The Origin of Love

One: He will borrow a pen from you, although he already has one hidden inside the badly torn breast pocket of his old biker jacket (you won’t know these things, either about the pen, or the fact that the inside pocket is badly torn).

Two: He will look at you for a long time, as he is getting ready to leave, so long it feels almost like he is studying your face and appearance to take home with him. You do not blush there on the spot, but later you do, when you are home and thinking about the gaze.

Two: He will sit at one of the tables right at the farthest corner of your side vision, and stay there for thirteen minutes and twenty-seven seconds, during which you won’t be able to move, think, talk without stuttering, or give anybody their exact change, and after he leaves, you feel exhausted and a sudden need to empty your bladder.

Three: You happen on the same bus, and when he fails to come sit next to you, you immediately swear off all men, and declare you weren’t really into having any company at all, and his hair looks stupid, and there really is no point in these random meetings. This, you know, is totally ridiculous, since you don’t even know him enough to be legitimately angry.

Four: The next time you see him, after many months, you hold an insane grudge over the bus episode, but still think he looks incredibly sexy in the well-worn biker jacket.

Five: After he invites you for drinks at a bar, you specifically dress casual, but fiddle with your hair for almost an hour before leaving home.

Six: During the first date, you talk for two hours with him, with no memory whatsoever later on what you talked about. You do remember, however, his smell, a sweet, cinnamonny smell, and the closeness of your hands, when you both held onto your glasses at a tiny table. You also remember how your hands kept sweating, and your thighs perspiring underneath the corduroy skirt so that you were afraid the thick fabric would stick unattractively to them when you got up.

Six: Whether the skirt did stick to your thighs, you have no idea.

Seven: There is a long gap between the first time you meet him properly, and the second, and during this time you write in your journal more ferociously than in years. You fill up two notebooks in two weeks.

Eight: When you are to meet him for the second time, you are ridiculously early, and sit on a park bench for a while to pass the time. The sun is blazing and your face is hot. The journal sits open in your lap, but for the first time in you don’t even remember how long, you cannot produce a single word into it. You fiddle with your handbag. You put the pen away. Then you take it out again. Put it away. Take it out.

Eight: This is what it says on the page: “I don’t know. What is happening? What is this?”

Nine: The first time he tells you he can’t even look at you without getting short of breath, you sort of lose your vision for a while, and the blurred image of him is what you remember when he isn’t around.

Ten: You talk about the bus incident, and he says he couldn’t bring himself to come sit next to you, he was too afraid of your glow, and nervous, and was in turn hoping you would come to him and was very disappointed when you didn’t.

Ten: You play Anaïs Mitchell’s Hadestown for him for the first time, and he loves it.