Five variations on the day we met

A Story by Jerilynn

Maybe you walked into the coffee shop to order a latte. Maybe I watched you from across the room, using your hands as you spoke, telling how much sugar to add, how much cream. I stirred my tea with extra honey, flipping through an old edition of The San Fransisco Chronicle. Maybe you came over, because I sat alone and looked sad. But you've got a kind heart, and warm eyes, and maybe you were just a little sad too and wanted the company just as much as me.

Maybe I stopped on the highway while you were red faced, sweat beaded, frustrated, and fighting with your little white beamer in the island heat. Maybe I gave you a lift to your place in the next town over. Once we got there, you smiled a warm smile, and offered me some lemonade. We sat on the curb, a little closer than necessary, drank through straws and talked for hours about books, and music, and food, and places we've been and will someday go, and owning bars in the city. We enjoyed it thoroughly because I was shy, but you were kind, and I had no plans, and you had no car.

Maybe you lived in the same apartment complex that I was moving into. Maybe you offered to give me a hand in moving the few boxes I had into the new space. You commented on my lack of belongings, but understood that I was starting over. You laughed at the fact the only things I had to put in my kitchen was a coffee maker and a kettle. You accepted the fact I was addicted to caffeine. At the end of the day, you sat with me cross legged on the floor of my disorganized apartment, you smiled while we drank wine from solo cups and ate Ramen out of coffee mugs while our voices echoed off the bare walls and empty space.

Maybe I was online one night skipping through strangers and avoiding weirdos when I stopped on a kind-eyed face who looked just as lost as me, not really knowing what they were looking for or why.

Maybe you gave me your jacket one night when we were waiting outside because some idiot pulled the fire alarm in our dorm hall at school. I left my hoodie inside, which left my shoulders too bare. You looked down and smiled into my face, while we both became excited at the realization that the other existed. Maybe we made plans to see each other the next day. Maybe we went inside, and stayed in the rec hall on the bottom floor, talking on the plush couches until the next day came. All the while I was still wearing your jacket.

No matter how, or where, we were destined to run into each other eventually.