September 8–October 4, 2003 — Waiting for me

This started before September 8. It was in the smaller details, the ones that didn’t seem important enough to write about at the time. The day it started, I wrote about a Neil Gaiman signing, but not about the show I went to that night. And if I had written about the show, I wouldn’t have mentioned the girl I saw on the stairs, the one who caught me staring after I looked at her for a second too long. Her friends knew my friends and I stood near her once, but I didn’t learn her name or talk to her. After the show I walked home alone.

I don’t know how many days later it was when she first spoke to me online. She told me her name was E         and explained that she’d seen me at a show the week before. She described herself and I remembered her as the girl I’d been caught staring at. We talked for a long time. Later that week I called her, and we arranged to get together the next day, a Friday, after she finished school. I met her at Wilson Station.

I was pretending to read posters for long-distance calling cards when she said hello. I was so caught up in trying to look relaxed that the only response I could manage was a joke about long-distance pricing. She laughed, but I thought it sounded a bit forced and did my best not to panic. Then we walked towards the escalator. She got on ahead of me and looked up at the platform. I looked at her and knew that if I kissed her, it wouldn’t just be because I was bored of not having someone around to kiss. And I realized that I was scared.

We took the train to the station closest to my house and walked the rest of the way. She seemed a lot more comfortable than I felt, so I tried to fake it. On the subway we had sat as close together as the seats would allow, and she was walking as near to me as she could now that we were outside. Our arms touched a lot. At my house and in my room, I kissed her and she kissed me back.

We spent the entire weekend together, saying goodbye on Sunday. I smiled for days.

I saw her almost every day for three weeks. I neglected work to be with her, I tried new foods because she wanted to go to restaurants I’d never been to, and I discovered a lot of things that had been missing when I’d tried this before, things I didn’t know were important until I saw how much happier I was when they were there.

Which isn’t to say that there weren’t moments when the cracks started to show. I stumbled upon answers to questions I had avoided asking, but I tried to pretend the truth had never clawed its way in. I tried to remain happy because I didn’t want for anything to change.

But everything did change, starting when Jeff learned that Cuff The Duke had been shortlisted for a tour with Sloan. I mentioned this to E        . She didn’t want me to go, so I told her that nothing was for sure yet anyway.

The next week I woke up to Jeff yelling, “That’s awesome!”

He was going on tour again. I didn’t ask him if I could go along, and I told E         that I hadn’t been invited, that it was a silly thing even to be thinking about.

One night that week, Cuff The Duke was playing a show. I wasn’t going because I wanted to spend the night with E        . Jeff called and said they’d like it if I would go on tour with them again. I didn’t give an answer either way. I told E        , and she asked me if I was going. I told her I didn’t know.

To everyone else it was a given that I was going, and I don’t think Jeff ever knew that I was considering staying behind. I waited a few days before telling E         that I had to go. I tried to make it into an obligation, not a choice. I don’t think she ever accepted that.

She stayed over the night before I left, and I spent the next three weeks wondering what I had given up.