I like to tell this story with a box of Cocoa Puffs in my hand. Half of the reason why is because it’s a quality good cereal. I mean, it’s not better than the sugared squares of Cinnamon Toast Crunch or the sweet loops found in a box of Apple Jacks, but it is sweet and kind of chocolatey. The bird on the front even looks like he can’t stand how delicious the next spoonful of cereal will be when compared to the last. But that’s another story for another day when I’m with another someone. The second reason why I have to tell this story with this box in hand is because it helps me remember.
Now they say if you close your eyes really tight, squishing up your face while holding on to something like a chair or a table, you’ll also remember. But I did that in a mirror once and it didn’t help me remember at all. To be quite honest, I started laughing. I started laughing at the fact that the reason why I couldn’t remember was probably because I was squeezing out all of the energy in this little mind of mine and my head couldn’t take the pressure.
But now I’ve started to rush through this and I’m afraid my Cocoa Puffs are getting soggy, and I think I’ve finally remembered what I was going to say because I said his name and when I say his name I start to ramble because what else are you supposed to do when someone you care for so very, very much does not understand that sometimes you have trouble speaking when they are all you want to speak about? But that’s crappy and that’s sappy and if I don’t fucking learn to get over it I’m scared that the only thing I’ll be able to remember is how much he made me forget. So, yeah, I’m going to start this story and some of it will be true while other parts will be what I created in my mind that I shall not call a lie.( It’s better to fib than to lie because when you fib you at least acknowledge that you’ve done something wrong).
I’ll start at the beginning and end with the beginning because I want you to decide whether if we were closer than the cinnamon and apple in a bowl of Apple Jacks or more distant than the leprechaun from his Lucky Charms. I hope he doesn’t read this. If he does, he’ll see how much I’ve forgotten because all I can really remember is him.
……..
“Bittersweet Symphony” by The Verve is my favorite song. It was playing when I first saw him, it was playing when I first decided I didn’t like the way I talked so little, and it was playing in my mind when he first looked at me. It wasn’t just any type of look either. It wasn’t the look you give every girl you see in an elevator. No, in fact it wasn’t the look you give to a special kind of girl in an elevator. It was the kind of look you wear when someone is searching your face for an answer and you just don’t have one. That’s another thing that got me about him. They say the person you fall in love with has the answers for everything you’re worried about. He had no answers. If he did, he was not willing to share them. I’m pretty sure if I even asked him to tell me what time it was he’d keep on staring ahead, pretending as if my words were inaudible. I liked that. It doesn’t make sense for why I did, but I envied how perfectly still he was able to stay while I struggled to not turn sideways and look at him. His hands were in his pockets, and he would tap his fingers to a staccato beat that was impossible to keep up with. Thinking about this now, I wonder if he noticed me noticing his fingers. There are a lot of things that are attractive about the opposite sex. But his fingers were special because of the way they were the only things he couldn’t keep still, even if everything else was.
I looked up and he was looking at me. He was going to give me an answer, I knew it. Something like, why I couldn’t stop staring at him or why he was able to keep up and slow down when needed with the rhythm of the song. Instead he said “excuse me” and stepped off of the elevator. I’m not sure what I even learned for the rest of that day. But I remember his voice and I remember the way he didn’t make eye contact when he said it. He was staring at my fingers too. They were the only part of me that could stay still.
……..
Seeing him from there was more of a pathetic panic than a greeting. I would find myself trying to put on the same stoic face, staring ahead with squinted eyes trying to look as serene as he did in his leather jacket and baggy pants. His hair was constantly in his eyes, but he never tried to move it. It was as if he fully accepted the fact that even his hair had to stay still with him. Meanwhile I had to fight to stay still as he fixed a bowl of Cocoa Puffs with two percent milk, always half full never half empty. He would look at me and I would look away before he noticed that even when my friend was talking to me, I couldn’t stop staring at him. He paid so little attention to me at first that I was sure I was all he could think about. But that was cocky of me. So I decided the only way to help him see that all I wanted to see was him would be to approach him. So I did what any girl would do. I asked for a pencil. Then I talked about the weather. Then I mentioned a class I was “positive I’d seen him in with me.”
But it was when I stopped and stared at his fingers, slowly drumming on the top of his laptop that he finally stopped being so still. That was when he turned and his seat and looked at me. “Bittersweet Symphony” was blaring from his left ear bud.