I was sitting in my dimly lit dorm room having just gotten back from Fall Break. The night air was seeping through the window wrapping its cold arms around us and we were alone. It seemed like we were always alone.

I took a silent deep breath and laughed off the question I had just asked her. What business did I have to get mad if she had anyway? She was supposed to… wasn’t see?

            “No I didn’t,” she whispered.

            “Oh why? Couldn’t get any alone time or something?” I pressed, and found myself suddenly wanting to know the answer, suddenly thinking it could make a difference. I stared off into the dark, trying to find her face in its nothingness.

“Because… because when I’m with him, you’re all I can think about.”

And there it was, and in one nervous, rushed through sentence, in the dead of the night, both of our lives changed.

My roommate brought her into the room in late August. She briefly introduced us and than began rambling about her boyfriend, school and whatever else she could talk about. I found my eyes wondering over this new girl, Meghan was her name I think. She was beautiful, medium height and had flowing red hair that hugged her face and made her eyes shine. God, did I grow to love those eyes. They were red-brown matching her hair and her curves were heard turning. Quickly I pushed those thoughts out of my head. I was used to this process, knew how to make the thoughts go away but for some reason I found my mind straying back to this girl all day and night.

A few days passed and I found her in my room, once again talking to my roommate. I was coming back from the library and threw my books down on the desk when I walked in. When I turned around my roommate was gone and the Meghan girl was sheepishly smiling at me.

“Hello,” I said and there was a long pause, “Where’d Leah go?”

“Her boyfriend is in the common room… I think their fighting.”

“Oh,” I said quietly and found myself fidgeting in one my draws.

“… Where are you from again?” she asked the silence.

“Umm Staten Island, you know in NYC,” I hadn’t even looked up to answer her.

“NO WAY, I’m from there too. I went to St. Patrick’s, where’d you go?” she asked.

“Moravian, I hated it.”

“Oh my god, I loved Patrick’s! I didn’t think anyone else from the Island went to this school. I’m so excited, don’t you think there all a little weird here. I didn’t want to say anything but I know, you know what I’m talking about. Maybe, its just me, maybe I’m not used to it. I dunno, but anyway don’t you think so?” She was practically glowing now. Her smile was infectious.

“Yeah, they’re a little weird. They all have accents and seem a little sheltered… I mean yesterday Leah told me I couldn’t go to the gas station cause it was scary.”

“I know someone told me that too! I thought it was just me,” she said laughing and I laughed with her. The conversation became easy than, natural even. We talked for what seemed like hours before my roommate came back. I felt like I had known her for years by the time she left. I knew she was an only child, afraid of mascots and her parents were divorced. I knew she had gone to Catholic school her whole life, loved soccer and didn’t understand football. I knew her favorite movie was Father of the Bride and that she had a boyfriend she had been dating for four years.

And for some reason that fact bothered me.

I had been at school for a week and already this girl was haunting my thoughts, creeping in when ever I had a free moment, shaking up my carefully constructed walls. I was talking to my mother on the phone, near a festival I had agreed to meet Meghan at. I was trying to rush my mom off so I could go find her in the crowd, talk to her again. I knew it was just me, and that the thoughts were bad and unrealistic. I couldn’t do that to my family, I had to behave, I had to control myself. I was an expert at it so it made me nervous that I couldn’t seem to shake her, like I did the other ones. Yet I couldn’t stay away, I found myself spending hours a day with her, laughing and telling stories. I couldn’t imagine not knowing her.

The cool autumn breeze brushed my shoulder as I turned to search for her bright face in the crowd. The seasons seemed to change more suddenly up here than at home. I liked it.

My phone was ringing in my hand and when I answered it, it was her sweet voice teasing me, “I can see you,” she said.

A fresh smile broke my face, “Where are you?”

“Oh you don’t see me. I’ve been watching you this whole time,” she said and giggled at the game she was playing.

But why was she watching me?

No, it didn’t matter. It couldn’t matter. She had a boyfriend and I had worked too long to ruin it all now. I pushed all my feelings away again, all the thoughts, doubts and desires.

“Don’t tell me where you are. I’ll find you,” I said and walked towards the crowd of people to find one girl hidden among the sea of faces.

“I’m just so glad we’re friends, you know? Like I’ve never felt this close to anyone one before. I feel like I can tell you anything… I want to tell you everything,” Meghan said in my ear and her hot breath burned my cold skin. I shivered and closed my eyes.

I took a sip of my drink and looked around my empty room, trying to ignore her hand on my arm and the thoughts running through my head. My roommate had moved out, Meghan was going to move in but suddenly it seemed dangerous to have her presence permanent. She seemed nervous to make the move and so I ignored what she had said. This was our little game. We both tap danced around our feelings and our dance was usually so perfect, so flawless that when one of us tripped up it was better to just ignore the mistake, least the audience notice.

“You know if you don’t move in here by next semester someone else will. You don’t want that do you?” I asked, and it was her turn to dance, but she didn’t.

“No. I want you all to myself, if you ever got another roommate they’d better know I’d be here every night,” she said laughing, but her joke didn’t fool me.

“Have you talked to Matthew tonight?” I said cutting her laugh short.

At that she got to her feet and walked away from me with her back turned. Slowly she answered, “Yeah… he should be here soon.”

“Don’t you think you should go back to your room you haven’t seen him in a month?” I mumbled, wanting her to hurt as much as I did, hoping the words burned her the way I wanted them to. 

“You’re right,” she said, keeping her back to me. She picked up her coat and turned to look at me. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow than.”

I got up and gave her a hug. I felt her head rest on my shoulder and her lungs taking in the scent of my hair. I held her for longer than I should have and reluctantly let go. She gave me one last smile before closing the door behind her. I whispered, “Bye,” to the empty room which echoed in the silence. I quickly felt the loneliness hug into my skin. This loneliness was new, filled with regret and the words that I should have said, needed to say.  I found myself filled with this new presence every time she left me. And everyday its whispered words got louder and louder, harder to ignore.

We spent the next couple of weeks almost constantly together. I couldn’t stop thinking about her, and began to feel something deep inside me stir every time I saw her. It was like I needed her, needed her laughing with me and smiling at me all day long. When she walked into my room it was like all my stresses, concerns and thoughts immediately went away. She was the only thing that mattered when she was with me. But I couldn’t have her, someone else already did.

I was happy enough for a while just being her friend. Sharing a hug, a laugh, a secret smile and a drink got me by in the beginning. But by November I needed more. More of what I had never had before and could never have. It wasn’t an option. She was going to marry her boyfriend when she graduated college, she loved him and he loved her. Besides I wouldn’t do that to my family or myself, I needed to have self-control. The problem was as the leaves began to change and autumn settled in I cared less and less about all those things. She was all that mattered. 

Thanksgiving break came and I found myself sitting in the silence of her car on the way home. Neither one of us had spoken in over an hour. The silent tension seemed to build around us and smothered the fire of our words. As the shining lights of the city blinked into view I heard her take a deep breath next to me.

“What are you thinking,” she whispered so loud my ears rang.

“It doesn’t really matter, Meg.”

“You can tell me the truth,” she begged.

I weighed my options and decided I couldn’t live like this anymore. Always wanting more, needing her and hurting myself from living the lie we had created. I needed to know. “How are you and Matthew doing lately? You seem confused whenever you talk to him?”

She shrugged as if he was the least of her concerns, “I don’t know about him anymore.”

My heart rose a little, “What are you confused about? If you still want to be with him?”

“No, I’m not confused about that anymore. Why do you ask?”

I was silent for a long minute, “I think you know why I ask Meg. I think we both know.”

I felt the car accelerate under me but she kept her eyes glued to the road. “Yea, I do…” she said and we let the silence embrace us once more. Its words were so loud I could barely concentrate on anything else, they were screaming in my ear, demanding I pay attention to them, demanding I stopped ignore the truth.

I stared at her for a while, lost and confused as we accelerated forward. Suddenly I felt her fingers graze my leg and squeeze my hand. She turned and smiled at me and that was all I needed. A smile was suddenly all that I needed to be given for my worries to wash away.

“Because when I’m with him, you’re all I can think about.”

And there it was, and in one nervous, rushed through sentence, in the dead of the night, both of our lives changed.

I was paralyzed in fear, as she moved towards me. I stared into her eyes which were filled with a burning passion I had never seen before that instantly melted the ice that held my heart. I ran my shaking fingers through her hair and let my hand rest against her soft chin. I held my breath as I felt her touch on my back pulling me into her. Our lips touched in one swift movement that I felt I had been practicing for my whole life. My head was pounding, yet I couldn’t seem to help but to continue to move my lips against hers. They were moist, tasted of vanilla and held an illicit drug I had never been able to enjoy before.

I don’t know how long we stayed like that or how we wound up on the bed but the next thing I did know she was gazing into my eyes and stroking my face with her delicate fingers. My head was pounding and I couldn’t see straight but it didn’t matter because she was with me, really with me.

“What are you thinking?” she whispered in my ear as she rested her head against my chest.

I smiled and rolled her onto her back and heard her sweet laugh in my ear. I gazed at her face trying to take in her eyes, her smile, her laugh and hold the moment forever. She turned my face and held my eyes with hers for a long minute that I wished would never end. She asked again, “What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking,” I paused for a minute trying to find the perfect words. “I’m thinking that I’m falling in love with you.”

At that moment her smile nearly made my heart explode as she pulled me in for another kiss. When she let me go she whispered back, “And I’m thinking that I am in love with you.”