text: [Themes: love & dating]
  
  Fights always began the same way. I would get quiet, trying not to say anything, and then you would immediately come up to me and say "why are you angry?" and that would make me furious.
  
  I'd say, "I'm not angry," and you would look concerned and sweet and say something like, "Because you seem really angry." And that would do it, that would put me over the edge.
  
  Now that we're thinking about the cafeteria, I'm starting to think about a fight we had there once as well. I think I know which one you're thinking about, where you said that I wasn't looking up when you were talking, that I was distracted, and that I needed to put you first when we were together.
  
  > Yes, you remember that. You were thinking about Quinn.
  I suppose I was thinking about her. I'd gotten a letter from her, and I started thinking about high school friends. She wasn't anything special to me that you knew about, I think, but you got jealous and perceptive, and asked questions.
  
  You could tell I was thinking about her letter when you were talking. I wanted to listen to you, and wanted to touch you, to run my hands through your hair, to pan for red gold with both hands in the river of your curls, but I was also thinking about Quinn with 10% of my mind, about what she meant when she said she missed me.
  
  I wonder if that moment, where you sort of snapped at me a little and told me I wasn't paying full attention to you, is where we drifted apart.
  
  > Yes. You did drift apart around then.
  We said our goodbyes and walked away. I suppose we felt we'd found a new friend. Here's an old diary entry from that time. Listen:
  
  August 31, Train to school, did errands, got cafeteria card. Went up for honor club, don't think I'll get in. Chatted with new people, Donna, Karen, Michael. Dorm looks ok-ish. Helped Irene and Max (guy with green hair) move in. Saw Sam by mail room. Band coming to school "Solid State" and I might go. Met Natalie in cafeteria. There's a desk in the bathroom of the dorm??? Bill on my hall plays bass.
  
  So, there you are, in the middle, worth mentioning, but no more special than helping Irene and Max (with his green hair) move in. We met, we liked each other, and from then on, we were that person we saw on the way to and from classes, a mandatory, "Hi," and "Good morning, Natalie." Later it became "Morning," because saying "Good morning" was, I guess, just too intimate. Passing acquaintances, I think, is the term, and we were always passing, never once going in the same direction.
  
  > But then you were in the laundry room together, alone, a year later.
  All right. I guess we can tell the story this way. It doesn't really matter, because we find each other in the end. It's a story about how two people meant to be together find each other. When isn't so important. It could have happened a thousand different ways. We're opposite poles of magnets in a shoebox full of styrofoam. Shake the shoebox long enough, and we're going to find our way to each other and click together.
  
  You were doing your sweaters, remembering to take them out before the dryer load, actually hanging them up to dry. I was just finishing my laundry, and we said hello, as we did.
  
  But then, I felt, something shifted. We had missed our opportunity back then, a year ago. And we were a year older. I looked at you, and at your clothes in the laundry basket. It felt intimate, somehow, to see you like this. You looked somehow slenderer than last year, but it may have been just how large your laundry basket was.
  
  > Would have asked you if you could carry your laundry up.
  I would have. And you would be a little older, maybe a little more jaded from a year of experience, disappointed by Lionel or Bud or Max or Cassie. You would have some wounds, some visible in your face, some less so.
  
  And me too. I would have gone out with, let's say, Teresa, and then, over summer break, Quinn for a while. But these relationships didn't last. It doesn't really make sense that they would. You don't fall in love with someone on the first day. You grow together, and you grow apart, and then, if it's meant to be, you run into each other again.
  
  That's what happened here, in this story. I put your laundry down on your bed, and looked around your room. I'd never thought about your room, or about you, really, since a year ago, but this was the start of something new.
  
  You smiled at me and asked me if I was going to the game, and I said yes, although I had no idea what game she was talking about (Settlers of Catan? Football?) and we agreed to meet later that night.
  
  > And you fell in love forever that night.
  We were shivering at the football game, and I had brought a blanket, and we cuddled under it, and drank hot cocoa I had in a thermos. I wasn't the boy with Gulliver's Travels dumbly staring at you across a table, but a man, or nearly, and I had been working on my shoulders and arms a lot, and I held shivering you and gave you a real story of meeting, not a stupid story about saying hi in a cafeteria.
  
  We looked at each other, your chestnut curls falling over your face, your crimson lips parting a little, showing me you wanted me to kiss you, but I knew, and the home team was scoring, and I kissed you as the crowd screamed. Then I pulled back a little and looked at you, and took your chin in my hand and tilted your chin up, just a little. Like we've seen in dozens of movies, and then I kissed you again, and the camera pulls back, let's say, and we are in silhouette against the darkening sky.
  
  You're right, Natalie. It's much better. Let's forget all the other parts. I like this version better. Come here, and let me kiss like that right now. Just hit that final link below and look at me that way that you did then.