I Like It When You Sleep, for You Are So Beautiful yet So Unaware of It

Ever since the disintegration of his parent's marriage, John had always lived with a paradox of fears. He was terrified of being alone, but he was scared to let himself love and trust anyone. He was not really good at socializing, his whole 17 years he'd only had one friend, his pet fish named buster who lived for about 2 days before John forgot to feed him and had to flush him down the toilet. It was the summer before John's last year of high school. He had lived with his mom almost his whole life. Any opportunity she saw that she thought would benefit John and help him get him out of his shell, she would take. Two weeks before the school year started his mother saw an opportunity that she thought would definitely help John. The next morning she went into John's room and found him listening to music and said " You're not gonna believe what I signed you up for!" he looked at her in annoyance and said "what genius idea did you come up with this time mom?" she laughed "I know you've been finding it difficult to get along with the people here and I know you really wanna go explore the world one day so I figured why not?" John looked at her with a blank stare " what did you sign me up for?" she smiled and said " student exchange program!" John couldn't believe  what he just heard. His mother went on saying " you're leaving in two days and you're gonna be staying with a couple who would be happy to take you in, and you're gonna go to school there in Germany." John's eyes doubled in size as he exclaimed " in Germany?!  Why over there and where's the house and how far is it from the school?" she nervously laughed and said " well you're gonna be living in a small little town called Freising and the school is in Munich so you're gonna have to take a school bus or something to school and back home. It's about a 45 minute drive so hopefully you make friends who live in Freising too then you all can have an amazing time!" John contrary to her belief was completely silent and simply said "okay." on the inside however,  he was scared to the bone. John had never traveled outside of his hometown of Eau Claire, Wisconsin, so the fact that he was about to go outside of the country has rendered him speechless. John spent the rest of that day and the following day laying in bed. Finally John got up from bed, brushed his teeth, and began to pack his things. The flight which would take him to Germany left at 1pm, and the time was 12:30, he had only packed his underwear. At around 12:45 John began to panic and packed just about anything he could fit into his luggage. He left for the airport at 12:50 and made it to the airport at 1:15 lucky for him his "accidental" stalling did not make him miss his flight as it had been delayed and was leaving at 1:20. John looked at his mom and he said "well this is it." His mom laughed and said "promise me you'll try and make at least one friend over there?" John showed a grin "yeah, whatever." John then gave his mom a hug and made his way to his gate. When he boarded the plane he found his seat, john had gotten a window seat which was what he hoped for but the fact that he actually got it made him question everything in his life. He saw a Flight attendant and he asked her " How long is this flight?" She smiled and said " Oh only 12 hours!" John sat back in his seat and let out a sigh and said " 12 hours?! Christ what am I gonna do for 12 hours?!" the plane began to get ready for takeoff John sat back, closed his eyes, and when he opened them the plane's Captain announced that they would be arriving in Munich in 10 minutes. John had slept for almost 12 hours.

John had arrived in Munich. It was a snowy night and he felt anxious to meet his exchange "family" when john stepped out of the arrival gate he immediately saw them, there they were with a cardboard sign that read " American Boy". John went up to them and said "Hello i'm John" the couple just looked at him, grabbed his hand and took him to a car. Once they were all in the car they both said with a heavy accent " We go home now? Yeah?" John smiled and nodded yes. After about two minutes on the road John went back to sleep and woke up as the car was pulling into a driveway of a house. The couple said "welcome home" John stepped out of the car as the snow continued to fall, took his luggage out and began to walk into the house.The man said " I'm Toni, and this is your room" Toni had led John to a rather long stretched hall with one solitary door at the very end. John walked into the room and saw a fairly big room with desk a small tv and a king size bed in the corner, all the walls painted a depressing grey. There was a door which led to a small bathroom. The whole room looked plain, the room only had one window towards the corner of the right side of the room. John looked out the window and saw a view of a neighbor's house. He stared out the window watching the snowfall before something caught his attention. A blonde girl walked up to the door of the house and went in. John looked at the neighboring house and saw that they had a window facing his, his hopes immediately shot up, as he hoped that she would look through the window as well. He stared at the empty window for a while but saw nothing. John felt a rush of sadness and anger towards himself for letting himself believe that for once in his life something would go the way he wanted it to. As he was turning away he saw a light turn on from the window across from his and saw the blonde girl. She looked outside and closed the blinds not noticing John at all. John However, was very happy that he got to just barely see the girl. John went to sleep that night dreaming about who that blonde girl could be, and if she would even consider talking to him. John's dreams kept him awake all night. The first day of school came too fast. John got ready and took some of his school supplies and put them into his backpack. He was almost out the door before Toni stopped him and said "John you need the house key, we probably won't be home until very late." John took the key and said "ok" and made his way to the train station to catch the train heading to Munich. He looked around to see if he saw anyone else his age that was waiting for the train. There was not a single person there. The train pulled in and the doors opened and John walked in and sat down and looked out the window astounded by how nice the day looked. He sat there for a while and thought about that blonde girl he saw two days ago and hoped that he would see her again. The train was about to leave, but somebody came in last minute. John looked up ,the blonde girl from two days ago had walked in. She exchanged a few words with the conductor, then she walked looking for a seat. John looked at her and noticed that she was walking towards him, he tried his best to act calm. She came and said "Hallo kann ich hier sitzen?" John said "what? I'm sorry i don't really know german" the girl laughed and said "Hello, can i sit next to you?" John was dumbfounded. John smiled and said "yeah of course" he moved so she can sit next. She sat down, smiled, and looked at John and said " Are you new to school?" John looked at her and instantly got lost. He stared at her long blonde hair, her light brown eyes, and the few very light almost invisible freckles she had, Her perfect white teeth. She began to look at him with a worried face as a couple minutes had passed since she asked him the question, but John just sat there speechless wanting to tell her how beautiful he thought she was, but sadly there was no word to describe her beauty. After a bit of time passes John finally spoke " Yeah, Yeah i'm new to school and i can barely understand German." the girl laughed and said "Oh nice you're gonna love it the school is really nice and since you're an exchange student you're going to be in english speaking classes." John laughed with relief. The girl said "what's your name?" John said "my name is John Hays, and you?" the girl look at him in his eyes, smiled and said "Tanja Körger" John smiled for he had never heard a name with such beauty in it. The two talked for a bit before they finally reached Munich they both got off and walked to school as soon as they got there Tanja walked John to his first period and then they ate lunch together where they talked a lot and connected profoundly. After school the two walked back to the train station, as they walked John wondered why a girl like this didn't have the whole world chasing after her. Every single aspect of her seemed amazing. Tanja said "John do you wanna go eat? Or do you have to be home right away ?" the train was coming near the station as John had to make a decision. John smiled and said "Yeah i'd love to." John looked at the sky and noticed the nice day was gone as dark clouds began to move in. Tanja took John to this restaurant she said it was the "best" they walked in and Tanja told John "I'll order and you find us a table." John went to find a table and a few minutes later Tanja came back to the table with two plates of food. John looked at the food and said "What is this?" Tanja laughed and said "Rouladen, it's actually quite good." John looked at the food and then looked back at Tanja and swallowed his pride and took a bite of the new food, a new culture, a new country. Much to his surprise it was actually very delicious. Tanja looked at him eat,waiting for his reaction.John smiled and said " I love it " Tanja laughed and said " Good i'm glad." the two ate as the sun was beginning to set. They made their way back to the train station as the sky got darker and more cloudy. They finally arrived back in Freising and walked to their houses together still talking and Tanya said with a grin " Are your parents home?" John immediately began to blush and said "nope" so the two went into the house and into John's room. The whole walk from the front door to his room John could not believe what was happening. Tanja went to the T.V and turned it on and John and her sat on his carpet floor laying up against the bed after a couple hours it began to rain very hard and the sound of it soothed the both of them. Tanja began to fall asleep and her head fell onto John's shoulder and he looked at her sleeping and saw her beauty as a whole. John began to feel very tired too and thought about how out of his league she was. John picked her up and put her on his bed and he went to sit on his desk and wrote on a piece of paper" If people were rain, I was drizzle, and She was a hurricane." John then fell asleep next to her on the bed.