O! Harbour and Lo This was still months ago, when winter was forcing itself over us, when I met her at the market. I arrived early so I might write a while before, but the cafeteria was a sea of Saturday's children, leaving me outside looking for a table in the chill. All of them were empty. It takes a certain type of person to escape the crowd in this weather.

Outside, there was a woman sitting closer to the waterfront. I sat at a distance and began taking out my books. I hadn't been there a minute when she looked over her shoulder. It's an unusual thing, strangers recognizing each other.  ¶ 7:05 PM

  Wondering of Right and Wrong Jen and I happened to be taking Tae Kwon Do together when I was 14 years old. Our class was doing an exhibition at the town fair, and there being so little to do at that age, we spent the rest of the day walking up and down the aisles together, going from booth to booth. That was a great day, spending time with a girl that seemed to like me as much as I liked her. I knew how I felt must be wrong.

A while later, she stopped coming to class, and nearly ten years later, I happened to run into her at a bar. We chatted for a while nostalgically, now flirting over memories. The idea of getting together one day came up, and so I gave her my number. I fell asleep that night smiling, knowing I was right.

I had that same phone number for years after that, but it never rang from her call. And still to this day, I wonder.  ¶ 10:12 PM

  Post-Party, Pre-Sentiment I remember this night clearly, though I know she wouldn't. She drank so much that night, there's no way she would have said it otherwise. And I doubt she even meant it, not to the degree that I took it, and then held on to as long as I could.

I had a crush on her for nearly the entire duration of high school, and even though other crushes came and went, she was always the one I felt the strongest about. After high school, those feelings changed shape, until one night there was a party at the house I was living at. Like I said, she drank so much that night, she stayed over. As she was falling asleep, in the last few coherent mumblings, she said twice, "I love you, Michael."  ¶ 11:03 AM

  A Matter of Distance Between our first kiss and our first night, there were a few days of uncertainty. She made it clear that she wasn't ready for a relationship. I said something similar, but it was hardly clear. That her name didn't sound right when I said it. It wasn't a matter of pronunciation or inflection; it was a matter of distance.  ¶ 5:23 PM