7days7authors

Tuesday - short term memory loss

He never looked the same after that night. He never had the same chocolate brown eyes or slick sideways smile, the one that kind of rests slightly to the left. The one that is a clear warning signal (it reads: Stay away from me. I’m dangerous). The warning we all miss. With intention.


Do you ever notice how someone looks so different when you first meet? Until you feel comfortable with them they look as distant as they feel. Rich felt distant for a long time.

I first noticed him my freshman year, his junior, at an awfully overcrowded apartment filed with the same shit every college party is filled with: sex, drugs, and rock and roll bitches.

It was one of those nights when bottom shelf vodka was floating from friend to stranger before being left for liter on the floor and Jell-o shots were lined up on the coffee table, an array of rainbow colors.

None of it would last long. Like greedy children on a trip to the toy store, we wanted everything. We wanted more: we drank up our liquid dinners in haste and when we were done, we all whined and moaned “Mom-my! Give me more”.

He was talking to a blonde girl. But his eyes were on me. I gave him my shy attempt at a sexy smile. I think I patented that one my sophomore year of high school, before Boyfriend #2 but in the midst of getting over the heartbreak of Boyfriend #1. This prescription required heavy flirtation with every member of the senior class. A girl’s ticket to survival: cock tease is always better than slut in my book.

But I digress…he was dressed in the typical frat boy garb: white tee and chinos, opened toed sandals, backwards cap that was tilted to the side—which to me was also a warning sign in itself. But those eyes. And that smile. Those eyes and that smile were a lethal combination. And in your early 20s, you only know from eyes and smiles. And hot sex. Yes, eyes, smiles and sex did a boyfriend make at the ripe age of 21.

He flirted with me over cheap cans of stale beer and told me he had his eye on me since Peter Sud’s birthday party last spring. I told him this was impossible because I didn’t go to this school last spring. I think that’s when I saw it. In his first lie, his first attempt to win me over, or at least into bed. I think that’s when I saw there was a vulnerability to Rich. There was something untapped. And I wanted in.

I wanted to be the girl that makes the boy the boy every girl has been trying to turn him into his entire life. Now I know what you’re thinking: “How typical of a girl to want to change the boy.” No, not change him: it was in him. He just didn’t know it yet. But with me? With me he would know it. With me, he would want to know it.

And so that night, that night we didn’t kiss. He rested his hands on my thigh, but not in an aggressive “try to get it higher” kind of way. In a sweet sort of “I’m with her” kind of way. We left the party and sat in the children’s park across the street from the apartment building where I shared a two bedroom with five girls and ate cereal for most meals. I was pretty sick back than, now that I think about it. I didn’t eat very much and I smoked cigarettes to curb my hunger pains. The cigarettes did nothing other than make me smell like shit and I think its been a good five years since I’ve picked up a bowl of Fruity Pebbles, but again, I digress.

We sat on a bench and I bought myself some time. I knew Rich didn’t want a girlfriend. At least he didn’t know he did. So I bought myself some time by not giving in on the first night. And that’s how he began to open up.

But like I said, Rich felt distant for a long time. Even after a half a year of dating, with our naked bodies sticking to each other in bed, no air conditioning and the heat of summer leaving beads of sweat on our skin without even moving, even then, sharing our sweat, he still felt, well, almost cold.

Back then, I didn’t know. Back then, I didn’t even have a clue.