And speaking of crushes... (Laurie Faria Stolarz)

            The first time I spoke to him it was in college.  I was sitting in the campus café, working on a last-minute assignment for marketing class, when this boy walked in, took a seat across from me at my table, and pushed my books to the side.

            “Hey,” he said.  “I’m Peter.” 

            I knew who he was.  We were in a writing class together that semester, plus I’d seen him around campus.  But since we didn’t have any of the same friends in common, and since we both sat at polar opposite sides of the classroom, we didn’t exactly have the occasion for conversation—until that afternoon.

            After an exchange of a few paltry pleasantries, Peter looked straight into my eyes, and asked me where I got my inspiration.  He was talking about an essay I’d written, one that the professor had asked me to share with the class.    

            “I’m sort of fascinated by the choices people make,” I told him.  “And by how the consequences of those choices play out down the road, even several years later.”

            “So does that mean my decision to come and sit with you just now will have a long and lasting consequence?”

            The question made me laugh. After which, there was more talking and laughing. Three whole hours of it.  Three hours of us swapping stories about our hometowns, what we wanted out of life (me, a writer; him, a lawyer); and comparing our quirkiest part-time jobs (no joke, but I once had a job making boob-shaped mugs at a ceramics studio, while he dressed as a fish to wait tables at an aquarium cafe).     

            The whole afternoon was sort of surreal.  I mean, here was this boy I’d barely even said hello to before, and here we were right now, clicking so well, laughing so hard, relating on all sorts of levels.

            It wasn’t one of those love-at-first-sight kinds of attractions.  Not like when, in the sixth grade, I saw the movie The Sure Thing and made a silent vow to myself – in the third row of the Loews theatre, my mouth packed with popcorn and Juji Fruits– to one day meet and marry John Cusack. No, it wasn’t like that. (And I digress.)

            My conversation with Peter was easy though – fluid, effortless – and at the same time it had a sort of where-have-you-been-all-my-life quality. As cheesy as that sounds, it was exactly how I felt. There were moments in the conversation when Peter would look at me and shake his head, as if somewhat taken aback. I was taken aback too. I mean, who was this guy, and why hadn’t I ever noticed him before?  

            “Since you’re so fascinated with choices and consequences,” he said, “what do you think the consequence will be of us spending so much time together?”

            I was hoping the answer was obvious.  I mean, it was so completely clear to me that all signs were pointing to the best first date ever.  But instead a girl appeared at our table, tearing a page out of what had otherwise been the start of a perfectly good love story.  

            She asked Peter where he’d been all this time.  He gave her a lame excuse – something about losing track of time and forgetting about their plans – and she stomped off, both angry and hurt. 

            The following day, after our writing class, we both lingered.  The proverbial elephant in our now-vacant classroom was who that girl was exactly.

            “My girlfriend and I were supposed to meet for lunch,” he said, unable to even look at me now.  “She’d been waiting for me at my apartment, and then had spent the next two hours hunting me down all over campus.”

            His girlfriend. It’s not that I hadn’t expected it.  It’s just that a part of me had hoped there might’ve been some magical explanation. “So then if you and your girlfriend had plans, what were you doing hanging out with me?” I asked him.  

            “Why do you think?” he asked.

            After that happened, I put up a wall, forbidding myself from gazing back at him in class, and making sure to be one of the first people out the classroom door. It worked pretty well for a while, but then one afternoon toward the end of the semester, we found ourselves early for class.  Peter was struggling to make small talk, asking about the courses I’d be taking in the spring.  Being a business major, I had room for only one humanities elective: Topics in Women’s Studies with Professor Feener.  I’d been looking forward to studying with her since first enrolling at the college.

            That following semester, I remember walking into Feener’s class on the first day, and seeing Peter in the back row of a room full of females.  I couldn’t help but grin at how predictable – and yet unpredictable – he really was. 

            During class lectures, we’d write notes back and forth in the margins of our notebooks, making fun of all sorts of silly stuff, like how Professor Feener always clucked out her words, and how ironic it was that the girl sitting in front of us had anti-men stickers pasted all over her peace-sign covered notebook. 

            Needless to say, things between us were really continuing to click, and I half-expected him to come to class one day and tell me that he and Morgan had broken up. But nothing like that ever happened.  

            I’d see them together on campus – in the cafeteria, walking across the soccer field, and going off to the upperclassman apartments.  I’d try to remind myself that things between us were innocent, and that I wasn’t getting emotionally involved.  But I knew deep down that wasn’t true.  

Peter soon began appearing places he’d find me: in the café, by the lot where I parked, and waiting for me after class.  I wasn’t the only one who noticed either.  People started asking if there wasn’t something more going on between us.  And then Peter told me about a dream he had – in which he wanted more than anything to be with me, even though he knew he shouldn’t.

            “I can’t even believe I just told you that,” he said.

            “Why did you tell me?” 

            “Because maybe I was kind of hoping you’d feel the same.”  

            “You have a girlfriend,” I reminded him.

            “I know.”  

            “Do you love her?” I asked.  

            A simple enough question, but he didn’t have an answer, and so he shrugged again and told me how great Morgan was. “It’s just that I never expected to meet someone like you,” he said, as if meeting me was a bad thing.  

And maybe it was, which is precisely the reason I built up that wall again.  I resisted the urge to respond to every amusing comment he scribbled into the margins of my notebook, and I did my best to appear busy or otherwise uninterested in what he had to say.  But then Professor Feener paired us up to collaborate on a project (!). And, once again, my wall came crumbling down.

            I arranged to meet him at the library, hell bent on keeping focused on our project.

            “What do you do when you’re promised to someone, but then, by fate, you meet the person you’re really supposed to be with?” he asked. 

            Granted, the question was valid for our topic, but still. “I don’t know,” I told him.  “What do you do?”

            “What would you do?”   

            I shook my head, because I refused to tell him—refused to be the one who would make or break his relationship.  

            When the project was almost over, and the semester’s end was near, we knew it’d only be a matter of weeks before graduation—before he’d move back home, clear across the country, and we’d probably never see each other again.  

            One night after a study session – when I should’ve headed off to my car, and he should’ve returned to his apartment – we found ourselves sitting on a nearby bench. He asked me how I felt about him. A part of me wanted to tell him the truth—that I cared about him. A lot.  

            But “I can’t really say,” I told him instead. “You need to make your own decisions.” 

            Peter studied my face, perhaps wishing it’d reveal something, but I got up quickly before it could. 

           The following day I heard the news that he and Morgan had gotten engaged the previous night. Apparently, sometime between blowing off their lunch date, and asking me how I felt about him, he found the time to shop for a ring.

            One of the last times I saw him, he said he’d like to meet up again at our five-year reunion.  I responded by telling him to have a nice life.  Suffice it to say, I never did make it to the reunion – (not just because of him; the truth is I’m not exactly a reunion type person) – but around year eight I got an e-mail from him, asking me how I was, and congratulating me on my writing career.  He hinted on about coming to my area on business.  I told him that my life was very full, and then, once again, wished him well with his.  

            He contacted me a few more times after that, but my wall remained firmly Peter-proof. A quick Google search told me that he did indeed marry Morgan. I was happy for him and hoped they were happy. Still, a part of me couldn’t help but wonder what would’ve happened if we’d both made different decisions back then, and if he’d been as pleased with the consequences as I was.

 

*Please note that the names and minor details have been altered to protect the now-married-with-children. My married-with-children, on the other hand, knows all about this story, and loves me more for it.