Unknowingly, you were always within reaching distance. My friends knew you, my friend's friends knew you, and so on. I've heard your name around for years. I never did have an opportunity to put a face to that name.
Halloween 2012. We (all of us) crashed at your brother's house (I knew it as your brother's then because I didn't know you). I woke up on an imported couch and took a taxi home. Each time I moved my head, scents from last night wafted to my nose—almost aromatic.
New Years 2013. I kissed your best friend and broke his heart. He said he liked me and I told him he couldn't. That year was the year I was supposed to change cities, adopt a new name, and get on with it.
Christmas 2014. My gift was three dead family members and an inheritance that set me for life. Your dad was my psychiatrist for a solid six months before I decided to continue my education. (I still set appointments with him but I always bail—I'll eventually find someone new.)
That following spring, I saw you and you met me.
Like all days that plague March, April, and May, it was damp yet optimistic.
Our campus had an auditorium and you were walking on the ground—the path littered with magnolia petals. You were wearing a suit and it was glaringly evident that you had no idea how ties worked.
I was right behind you that day. You'd looked over your shoulder, I remember now, your lips slightly ajar as if I had caught you whispering. There was a dull glimmer of fatigue in your eyes—we had all adopted that look by then but you immortalized it. Your white dress shirt was soaked through which I always found odd, how the rain just bounced off your blazer.
All I could remember was the small smile you gave and how your lashes were stuck together by wet—I made that out despite our distance.
The best part? You were undeterred by the rain, suit and all. Your hair was wild and curled up at the ends and there was a raindrop perched on the center of your forehead.
I waited by the gate that day under a picnic umbrella and found out how quick hair can dry.
You don't know this but it's my favorite place now. Spring itself is not but you, you always are.
As memorable as that was, I don't believe it was our first informal meeting. Your face was one that looked like a cabin lit from the fireplace, hell-soaked but young. Seeing it now, you looked nothing like your brother or your father—I had yet to meet your mother.
My difficulty with this part and with every part is the beginning of a lewd romanticization. I want to believe you simply weren't that pretty and that that day wasn't that haunting but it was the only time I saw you in clear light. Hints of your face flashed through my mind but they never compared to the full six-foot portrait.
But there you were again sitting two rows behind me in Astronomy 102—I happened to take the class as an easy credit for lab science.
There was a power outage in our hall that day and the professor used a wireless projector in the dark. I happened to peer around—this time me—and catch your eye. I mean how could I not, right? Conspicuously turning in my seat and seeing the contours of your face lit up by reflections of faraway solar systems.
You never stayed on my mind for too long but my mind will always manage to dig up earlier and earlier recalls of how we met.
At that time, I was reeling from the avalanche that my life had become—I'd lost all but two of my friends and the little handful that used to be family.
Everyone knew who you were but me. To me, you were withdrawn—not in that self-conscious way (you were too pretty for that). At times, yes, you were more shy than most, like when your phone went off during a lecture and your ringtone was barking dogs. You had dug your head into your hood as your friends around you laughed.
After I knew your name, knew your face, you permeated my surroundings. At the gym, on my feed, in hallways, in parking lots.
It was rumored that you were notorious for being unavailable. Since junior high, you had your eyes on someone—she was a year younger than you and two, me. Your name was familiar because just a few months ago, when my friend tried to leave the bar with you, you said, "I don't normally do things like this," and left. Your unrequited loyalty was refreshing but I guess you grew lonely of that.
Two weeks later at Rendezvous, I approached you at your study nook and asked you a question.
I did it because I found you attractive and you saw the same in me because you liked how you temporarily forgot about your decade-ache.
You didn't do hookups but you did dates. I know this because we went for coffee again, at Rendezvous. One iced mocha, one latte, and a berry parfait. I didn't have lunch that day because I was talking to a TA.
"So this is you," you said during the middle of it. "The one I always hear my brother and his friends and my friends talk about."
"I'm sure I'm not that well-known." Quite like you, I had a quarter-fame of turning people down. But quite unlike you, there was never anyone in my sights. "I do hear your name around a lot too. Floaters, aren't we?"
It was your turn to laugh into your drink.
I didn't get it.
Anyone was lucky to have you—good-looking, polite, and intelligent enough to hold a conversation.
Halfway through, you got a text. I never asked you about it despite my suspicions but I think the pacing of our rendezvous at Rendezvous changed after that. You seemed eager to get out of the café and when we did, when I kissed you on the cheek and we agreed to never do this again, you caught up to me three minutes later, and said, "We should get dinner," dark hair wind-blown and lips rosy.
I was going to say no. You didn't like me like that and you weren't going to allow yourself (or me) to do that but there it was, cocooned around us, that slow, seeping tea-for-one loneliness that we never addressed.
"Sushi?" I asked instead.
Your body seemed to collapse in relief. That three minute sprint back to me must have jolted your nerves because you rested your head on my shoulder and breath tickling my neck, you told me to stay like this for a little while.
"Just until I have my mind back."
My hands rested around the nape of your neck and then you stood up straight, both of us in a position we find odd comfort in.
"Okay," I said. "Let me go get changed."
