Here's Looking at You, Kid.
It is 2003 and we have only known each other for a few months.
“I’ve forgotten to bring a jacket to school,” I say idly online, imagining how frigid the air will be at my morning lecture tomorrow.
“If you really need one, I’ll stop by tomorrow morning and bring one for you,” she says without hesitating and my heart gives a little extra hop. Surely she’s just joking. Just making a gallant, polite offer.
“That doesn’t make sense,” I retort, “your lecture’s only at ten and mine’s at eight. You’d have to get up extra early for no reason.”
“It’s okay. I’ll be there.”
Bleary-eyed and sniffling the next morning, it is easy to forget the offhanded conversation we had the night before. The clock, still analog, ticks over to eight as I rub my pimpling arms and suddenly, a memory prickles sharply. I jump from my seat and run down the aisle to the swinging doors and sprint out into the morning light, tinted with grey.
She is sitting there, just as she promised, hair tousled over sleepy eyes, holding a large camel-coloured windbreaker in her arms. I am so touched I can’t even smile and my heart gives the same little leap as the night before. It smells just like her, spicy, dark and a little dangerous –the smell of life-changing adventure.
Just a few days ago, I was sitting at a table in the school corridor when she appeared there, fifteen minutes before she had a big presentation due, flustered and pushing her hair out of her face.
“What are you doing here?” I stared in surprise.
“You forgot this,” she said, thrusting something thick and brown at me. A warm, tailored jacket the colour of chocolate.
I hadn’t even realised it was still hanging behind the door when I left the room. She flashed me a quick, shy smile and then was gone down the corridor to prepare for the afternoon lesson, barely giving me enough time to shout a good luck wish in her direction.
Three years have passed and she still brings me her jackets and sweaters when I have forgotten mine, gives me the blanket in the middle of the night even though the air is soaked with black chill, holds hands under a hoodie with me on the back of freezing bus rides. I take it forgranted sometimes, too comfortable to remember just how much she goes out of her way to make me feel good.
Sitting at a lecture, my legs crossed under the over-sized jacket, it all comes back to me, fresh and warm as the scented heat under that first windbreaker all those days ago.
So thank you, S, for making promises to keep me warm and safe.
And for loving me enough to always see them through.
“I’ve forgotten to bring a jacket to school,” I say idly online, imagining how frigid the air will be at my morning lecture tomorrow.
“If you really need one, I’ll stop by tomorrow morning and bring one for you,” she says without hesitating and my heart gives a little extra hop. Surely she’s just joking. Just making a gallant, polite offer.
“That doesn’t make sense,” I retort, “your lecture’s only at ten and mine’s at eight. You’d have to get up extra early for no reason.”
“It’s okay. I’ll be there.”
Bleary-eyed and sniffling the next morning, it is easy to forget the offhanded conversation we had the night before. The clock, still analog, ticks over to eight as I rub my pimpling arms and suddenly, a memory prickles sharply. I jump from my seat and run down the aisle to the swinging doors and sprint out into the morning light, tinted with grey.
She is sitting there, just as she promised, hair tousled over sleepy eyes, holding a large camel-coloured windbreaker in her arms. I am so touched I can’t even smile and my heart gives the same little leap as the night before. It smells just like her, spicy, dark and a little dangerous –the smell of life-changing adventure.
Just a few days ago, I was sitting at a table in the school corridor when she appeared there, fifteen minutes before she had a big presentation due, flustered and pushing her hair out of her face.
“What are you doing here?” I stared in surprise.
“You forgot this,” she said, thrusting something thick and brown at me. A warm, tailored jacket the colour of chocolate.
I hadn’t even realised it was still hanging behind the door when I left the room. She flashed me a quick, shy smile and then was gone down the corridor to prepare for the afternoon lesson, barely giving me enough time to shout a good luck wish in her direction.
Three years have passed and she still brings me her jackets and sweaters when I have forgotten mine, gives me the blanket in the middle of the night even though the air is soaked with black chill, holds hands under a hoodie with me on the back of freezing bus rides. I take it forgranted sometimes, too comfortable to remember just how much she goes out of her way to make me feel good.
Sitting at a lecture, my legs crossed under the over-sized jacket, it all comes back to me, fresh and warm as the scented heat under that first windbreaker all those days ago.
So thank you, S, for making promises to keep me warm and safe.
And for loving me enough to always see them through.
She said, she said at 10:32 pm
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home