I know you first as a breeze passing by my shoulder. I’m caught in the scent of you: a fresh spring of sweat pressed close against the grease of the food court. My nose follows the smell, and I catch sight of you passing by. I see you take your place at the end of the line at Little Tokyo. From the way you stare dedicated and focused on the menu overhead, I know you didn’t mean to catch my attention, but you did.
Blond, still tan from summer, wearing a simple white top and out-of-season shorts. You are a shimmering bright spot bursting through the foggy drudgery of my existence. I’m stuck, and finally, you feel me staring. You turn around and somehow your eyes are already trained on me. You see me for the first time, and it stops you in your tracks.
“Buy a hungry girl lunch?” you ask. Your voice is wispy, full of air. All that advice about feeding strays disintegrates. I’d love to have you hanging around.
“Chinese?” I ask, pointing at the buzzing neon sign.
Your eyes dart to the neon sign above my head that reads Ninos. You shrug.
“I like pizza,” you say.
And suddenly, you are next to me. I watch your mouth move to order—a full Sicilian pie from a pizza parlor in a food court—and the guy behind the counter turns the oven up higher just for you. I hand him my credit card without even looking at the price of the transaction.
“I’ll bring it out to you when it’s ready, Sabine,” the guy says.
“Thanks, Tom,” you say, winking.
If my heart were a rocket, it just lost altitude and crashed. We’re barely out of earshot of the counter when I ask, “Do you know that guy or something?”
“I go to school with him,” you say.
“At Dutchess?” I ask. My brain conjures up a thousand questions about what major you might be studying. I think that you’ve entered undeclared because of your flickering quality. I plan to make up a white lie about going to Dutchess, too, for one blissful semester. The college has the best curly fries, I’ll say.
“Not Dutchess. John Jay,” you say, sinking into a booth. I sit down across from you. I feel my face twist. I don’t understand. You roll your eyes.
“John Jay High School,” you say.
It’s a mistake, really. I should get up right now, and walk away. People are watching us. I can see them taking small breaks from their lunches, trying to puzzle out our relationship. Hopefully, they think I’m her older brother or something.
“Friends,” you say.
“What?”
“We can be friends.”
I smile as I see a road to you open up.
“Right. Friends,” I say.
“Right.” You smile as if sharing a secret. Your encouragement makes me relax.
“What grade are you in?”
“Guess,” Sabine says.
I’m about to, but your classmate brings out a thick, sizzling Sicilian pizza. You dive right in even though he told you it was hot. Your mouth opens wide, and I can see the peaked beginnings of your wisdom teeth. They will slide into your mouth perfectly; you’re not at odds with your body the way I remember young girls to be. You bite in, and I can hear the skin peel back from the roof of your mouth. You chew with your mouth open and swallow.
“Have some,” you say.
And I do. I eat more than I have in weeks and the word of the day becomes consumption because you asked me here and sitting across from you feels like something I’ve been wanting to do my whole life.
I have a feeling you’re going to give me your number before you pull a napkin from the basket and ask if I have a pen. I don’t, but you get up and reach behind the pizza counter and grab the one your classmate used to take down our order.
“You have a girlfriend. Most people your age do,” you say like a fortune teller.
The way you say it makes me feel un-special. I want to be extraordinary for you.
“No girlfriend. Just a roommate,” I say. “Other people are—”
“Boring,” says Sabine. “I understand. Sometimes, I’m so bored that I feel like I have to live my life like a Make Your Own Adventure book.”
“Is this part of the adventure?” I ask, feeling a smile pulling on my face.
You smile and push the napkin across the table, right in front of me. It’s a stretch of an offering. I take the napkin in my hands. It’s one of those brown tri-folded restaurant napkins that you can find in high school cafeterias. Beside me, thousands of them are stuffed in the metal holder, but this one, this one feels like the penultimate napkin. I look up to tell you so, but you’re gone. I caught sight of you wandering down the strip mall. You’re determined to disappear in a wisp of mystery, and it works for you. I watch as the honey strands of your hair wave goodbye.
I resist texting you until I get home from the mall. My roommate, Robby, isn’t home yet. I barely shed my coat before I start composing my first text to you. I write and rewrite it at least ten times, trying to convey casualness and coolness, suaveness if I can.
I finally text: Hey. It’s your friend, DJ.
I lay a hand on my stomach. Are those butterflies? I can’t remember the last time I was excited about something, let alone a girl. This is new for me. You are new to me, and it feels like you’re giving me back a spark I hadn’t known I lost. I collapse into the shell of the couch and keep my phone open, waiting for you to text me back. I’m sure you will any minute. Any minute now.
A couple of hours later, I’m losing steam. By the time Robby comes home, I’ve resigned myself to the idea that you’re not going to text me. I’ve turned off all the lights, thrown on a hoodie, and drawn the curtains. Robby takes one look at me on the couch and whistles.
“What’s got you all twisted?” he asks. He grabs a beer and sits across from me in the armchair. Robby and I work at the Highway Department together. We both started a couple years ago in our early twenties, and moving in together seemed like the best way to give the illusion of maturity.
“Met this girl,” I say. “She hasn’t texted me back yet.”
“A girl?” he asks. “Must’ve been ultra-femme if she managed to grab your attention.”
I smile, and think of you, Sabine. I think of all the things I know about you, mostly that you enjoy pizza. There’s so much underneath the surface that’s waiting for me to discover. I know. I can feel it and the knowledge is dizzying.
“She is. Pretty amazing,” I say.
“Give her time. I bet she’ll text you,” Robby says.
He turns on the television and we sit in the blue light for a while. Some dumb show where contestants get pummeled by an obstacle course is on, and it does help me forget about you, the way you slid next to me fearless, appearing like the last hope left in the world. You’re too young to know this, but two people fitting in together naturally doesn’t just happen. The lunch we shared was a rare instance of two strangers coming together to share a comfortable meal. That has to mean something.
My phone starts to buzz. I look at it.
“It’s her,” I say.
Robby mumbles something in his sleep. I sprint to my bedroom and shut the door.
“Hello?” I say.
“Is this DJ?”
“Sabine?” Your voice sounds tiny on the phone, not like I remember you. On the other line, you start to giggle.
“Are you free right now?” you say around your laughter.
My tongue becomes fat and useless in my mouth. I’m thinking of a million ways to say yes when I hear a beeping on the line. I look at my screen. It reads, Call Ended. I panic and check my reception. Nothing wrong. I’ve never had any dropped calls before. I call you back,
“Hello?” you say.
“Sabine, it’s—”
“Hello? Hello, I can’t hear you. Talk louder.”
“Sabine,” I hissed. “Are you there?”
“I can’t hear you,” you say.
Then the phone beeps a single tone and there’s silence on the line. I pause. It’s your voicemail: another joke. You got me again. Stupid. I throw my phone onto the bed and scream into a pillow until my throat is sore. When I’m finished, I roll over and let the mattress come up to reach the tired fringes of my body. My phone is digging into my back. I reach behind me and pull it out. My face looks fat in the black mirror. I press my thumb against the home screen.
Two new texts, both from you. My pulse rises until I can feel the throbbing in my throat.
The first: I didn’t call you.
The second: It was one of my friends being dumb.
I can’t help but smile. I knew you couldn’t be so cruel; it was a false encounter. How to approach next? Simply. I’m going to let you do all the talking, but first, you need something to sink your thumbs into. I text: You told your friends about me?
A few minutes later you send one of those emojis that makes a cringy face, and we’re off and running. You text me back so quickly, I barely have time to lock the screen. My arms begin to buzz from holding my phone overhead. We talk about nothing, really. You’re inexperienced at talking to people, and I can tell you panic to keep the energy up because you ask me silly questions, like, What’s your favorite color? And now I know that yours is orange, but not just any shade of orange, specifically the shade of orange fruity Tootsie Rolls.
When can I see you again? I ask.
You text me about being busy with SATs. I only half believe you, but I try to be patient. Over the next few days, we text constantly. I try to give you space, which I think is good of me considering how much you infect my every thought. It’s hard to get you out of my brain.
A week later, I ask if I can take you out again.
Busy with homework, you write.
On a Friday?
Especially on a Friday, you write back.
It’s hard not to get mad at you, Sabine. I know you’re playing around, trying to avoid me, not extending the adventure. I’ve been around longer than you have, and there was a time when I was willing to play games with girls like you. But it’s time to face the fact: I’m too old for this.
Okay, I’ll write back. Have a great night.
Thanks! you write.
I turn off my phone and find Robby poking his head around the refrigerator.
“Do you want to go out and get drunk tonight?” I ask.
“I thought you’d never ask,” says Robby.
We drove to Creekside Pub, a dive bar settled just past the edge of town. It’s a dump, but on Friday nights at 11 o’clock, the bartenders come around and clear out the tables and the entire bar turns into a dance floor. Robby and I pull up close to 10:30. The parking lot is decently packed and there’s already a group of girls outside standing around their vomiting friend.
We get into Creekside, and head over to the bar. We’re not there fifteen minutes until Robby finds a girl who looks like a good idea. He splits off from me, leaving me with a knee on his seat in case he gets rejected. The music has started to escalate and the crowd is starting to get thick. A couple of guys at the bar hassle the bartenders to push the tables to the corners early. It starts to get loud, the kind of noise where you have to shout if you want to have a conversation.
“Can I sit here?” someone asks.
I turn around. We’re both surprised. What are the odds that you would come to this bar, and ask me, out of everyone sitting here if the seat next to me was taken? What are the chances that we would find each other thrown together again? You shake your head. I know, I can’t believe it either. But studying? Sabine, you look like you’re ready to dance on the tables.
“What are you doing here?” I ask.
You shrug and point to a group of your friends. I see Robby already in the thick of it, with his arm hooked around the shoulders of one of the girls. He must not know. I know Robby is better than me because he never knocks down the bird’s nest that is always built at the crook of our roof, and I’m up there with a broom as soon as he turns his back. But if he does, he doesn’t look concerned.
Buy a thirsty girl a drink?” you ask. You’re surprised when I shake my head no.
“It’s illegal.”
“Look at you, finally playing hard to get,” you say.
“If we get caught, I get in trouble. Not you.”
You shrug. “Well, you got what you wanted. Both of us out together.”
You wave the bartender over and ask for a vodka and seltzer. You hand him the fake I.D. you had stashed in the back of your jeans. He barely glances at it, and I have a weird, head-opening moment where I wonder how many other girls are out there just like you. It’s hard to come up with an answer. It’s hard to think straight.
“Cheers,” you say, tossing down your drink. “Want to dance?”
Do I want to dance? I think about it, being pressed up against you so close on the dancefloor, being there when the sweat breaks and slicks your skin, watching your face flicker euphoria. I’d like to dance.
But I say, “No. Maybe later.”
Surprised again, you shrug like you don’t care.
“I’ll see you later,” you say.
But we both know that you won’t. You slip back into the frenzied crowd and I give you a half-wave. I should go rescue Robby. I should stop drinking this beer, and call it like it is: a busted night. I should do a lot of things, but I find myself immobilized as if you took all the fire out of my chest. It’s a new feeling from when I first met you when you riled me up. I do nothing until I get so bored and feel so uncomfortable that I finally get up and walk out of the bar.
I drive home. Take a shower. Tug on pajama pants. Fall asleep watching a Tom Cruise movie. Robby stumbles in a couple of hours later.
“You owe me for an Uber,” he mumbles. As he walks to the bed, he sings Girls Girls Girls by Motley Crue under his breath.
It’s pushing 3 A.M. when you call me, wake me up. I have a half-decent thought about not answering, but it’s quickly overruled and I answer anyway.
“Can you come and get me?” you ask. Your voice is watery. You’ve been crying.
“Where are you?” I ask.
“Outside the bar.”
I shave two minutes off the trip and find you slumped on the curb outside Creekside. If it was a decent Friday night, it’s hard to tell by the unsavory crowd hanging outside the bar now. The shadowy figures of lingering men look like thugs in a bad movie. I get out of the car and help you up. A couple of the guys give me a whistle, but I don’t stop, I keep moving until you are tucked safely into the passenger’s seat and I’m back in the car with you.
“Did anyone hurt you?” I ask.
You shake your head. I relax, even though there’s a new hole in your jeans that I want to know about.
“The owner of the bar scanned my fake. They took it and threw it out.”
“Where are all your friends?” I asked.
“They left with some guys. I don’t know. I didn’t want to go,” you say.
It’s a small, encouraging victory. You look at me with your big, cornflower-blue, watery eyes. I understand something about you that I didn’t before.
“You’re extraordinary,” I say. And I say it with a kind of confidence that I haven’t felt in a long time, like when I was younger and I always knew the right answer at the moment, even if it turned out to be the wrong one later on. This turns out to be the right thing to say. Your cheeks turn a shade of inside-seashell.
I know the right move now. I rush over to the middle console and hold your face in my hands. The heat of your face burns my palms before I drag your face to mine. We kiss; it’s nothing like I thought it would be.
You shove me back hard.
“What the fuck?” you ask. You spill out of my car, leaving the door open long enough just for a flash of sound to travel through the car before you shut it again, leaving the world muffled to me.
I chase after you, of course.
“Wait!” I say.
Luckily, the guys from the bar who was out earlier have slinked back inside. It’s just me, you, and the bugs buzzing, trying to get a good lick off the overhead light.
“Leave me alone, sicko,” you say.
You’ve taken off one of your stilettos. You hold it out in front of me as if you’re going to whack me with the heel. I don’t believe you’ll hit me. But then again, I don’t believe that this is happening.
“Did you mean for it to be this way?” I ask.
You look me up and down; your arm wavers and for a second, I think that I’m safe.
“Like what?” you ask.
“You know what,” I say. You have to know. We shared all those easy-access conversations. You were there.
“DJ, you have to leave me alone.”
“I can’t,” I say.
I get greedy again and I lunge for you, wanting to hold you and drag you to my side. I was wrong about you; you do hit me in the side of the head, and it hurts worse than I thought it would. I land on the pavement, and the fall knocks the air out of my lungs. I look up to find you considering my body, your curious, young head tilted to the side as I squirm on the ground like a salted worm.
“Oh, DJ,” you say.
You take a step closer and I latch onto your ankle. I’m touching your bare skin, feeling the small, bird-like bones work as you struggle to stay upright. Rubbery skin, essential Achilles tendon, slender and powerful, grounding heel. I look up at you, and you have that spark in your eyes again, the way you did when I sat across from you in the food court. I’m interesting to you again, and suddenly I can’t feel the slow creep of the blood dripping down my forehead.
“Police sirens,” you say. “Can you hear them?”
Yes, off in the distance, getting closer by the second. They’re coming for me. Someone must’ve seen our scuffle from inside the bar and called the cops.
“I’m going to get arrested,” I say with all the finality of a man who knows his life is over.
You shrug and say, “It depends on what I tell them.”
I nod. Something I’ve learned today: you’re always right.