Just talked to him. Felt the need to write down the remnants of the memories that we once shared.
She was the type that sprayed perfume on her neck every night before bed, even if there was no man there to enjoy it. He was the kind who listened to classical Indian music at night to have dreams of Gandhi and the stringed instrument that he couldn’t remember the name of. They met on a plane to San Francisco, and the “relationship,” for lack of a better word, was marred with awkward moments and pregnant pauses from the start. He thought that she looked at him with disdain, when really all she could think of was that he was so tall that he would hit the ceiling when he stood up. But he was beautiful, and she was hoping that they were headed toward the same ultimate destination.
When they realized that they were, the couple exchanged names and small talk, then boarded a bus separately. Once they departed their second mode of shared transportation, they exchanged phone numbers just in case they never saw each other again. He once remarked that her smile was different than one he had ever seen, a smile that she would flash not only during the lapses in conversations but also before their first kiss, and looking down at him from the escalator after their final farewell.
He sat by her in her first lecture. They texted each other every night, and although they were not in the same group of students, they tried to spend as much time together as possible. When she remarked to another boy that she already had plans to spend the professional baseball game with a guy, the short, athletic redhead was hurt. He had wasted invaluable flirting time with a girl that already had her heart wrapped around the six foot four Turkish soccer player. How could she not? She tried to resist the temptation...with the risk of sounding like a bad vampire series, everything about him invited her in. He had a smokey quality to his voice, his eyes were the same color that she had always dreamed about and his smell was one that she would try to replicate, she realized, over time.
At the sporting event, they bundled together in the seats of their peers, thinking of any excuse to go and have a little alone time. Eventually they left, supposedly in the search of food or another obviously made up excuse, and watched the sailboats go by in the San Francisco harbor.
“I really want to kiss you right now.”
“Then why don’t you?”
They had only known each other for ten days. She went further with him than she had ever gone before, and supposedly the physicality was mutual. He once remarked that he wasn’t going to be her boyfriend. That one cut her to the bone. She obviously realized that a thousand mile stretch of highway and a two and a half hour plane ride was a long time for the heart to stay faithful, but she was willing to try. She couldn’t figure out why he wasn’t. She walked back to her room in tears, with him trying to chase after her. She passed the common room full of smiling faces and romances that would never register has hers had. She ran up to her room, a two room dorm that was nicer than the one that she would eventually experience in her own college, and texted her roommate to come up and console her. He wasn’t going to be her boyfriend. She already knew that they could sit together and just talk for hours and hours, and she didn’t know why. He aided in her breaking almost all of the rules of this leadership summit.
When she finally told him that there was someone else, he told her that she could have her fucking romantic bullshit, and he didn’t need it. She called him to calm him down. Three years later, most of those abilities would be lost to her, but maybe with the invention of Skype she could regain them.
Abraham Lincoln.
The game.
Lipgloss.
Awkward moments diaries.
She can’t remember why, but for some reason he was glad he didn’t ride the bus.
He still owes her a song.
I just don’t think I’ll ever get over you.
