[ Wp ] `` I 'm fourteen billion years old , but only 26 years alive . ''

My short drive to the restaurant leaves me just enough time to marvel at my luck. Three months out of school and here I am in paradise researching supernovas using one helluva telescope array nearly three miles up a mountain. I love my job but it offers me a unique perspective that does n't mesh with the perspective held by most other Hawaiians. I've had quite a few first dates since I've been here, but no second dates. I hope my good run of bad luck is over. Maybe this one will be better. 
 
 I open the door to the restaurant, a romantic seafood place near the airport. A little noisy but you ca n't beat the unobstructed views of Mother Ocean. I scan the bar area and I spot my date, at least I think that's her. Red floral dress, long flowing brown hair spilling over her shoulders and down her graceful back. At least I can wipe my sweaty palms off on my chinos but I hope she wo n't see my heart nervously pounding through my aloha shirt. It might not be her. Then I see her set down her umbrella drink, purple umbrella, it's her. 
 
 I stop just behind her and awkwardly clear my throat to speak, `` Sarah?'' 
 
 Gracefully and grandly she spins and eyes me with a welcoming smile and a whiff of her intoxicating scent. I detect flowers with herbs or mint, perhaps it's just the chemicals but it is a pleasant bouquet. 
 
 `` Pleased to meet you Jason'' she announces. She offers her hand. One last drag of the nervous palms against the trouser leg, just to be sure before I shake it. Her skin feels just as smooth as her voice sounds. What a catch. I just hope I do n't screw this up. 
 
 `` I took the liberty of getting on the waiting list, I hope you do n't mind'' she says, nodding her head toward the bar. I try to pull my eyes off hers and I barely succeed. I look down at her other silky smooth hand and arm on the bar but then the buzzing and flashing lights of the restaurant's pager catches my eye. 
 
 Dinner goes by without so much as a hiccup, either the literal or figurative kind. The conversation is even more pleasant than the food which is really saying something because the food here is top-notch. I see her toying around with her tuna with her fork like she must be playing with a question in her head. Then she's out with it `` so, what is it a cosmologist does?'' I try to explain it to her but I fumble around with the words like I so often do. I am a whiz with numbers but those blasted letters trip me up all the time. I take a breath and try to deliver a better version, at least one in coherent English. 
 
 `` I'm fourteen billion years old, but only twenty-six years alive.'' 
 
 She stops smiling when she sees I'm not smiling. `` What?'' 
 
 `` On the best evidence thus far, the entire universe and all the matter and energy within it were born a little more than fourteen billion years ago. Since then, stars and supernovas have spread a cornucopia of chemical elements into the universe. The matter and energy that make up this bipedal hominid sitting across from you are fourteen billion years old but only twenty-six years old in their current form. When I die the atoms that make up my body will once again be free to assemble themselves into something else. We're all like that, children of the stars. I look to the stars to understand the world around us and our stellar parents'' I explain. 
 
 Her silence is deafening. Sara diverts her gaze from me out to the windows to the setting sun and the rainbow of colors scattered in the sky. This is how it usually starts and it usually ends with a text saying, in essence, `` thanks but no thanks'' the next day. Just as I resign myself to paying the bill and waking up to a text the next afternoon she turns back to me. Her look is impossible to read. Perhaps if she was fourteen million light years from me I'd have better luck deciphering her. `` I'm a little tired. Maybe you could tell me more over dinner tomorrow?'' 
 
 `` I would love to, but I have an appointment with the telescope again tomorrow night'' I reply. 
 
 Those words hit her hard and I can see that. She sighs and thinks again. I see her scrunch her face up a little so whatever she's thinking about must be serious. `` I guess you're not much of a morning person but if I promise to wake you gently tomorrow would you consider breakfast?'' 
 
 I think I know what she's getting at and then I see her smile return with a friend in the form of a slight wink. I wish I was n't so dreadfully dense to the art of flirting. Breakfast and waking up gently is a pretty serious thing to get wrong so I need to be certain. I'm staring at the numbers on the check in front of me and then I hear her angelic voice again `` I do n't live far from here, let's go.'' I look up to see another smile and another wink with her hand stretched out. That's all I needed to know. 
 
 { EDIT: Changed the main character's monologue to be more expository. }
