Who Does That?

Who Does That?

Who does that? It was almost a whisper.  Her overwhelming brown eyes boring into my soul as her lips curled into a half-moon smile.  Her hands attached to elbows bent at 45 degree angles under the weight of her mismatching shopping bags.  I looked at our other overburdened companions and felt the air sucked from my chest.

Who does that?

There was no denying the nature of our relationship.   She saw me for exactly who I was.

For who I am.

In Love

I was completely and utterly smitten.  Or at least in lust.  What does a sophomore in college know?

I first caught a glimpse of her at the student union.  My eyes mesmerized by the curly cues that danced upon her shoulders as her hips swayed back and forth past the bookstore and into a crowded street.

Two days later, we coincidentally crossed paths in the same corner of a fraternity party among mutual friends.  She stopped by my room the next day, we were hall mates in the dormitory.

She was totally out of my league.  The envy of the quad, it was not only my eyes that followed her performance at the student union that day.  She took a liking to me.  You know, in that platonic, non romantic, hang out with a boy who is totally drooling over you kind of way.

Best of Friends

Over the months we became inseparable.  In place of romance, on her part, a true fondness grew.  I submerged my feelings like the protagonist of any coming of age John Hughes film should.  Occasionally we would drink too much and she would get a little handsy, but never truly cross the line.

I have no illusions about the role she played in this doomed friendship.  She wanted to be worshipped and I acquiesced.  It would be so easy to feel anger, if not for those few moments.

Those moments that transcend.

There was that time when I visited her at her friend’s apartment.  The roommate came to the door with a disinterested look, and announced that some guy had come to see her.  Then she opened the door and gleamed at me with rays of sparkling sunshine.

That’s not just some guy, that’s my best friend…

Than she took me by the hand and dragged me into the room.

The Beginning of The End

It couldn’t last forever.  Love can only live so long when unrequited. If one respects themselves at least.

A group of us, right before Christmas, hitched a ride with her mom to some sort of expo or another.  Vendors with gadgets, doodads, and other high-end products were being sold at a deep discount.  We wandered for hours, shopping, laughing, and running through the isles.

By the end, she, and all our friends, left the building with arms bulging and pocketbooks bereft.

Except me.

She turned towards me with eyebrows and shoulders raised in bewilderment.

We shopped all day, and each one of us spent every last cent except for you.  You bought nothing!

Who does that?

I Do That

Years later, as I write this personal finance blog, I could make all sorts of excuses.  We were young, she was immature, she never understood the real me.

But it wouldn’t be true.

She saw me.

She knew exactly who I was.