We met, we talked, it was epic . . .

            “We met, we talked, it was epic. But the sun came up and reality set it.”

       The last night of freshman year, my friends and I had just finished our last final on Saturday and decided to celebrate. I had finally convinced my friend, Kayla, to go out with me that night. That night, Kayla, George (a friend of hers), and I went out downtown. First stop, a bar called the Rookery which at the time was THE place to go out to. We left a little late so by the time we got there, it was pretty jam-packed. We stood in our little circle by the bar talking. About six feet away I see a relatively attractive guy. Me being me, I give him a once over. While I’m doing that, however, he catches me checking him out.  
All the girls out there, you know what I’m talking about when I say flirting with the eyes. If there was one thing I was trying to avoid, it was that. You make eye contact with a guy, you can get an idea of whether or not he’s interested. Hold eye contact long enough he will come over, which was what I was trying to avoid that night. I must have looked too long because he headed over with his friend.
        “Hi”
“Hi”
“What’s your name?”
. . .
You can imagine the rest of that conversation. Turns out though, his friend is a news broadcaster for a local network. George, at this point, was at the bar trying to get a drink, amid the thirty other people trying to get a drink that night. When he finally got his drink, he saw Kayla and I talking to these two guys. I must look like I needed help. The next thing I know, George has his arm around me and starts talking to the two guys. The two guys got the picture and moved off towards other prey. I felt bad for them.
        Approaching a person of the opposite sex takes quite a bit of courage. For all the guys out there, don’t stop trying! It is better to have tried and failed than never have tried at all. Take it from a girl who still waits for the guy to make a move. One piece of advice though: come up with better pickup lines or smoother ways of approaching a girl! The whole come up from behind and try grinding or the “Hey . . .” gets tiring real quick.
       A little later, we see a friend of ours, Nebila, head over to the bar. Bubbly, charming, a great dancer, and a social butterfly, she looked out of breathe and definitely intoxicated. When she saw us, she bounced right on over. I asked,
“Hey, how’s your night going?”
“Terrible! I came out with the guys and Juan won’t leave me alone. He keeps trying to dance with me. Do me a favor, save me next time!”
      As timing would have it, Juan came over less than a minute after she said that and grabbed her for a dance. Kayla and I looked at each other.
“Wanna be the knights in shining armor tonight?”
“Sure, why not.”
      So we headed towards the dance floor and do the classic “save” i.e. grabbed Nebila and started dancing with her. That pretty much summed up the remainder of our night at the Rookery. At closing time, the bar started shutting down and people milled towards the doors. Even then, you can’t end a night without standing outside talking to people for another ten, fifteen minutes.
         This is the part where my memory turns a bit fuzzy. Somehow, I went from talking to Nebila and Kayla to talking to a guy, Andre. I think and this is a big IF, Nebila introduced me to him. I had seen him multiple times on campus before this and every time, he had this intimidating scowl on his face. Needless to say, I always considered him unapproachable. As we talked, we discovered we had a lot of friends in common. We had been to most of the same parties. At this point, he asked, “How have we not met before?”
“I don’t know. By the way, are you Hispanic?”
“No, I’m half black and half Swedish. You got a problem with that?”
I laugh and reply, “Nope, not at all.”
That was the moment I knew that this would be a rather interesting friendship.
“We’re having a party at back at my house. You’re welcome to come over.”
I turn to look at Kayla, the DD for the night. She shrugged and said, “It’s up to you.”
That became the theme of our friendship, but that’s another couple of stories.
      All I knew that night was I did not want to stop talking to him, so I asked for his address. We headed out and ironically, we were the first to get there. Not going to lie, it felt a little shady in general. The neighborhood was a little run down. As soon as Nebila and my friend John showed up, I felt a little better at ease. Pretty soon, even more people showed up, people I knew. The way the house is set up, it is where you have the road, some steps leading up, the walkway leading up to the steps of the house, porch, and finally, the door. Kayla being tired wanted to leave after a while, so I asked John and Nebila to drop me back home. They agreed and she left.
      There was something in the air that night, something that words can't capture completely. Whatever it was, I don’t think I’ll ever forget it. It felt as though I had gone back six years in time. Growing up, my parents would throw parties at our house in New York. When we were kids, we would sit or stand around outside on the front porch, talking, joking around on those random summer nights. Sometimes, it feels like a lifetime ago. This night, however, felt like one of those Indian summer nights.
      I wished the night wouldn’t end, that we would be transfixed in this little block of time. Yet, nothing ever lasts forever. People eventually began to leave. Andre and I went back inside the house, where he gave me a tour of his place. When we got to his room, we sat down on his couch and talked. That is when I notice he has a wooden rosary hanging on one of the walls. I turn to him, surprised.
“Wait, you’re Catholic?”
“Yup, how’d you know?”
“Well, last time I checked it’s usually only Catholics that have rosaries. Plus, I’m Catholic.”
       This launches a whole conversation on how an Indian girl and her entire family could possibly be Catholic, which lead into a little history splurge on my family’s background. He says, “You know, I have been mistaken for Indian before.”
       Hispanic, mixed, and maybe Egyptian I could I understand, but definitely not Indian. I said as much. Then, he launched into a story. Earlier in undergrad, he became friends with this Indian guy, who presume Andre was Indian. Andre being Andre, never denied nor confirmed this. He just went with it. One day, the guy asked him if he was going to the temple for some religious holiday or another, or something like that. Andre said he wasn’t since he isn’t Hindu but Catholic instead. The guy was surprised. Eventually, the truth comes out. The Indian guy more or less stopped talking to him afterwards. Hearing that story, I got mad on his behalf and told him as much. He laughed. I told him, “Not all of us are like that.”
“This coming from the girl who looked disappointed when I said I wasn’t Hispanic?”
“It’s not my fault you can get mistaken for Hispanic.”
     This launched us into a discussion of all the different things we had been mistaken for. For me, that list included Middle Easter, Hispanic, Indian, and Pakistani. His was pretty close in nature, whereupon I told him the most ridiculous assumption I had heard.
“Someone once told me that I looked Mexican, if it weren’t for the fact that I looked too tall to be Mexican.”
     That got a laugh out of him. Time flew by as we talked on that couch. Eventually, John and Nebila found us, telling me it was time to leave. But, I didn’t want to leave this stranger, this surprisingly charismatic man that I ran into on a random night out. Andre turned to me and asked, “Do you want to leave right now? I can take you home later if you want.”
      Some people may call this foolish and others dangerous, but I trusted him, a guy I had met only a few hours ago. I nodded and turned to John and Nebila, “Is it ok if he takes me home?”
     John simply shrugged. Nebila laughed and said, “Ok but Andre, you better get our girl home safe!” We hugged and said our goodbyes. I watched them leave before turning back to Andre.  He suggested that we move outside, since the porch swing was now available. So, we went outside and continued our talks there.
I told him about my family, my parents, my brothers, and my large extended family. He told me his back-story. His mother was black, while his father was Swedish. They had gotten divorced when he was young. His father moved back to Sweden, remarried, and had a new family. My new friend never really had a relationship with his dad. When he was in elementary school, his mother had a heart attack. It meant growing up for him and having to take care of her instead of the other way around.
       It made me look at him a little differently after hearing that. Not necessarily pity him for the hardships he went through, but rather I admired him for not coming out fucked up, for turning out better than most would expect. They say that what does not kill you only makes you stronger. I guess that was the case for him, especially considering he had gone to a Catholic school growing up. Especially that.
      Our conversation was as random as our meeting and just as sarcastic at times. It was a very discombobulated conversation. Being half Swedish and half black, I was surprised he was only 5”9 and said as much. So how did a guy who should have been 6” plus end up being 5”9? He launched into another story.
When he was younger, the doctor had said he would probably grow to be at least six feet tall. Growing up he had played many sports, soccer being his favorite. It also meant he had started weight lifting rather young. This in turn stunted his growth, leaving him at 5”9.
     Somewhere along the course of that story, I had started snuggling into his shoulder. In my defense, it was a little chilly outside, as chilly as it gets at 4 or  5 a.m. in May. Of course, he noticed and being him, commented on that in the midst of our conversation.
“Look at you trying to leech the warmth out of me!”
      I made a mock cry of protest. Before I could start arguing, he went back inside, got his sweater (or maybe it was a jacket) and threw it over me. Quite the gentleman, a rough version but a gentleman nevertheless.
      We sat there talking for what seemed like forever. We saw the sunrise together and even had a little argument about what constitutes as sunrise. I said it was the moment you saw the sun. He argued it was the minute the darkness lifted. We kept at it for a good ten minutes. The entire time I could not stop smiling. We talked through the night and into the morning. Around 7 a.m. his friends came outside, asking us if we wanted to go get some food. I had to leave in another hour. Checkout time from the dorm was 8:30 a.m. so I asked Andre to drop me back.
     As he dropped me off in front of my building, I turned and gave him a big hug. I couldn’t help but think, it was a hug I didn’t want to leave. I went back to my room, took a nap, woke up a hour later to pack, and left. That was the end of my freshman year and it was a pretty great ending to a pretty amazing year.

     We met, we talked, and it was epic. The sun rose and reality set in. I left for home and he left for Europe. We went our separate ways. But that was never the end of our story.
                                  Reality, it seems, is still the here and now.