. “But I hope you know that people will look at you oddly because of your outfit.” She pointed to his suit.

Samuel chuckled. “Again, I am very aware of the situation.”

She rolled her eyes at him. “Follow me.”