haikal

He found me first.

In the pictures I was barely twenty-two and somebody else's, but my name and smile were enough. A flick of his finger was the only thing he could do, so he waited, until it was my turn to find him.

There were just two photographs, one barely reaching the top of his chest. It looked like it was taken mindlessly at his desk, somewhere in the dimness of a bedroom. The second wasn't even of him, but a cat lying outside a flat and glaring into the camera.

A hello and a Hey kitty cat became late replies and constant apologies. They became unimportant questions just to keep the ball rolling. Laughs stretched out to fill the emptiness of the text box, and deals made to disguise mindless flirting.

We first met on a Wednesday evening, in the corner of a Starbucks called Rochester. I was an hour early, just fingering the strings on my parka while I waited, careful not to finish my caramel hot chocolate so quickly.

He wasn't what I expected, watching him saunter over to my table and take the seat next to mine. Not when he spoke, with the mild stutter he carried. His shyness was already established on his profile, while my tendency to shoot my mouth off was written on mine.

But I didn't take long to be myself, from laughing with my mouth open to grabbing his arm and running across the road. He even went along with my made-up superstitions; believing in the luck that came with spotting a C151B on the East-West Line and pointing out that we were on the same wavelength when we walked with the same foot first.

It took less than a week for his lines to fade. A text to this girl was his first deed every morning, whether or not she'd replied his messages from the night before. Sometimes it was a picture of the cat outside his flat, sometimes a song.

She told him she was made of fire, so he gave her songs about following your flame.

She told him about her dreams at night, so he got some wire and feathers from his best friend's parrot to make her a dreamcatcher.

She told him the one dessert she could eat everyday for the rest of her life, so he went to town for Hokkaido cheesecake that they would share in plain view of the train tracks.

She said she was fearless, so he laughed when she shrieked at a cockroach scurrying past her feet.

She told him about her cousin bringing her around in her car, so he drove her down the expressways home, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel while she screamed out the songs on his playlist.

She told him about her past, so he stayed up all night with her on the third anniversary of her loss.

It wasn't difficult imagining him sitting at his desk, twining wires into the shape of a dreamcatcher. Imagining him recognising the new train model and believing he would have good luck for the day. Or imagining him sitting in front of the restaurant at level one while I was sneaking out the back door.

He saw a future with me in less than two weeks, but unfortunately for him I didn't share that perspective. Despite being a daydreamer myself, I thought he was delusional. For the first time I knew how to reject someone whom I didn't feel the same way for. For the first time I was the one staying grounded while he was long gone in his own fantasy.

He found me first, but I didn't choose him.