The Cycle

By Garett Ng

I was going to die old, alone, and miserable. Besides my siblings and their families, there wouldn’t be anyone else at my funeral. No wife. No kids. No grandkids. The family line ended with me. It would be a cold and cloudy day that would turn into a dark and stormy night. It was as though T.S. Elliot had predicted that my life would end not with a bang, but with a whimper. Fade to black. It had already been two weeks into my freshmen year of college, and I had resigned myself to a permanent bachelor’s status in college.

When I entered this new land of adulthood and freedom from curfews and parental interrogation, I thought everyone around me would feel just as liberated as I was and would be looking for a little fun, excitement, and maybe some “companionship.” My dad had fed me stories ever since I was a little kid about the “good old days” in college and about the wild parties that he participated in. They seemed mythical; he would tell me about the endless beer kegs that would line up their dorm hallway, the double meaning of “studying,” and the rampant experimentation that went on outside the laboratory. As I grew older, he told me more stories about the women he dated, the wild adventures into the city, and more crazy stories that made me listen in question whether or not I should feel proud of my dad or embarrassed he was telling me these stories.

As my high school days ended and a new chapter approached, I counted down to my move-in day. The sacred college dormitory. I had watched countless of movies and TV shows, all glorifying the dorm room experience. We arrived to lineup to get my dorm key hours before dawn. When we got to my room, my roommates were already there and had picked the best of everything, from the mattresses to the desks. The room itself looked like shit. I didn’t care. It was the size of some closets that I had seen and now, it was my home. My pad. The pad. My dad inaugurated it by sitting on my bed and began bouncing up and down on it to test the mattress springs. He turned to me and said, “This bed’s going to get a lot of action this year, eh Robert?” My female resident assistant, who was visiting to introduce herself, stormed out of the room in disgust. There was an awkward silence in the room. “Was it something I said?” my dad asked. What a way to start the year off.

After what seemed like an eternity, my parents finally left me alone and went home. My mom cried as my dad closed the door for her. He turned and gave me a wink and a thumbs up before going in the car and backing out of the parking lot. I saw the car turn onto the street and drive off. I felt as though a weight had been lifted off my shoulders. Freedom, I thought. This is what it was like to be free.

I went back to my dorm room to find my two roommates busy playing Counterstrike on their computers. We had talked briefly on the phone before moving in. Steve and Paul seemed like nice guys over the phone and we talked cordially during the brief minute on the phone with each of them. As I began to sort my things around in my corner of the room, I soon encountered a possible problem. They were best friends in high school, which pretty much meant I was the third wheel, the mole, and the excess. Perfect. I wanted to break the ice.

“You guys want to walk around and find a party or something?” I asked.

“A party? Nah, I gotta set up my server. We have a T1 connection you know,” my roommate Steve responded.

“You Paul?”

“I gotta setup my webcam to talk to my girlfriend tonight,” he said as he motioned to the webcam sitting on his desk.

“You mean the one studying in Japan?” Steve asked.

“Yeah.”

“Isn’t it like a 14 hour time difference?” I asked. Paul looked at me as if it was common knowledge and rolled his eyes.

“Yeah. That’s why I have to stay tonight.” His eyes were trained on the computer screen. “You suck you asshole!” he shouted to Steve.

I decided to venture into the hallway. There were about 60 people on my floor and about 20 tiny rooms like mine. We were crammed in there like a can of sardines. Despite being move-in day, I was surprised to find that all of the doors were closed, except the room at the end of the hallway. I decided to venture in and there was a girl putting stuff under her bed. I knocked on the door.

“Need some help there?”

Surprised that someone was there, she leapt up and bumped her head under the bed frame.

“OW!” she shouted. She came from under the bed and began messaging her head. I felt bad.

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“No, that’s okay. I’m over it.” She put on her glasses and walked over to me. “I’m Emily.”

“Emily, I’m Robert.” We shook hands. “I live down the hall.”

“Cool. Where are you from?”

We spent the next ten minutes chatting. Emily was a short Chinese girl from the West Coast. She had a rounder face with cute childish dimples when she smiled. With the pigtails that she was wearing, a stranger could’ve mistaken her for a twelve year old, which she assured me, she was not. After exchanging some information about ourselves, I let her go back to what she was doing and went back to my room.

Welcome week was a mix of drugs, partying, and hooking up. Actually no, it wasn’t. I spent the week doing all sorts of freshmen activities and meeting a lot of random people who became my “best friend” during the event and later seemed to pretend not to know me at the cafeteria. I went to the various club open houses and was bombarded by club officers coaxing and begging me to join their clubs. By the end of the week, I was a lifetime member of the Asian Social Services (a.k.a. ASS), a described community service club, but in actuality, a “meat market” according to my best bud Vincent.

The club seemed a bit sketchy. It was the largest organization on campus and our first meeting filled the largest lecture hall. The members cheered the club officers like followers to their disciples. The president welcomed the new members and had us stand up in front of us. It felt like a cult initiation. What was I doing there? I thought. I felt so uncomfortable.

I was placed in a “family,” a small group of members that would make us feel like the club wasn’t so large. Everyone had dolled up for the meeting, with the women dying their hair, wearing obnoxiously short skirts, and layering their skin with makeup and the men wearing black clothes, spiking their hair, and trying to look “hard” and like “thugs.” I felt out of place wearing the free t-shirt that I got for filling out ten credit card applications and baggy jeans. Our icebreaker felt like a scene out of the Dating Game Gone Wild. Everyone began to flirt with each other and talk like airheads. The family meeting was capped off with all of us exchanging emails, phone numbers, and instant message names. When the list got to me, I scanned it. Everyone had “AZN,” smiley faces, winks, and little word shortcuts in their instant message names. I put mine down: Robert2079. If this was what being Asian was all about, I guess I wasn’t Asian enough.

Classes eventually began, and I looked forward to the intimacy of meeting my fellow peers in an intellectual setting. My classes were all packed in the large lecture halls. I was excited for the academic journey we were all about to begin. I was also excited that there were so many cute women who all looked like models from the latest Gap ads since they all wore the same clothes.

But then two things happened after those first classes. Half the class vanished, never to be seen again. I was shocked. No one was going to class and there would be vast areas in the lecture hall empty, deserted, and abandoned by students. And for the remaining half, everyone was in a relationship. There were those who immediately dated someone on their floors. Others had high school boyfriends or partners in other schools. Just when I was just going to approach someone in class to introduce myself, they would pull out their cell phone and begin to gab away. I felt lonely, but hopeful. Then, I just felt lonely. It didn’t help that all I brought with me from home were jazz love songs CDs, which I would listen to at night as my roommates played video games with each other.

On the dorm front, everyone except Emily seemed antisocial or too busy to be friendly. Cliques began to form around me. There were the Athens, as I like to call them, who went out each and every night to get sloshed with their new fraternity and sorority brothers and sisters. Then there were the others who seemed to be home all the time shopping on their computers, instant messaging people like there was no tomorrow, and playing games so violent that a weaker person would faint. Where were the “cool” people? Emily and I were the outsiders, unfit for these two worlds, so we did our own thing, hanging out with each other at night, watching TV together, and sharing a cup of ramen when one of us craved it. Everything was okay, and I resigned myself that things would remain the status quo. Oh well.

The moment everything changed was when I saw the girl of my dreams for the first time. I had arrived late to my Math 101 class and sat in the back of the 500-person lecture hall. It had been raining hard and the bad weather had driven even more students away from class. I sat uncomfortably in the back taking in the lecture when the professor gave us a one-minute stretching break. I stood up and scanned for familiar faces in the front of the lecture hall. And then I saw her.

It was as though the world had darkened everywhere except on her. She was gorgeous. I couldn’t keep my eyes off of her as I studied her from afar, as an art historian would to a painting. She was friendly; I saw the friends that were around her. She was generous; she offered a pen to a guy who asked her for one. She was artistic; I could see the sketches she was making in her notebook. She was perfect. I wanted to be with her and I wanted to take her home to introduce her to my parents. We had a future together, and I knew it would work out for the best. All I needed to do was to meet her and find out her name.

When class ended, she disappeared. I looked in vain for her outside in the hallway, but she must have run away to another class. Maybe it was fate. But it wasn’t. In my discussion class, I suddenly noticed her sitting there across from me as my math TA went over the theorems and proofs discussed in lecture. I was enamored by her. I didn’t want to look like I was gawking at her, but I couldn’t help it. She had beautiful, long hair with blond streaks running through them, a smile that would make you forget about all your troubles, and clear blue eyes. Oh, those blue eyes. During that class, I couldn’t stop looking at them, partly due to the fact that they were obviously colored contact lenses. The fifty minutes I spent in the same room with her felt like an eternity to me, but as the hour clock moved closer and closer to twelve, I felt like Cinderella as I went back to reality.

In the cafeteria that night, over chicken that tasted like sand, I told Emily about the nameless girl of my dreams. Between vivid descriptions of each moment I spent in her presence, I gulped down water to wash down the horrific tastes in my mouth. I knew dorm food was bad, but never thought it’d be that bad. During one of these water breaks, Emily finally asked, “What are you going to do about it?”

“I don’t know,” I told her. “I don’t even know her name.”

She sat back in her chair thinking about it for a minute and then leaned forward. “I think we can take care of that.”

My heart began to beat harder. I wondered how she would find out, but I soon didn’t care. I would finally find out this girl’s name. I rushed her to finish her dinner and we made our way back to her room. I paced behind Emily as she logged her computer onto a website. She turned behind me and told me to pull up a chair.

“What site is this?” I asked.

“It’s called Big Brother,” she replied.

“Like the 1984 thing?”

“Duh. But it’s this new project that the campus is trying to implement. You can find study partners, friends, and get connected to people on this thing.”

“’Study’ partners, eh?” I mused.

“Yes. Even those kinds of ‘study’ partners,” she said chuckling. “Okay, let’s see here. You said she was in your math class.” Emily began to click on a series of links. On each page, there was a list of students in the class. As we went through each link, the number of students on that list got smaller and smaller. Emily clicked on a link and suddenly, every student’s profile picture began appearing. “Here we go lover boy. Let’s find the girl. She’s in one of these 10 pages.”

I began to dissect each picture as Emily scrolled down each page. She had to be in here somewhere. It was just a matter of time before I found her. I mentally pictured her face, her smile, her hair, and oh, those eyes. A picture couldn’t really capture all those sensations. But as her face suddenly appeared on the monitor, it had. There she was. She had a gorgeous smile. So welcoming and so intoxicating. I couldn’t stop looking at it. The picture began disappearing as Emily continued to scroll down when I stopped her hands moving with my own.

“That’s her!” I exclaimed. I couldn’t keep my eyes off the screen. Emily clicked on the link and that’s when I saw my new favorite word. Valencia. Her name was Valencia. So beautiful. I repeated it in my head over and over again. What a great name. I imagined going up to her and calling her name out. She would turn and smile back at me. I would be lost in her eyes.

“She’s not that cute,” Emily said.

I stared at her, surprised. Her words broke the trance I was stuck in. “What?”

“She’s not that cute. I’m just being honest.”

“How can you say that? You don’t even know her.”

“You don’t either.”

We looked at each other for a moment. She was right, but not for long.

“I’m going to email her.” I nodded. “Yes, I’m going to email her.”

“You’re not serious, are you?”

“Why not?”

“Well…” She searched for some reasoning. “Well, okay, go ahead.”

Emily was daring me. She didn’t think I would do it. I was going to prove her wrong. I looked through her profile and found everything I needed to know about her: email, home address, telephone address, and course selection. I was surprised that this profile had this much information, but I forged ahead. It was helping me. I clicked on her link to her email and began to write a short note for her. I wanted to make it short and simple. I wanted to convey that I was intellectual, but not nerdy. I wanted to impress her and not scare her away. Lightning struck and I quickly came up with what was in my head.

Dear Valencia. My name is Rob and I am in your Math 101 class. I just wanted to say hi and maybe we can study together sometime. Anyway, see you in class! ~Rob.

I quickly reread what I had written and sent the email. It was finished. I turned to Emily, who was just shaking her head.

“I can’t believe you actually did that,” she finally said. “Let’s go watch some teeny-bopper videos on MTV.”

I walked down the stairs of the lecture hall. I could see Valencia getting settled into her seat. Her friends hadn’t arrived yet. Should I sit next to her? I felt nervous as beads of sweat began to form on my forehead. I was getting closer and closer to her when I noticed that I had already past her and had moved into the row in front of her. I chose the seat directly in front of her and put my backpack down. Try to act cool, I thought. Be cool. I began to sit down.

“Hey. You.”

I turned and saw that she was speaking to me. I thought about pinching myself. This must be a dream. My hands began to feel sweaty as my heartbeat pounded against my eardrums.

“Oh, why hello.”

“You’re Robert, right?”

She knew my name. She had read my email. I felt sick. Why did I send it?

“Yes.”

“I don’t think we’ve formally met.” She reached out her hand. “I’m Valencia.”

Should I kneel down and kiss her hand like royalty? What would she think? What would everyone around me think? Were others watching me? My hands were sweaty. How embarrassing. Should I wipe them off? Too late. I met her hand halfway and grasped it. They were soft and smooth.

“Nice to meet you.”

“I got your email last night.” My heart stopped. She continued, “That was kind. I’d like that.”

“Like what?”

“To study sometime. I’m not that good in math.” My heart began to beat again. Score!

“Great! We should meet up soon then.”

She smiled at me. I didn’t want to make direct eye contact, but those contacts were so alluring. It was as though she was Medusa and her stare had frozen me in place.

“Is anyone sitting there?” Who said that? I thought. I looked around. Oh shit. It was me. I pointed to the seat next to her.

“No not at all.”

I was in heaven. Before I knew it, the professor was talking and I was sitting next to the girl of my dreams.

We exchanged instant message names. That was a big step for our relationship. Previous generations had letters, telegrams, phone numbers, and fax numbers to communicate and connect with each other. My generation had gone the e-route: all digital instant messages. It was the new drug and art form. Instantly, no matter where you were in the world, you could reach out and touch someone with a few hits on a keyboard, followed by the enter key.

When I got back home, I rushed to log into my instant message program and place her on my buddy list. It had grown by 33% from the three people I had on it to four. I felt proud. Everyone I cared about was on that list: my parents, my sister in Toronto, Emily, and now Valencia, a.k.a. lilvalen37. The computer made an open door sound; she was online. My heart began to pound. Should I message her? Should I wait a bit? I contemplated the pros and cons and mentally envisioned a list. I didn’t want to rush in right away, but at any moment, she could be gone, forever.

“Hey, I thought I heard you come back.” My eyes broke away from the computer screen and turned to the voice. It was Emily. I shut my messenger screen so she wouldn’t see.

“Hey. I was going to drop by later.” She went and lay on my bed.

“How was your day?” she asked as she played with a teddy bear that had somehow made its way onto my bed.

“It was okay.”

“Did you see that Math girl of yours?”

“In fact, I did.”

She sat up and looked at me. “And…?”

“She called me out before class,” I said as a smile broke out on my face. “And I sat with her.

Emily looked at me for a minute. “That’s it?” She was expecting more.

“Well, I got her IM name.”

“I guess that’s a start. Have you checked out her profile yet?” She got off the bed, commandeered the mouse, and opened up the messenger window. “Oooh, is this her?”

“Yes.”

“Aww, poor you. She’s away now.” I turned to the screen and saw that she was indeed away. My smile faded away. “You look so sad. She’ll be on again. Anyway, let’s go eat dinner.” We went to the dining commons where I recounted in explicit details what had gone on in class.

Valencia was late. I was sitting at a table in the café and checked my watch anxiously. What was wrong? She was ten minutes late, I thought. The café was crowded tonight. Already, people had asked for the empty chair sitting across from me. They were ready to grab it at any opportunity that presented itself like a vulture craving for its prey. I took out the newspaper that I had to keep me occupied and to look busy. The news hadn’t changed since I last read it fifteen minutes ago.

I finally saw her through the window. She was with another person. A guy. It must be her friend. But his arm was wrapped around her shoulder. Maybe they’re close friends. Or maybe he’s gay. She never mentioned a boyfriend before. They parted ways and she entered the café. I tried to look really involved with my newspaper, when in fact I was contemplating and analyzing who this guy was.

“I’m so sorry that I’m late,” she said when she found me.

Her smile was so radiant. How could I not accept her apologies? “That’s okay. I just got here anyway.” We settled into studying math, but it became more about my helping her to do her homework. I didn’t mind though. I was helping her and that was all that mattered.

After each study session, I’d walk her home. Even though she lived in the complete opposite direction from where I lived, it was worth it just to have some time talking to her. I mainly asked her questions and she did most of the talking. But she was so fascinating. She did so much and I felt so insignificant compared to her.

We were near her apartment, when I decided to bet big. I wanted to ask her out to do something besides studying. I gathered all the courage I could muster and bit the bullet.

“So there’s going to be this concert on campus this Friday,” I finally said.

“Who’s playing?”

“This Persian band. They’re apparently this big name in Iran.”

“What’s Persian music like?”

“I think it’s like that Sting song.”

“Which one?”

“You know, that one with the chants in it?”

“I’m not really a Sting fan.”

“Oh. Well, I can send it to you.” We arrived at her apartment building. I continued, “Anyway, I was wondering if you wanted to, uh, go to this concert with me.” She looked at me, thinking about the proposition. Do something, I thought. Finish the deal. “As friends,” I added.

She smiled and said, “Sure. Sounds like fun!”

I was elated. “Awesome! Great! Well, I’ll call you next week about it, but I’m looking forward to it!”

“Me too. Well, good night!” She went into her building. I saw her get into the elevator and then I leapt for joy when she couldn’t see me anymore.

When I got back home, I told Emily everything that had happened. Except about the guy who had his arms wrapped around her. I was still trying to figure that one out. I asked her if she had any advice for me when I took her out. She smiled wryly at me and told me two words that I would never forget: carpe diem.

“Die bastard die!” Steve shouted to Paul. They were having another night entertaining themselves with computer games. Despite all the rumors that friends shouldn’t live together, their friendship seemed to have thrived. They were inseparable. If Paul went to dinner, Steve went to dinner. If Steve was studying for chemistry, Paul was studying for chem. They even synchronized the times they went to the bathroom. It was eerie, but I didn’t mind. I was on cloud nine, counting down the days, hours, minutes, and seconds until the concert with Valencia. I was fully content with everything as I hid behind my desk, gazing at Valencia’s online profile on my buddy list.

And then she instant messaged me. I was caught off guard. She hadn’t done this before.

Lilvalen37: u there?

I searched for the appropriate response. Hi. No, too casual. Hey. Not quite right. Why hello. Not too bad.

Robert2079: Why hello.

Man, that sounded stupid. Why did I write that? Quickly, write something else, I thought.

Robert2079: how are you doing?

Lilvalen37: im fine. U?

Robert2079: not too bad.

How could I complain? In a little less than 24 hours, we’d be at the concert together. Just her. Just me.

Lilvalen37: I have bad news.

Bad news? Oh no. What bad news? It can’t be anything, really.

Lilvalen37: I can’t make it tomorrow.

Shit! I felt deflated. How could she mean she can’t make it? We had a date! We planned this a week in advance!

Lilvalen37: Something came up. I’m so sorry.

Something? Something more important than our date? What would I do now? I still bought some really good and really expensive tickets! It was supposed to be a special night! But I had to do some damage control.

Roberto2079: Oh, it’s okay. Don’t worry about it.

Lilvalen37: are u sure?

Roberto2079: Yeah, it’s fine.

Lilvalen37: I’ll make this up to you. Anyway, g2g. See ya.

And she signed off. It happened so quickly. What was I going to do? I still had tickets. I thought about who else might be interested in going and minutes later, I found myself at Emily’s door asking if she wanted to see it with me. She seemed a bit surprised.

“I thought you were going to see it with Valencia.”

“Oh, I was,” I said. “But she can’t make it.” I noticed she was frowning. “But it’ll be so much more fun seeing it with you,” I added and smiled. She thought about it for a minute. The silence killed me. What was she thinking? What if she says no or if she can’t make it? I guess I just won’t go.

“Well, I’ll go. Should be interesting. Isn’t Persian music like the Sting song?”

“Yeah, that’s what I heard.”

“Cool. I’m looking forward to it then,” she said as her frown turned into a small smile. And to a certain degree, I was looking forward to it too.

The piercing sound of my alarm clock woke me up. I looked over at the clock in agony. To turn it off or not to turn it off, I thought. That was the question preoccupying my mind at that moment.

“Shut that fucking thing off! I’m trying to study damnit!!” Steve shouted from behind his laptop. Across from him, Paul briefly peeled his eyes away from the monitor and lifted his headphones over his ears to see what the commotion was all about before retreating to making faces again at the webcam for his girlfriend. I rolled out of bed and turned off the alarm, officially ending my afternoon nap. I felt like a million bucks.

“Oh, Emily dropped by when you were asleep. She told me to tell you to go to her room when you were ready,” Steve said.

“Thanks,” I replied as I put on a dress shirt.

“Hey, can I ask you something?

“Sure, what’s up?”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but is something going on between you two?

“What?”

“It’s just that you two spend a lot of time together, and…”

“And what?”

“Well, some people were talking.”

“Are you serious?”

“Yeah, and you know, I just don’t want to be entering the room when you two…”

“We’re just friends. Just friends.”

“Are you sure?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Okay, well, Paul and I just don’t want to be like Keith downstairs, you know what I’m saying? I swear he spends more time in the lounge than in his room because of his new roommate Dave.”

“You have nothing to be worried about.”

“Okay, well, have fun tonight!”

I left the room. How can he believe that? Me and Emily? Yeah right. It seemed so far-fetched. I liked Valencia. Emily’s a friend. But he said people were talking. I wondered who it might be. It must have been Nicole. She had a big mouth and loved to gossip. Or Jenny. She always seemed to be watching us when we hung out. I couldn’t believe it. I knocked on Emily’s door. The two of us together, I thought. How absurd! The door opened.

Emily was wearing a long, white dress. From where I was standing, I could smell her perfume and it was the best thing I smelled since moving into the dorms. She looked taller than she did the last time I saw her and I looked down to see that she was wearing high heels. As I looked back at her eyes, I couldn’t help but check her out. She was beautiful.

“What do you think?” she finally asked.

“Well, uh…” I was sweating. And lost with words.

She looked worried. “Is this too much? I could change. It’d be quick”

“No! no. You look, you look…” Pick a word man, I thought. “Stunning!”

“Stunning? Oh please. That’s awful. I’m changing.”

“Oh don’t. I mean, you look really beautiful tonight Emily. Perfect.”

She stopped fussing around and smiled back. “Why thanks. You don’t look so bad yourself.”

My head was getting hot. I was blushing. I tried to look away so she wouldn’t notice.

“Are you blushing?” she asked.

“No, I am not.” I tried to cover my face. It was too embarrassing.

“Okay, well, let’s go then.” She walked ahead of me and pushed the elevator button. We both got in the elevator and stared quietly at the floor. I finally broke the silence and looked up at her.

“Okay, I was blushing!”

“I knew it!”

We both laughed and we began our evening together.

The brisk fall air slammed against my face as we exited the concert hall with the general audience. It had been a rather grueling two hours as I found myself struggling to stay awake from the intoxicating combination of soothing Persian music and a darken room. Fortunately, Emily was there to jab me in the stomach when I was dozing off during the early parts of the suite before she ultimately resigned herself to having my head lean on her shoulder.

The dim lobby lights exposed the scene surrounding us as we slowly trotted step by step out of the venue. There was the old married couple who were avidly discussing the instrumentation of the band. To our side, there was a college couple who were cuddling up together. The man whispered into the woman’s ear and made her smile. The room was buzzing as everyone was talking and chatting. That is, everyone except us.

As I stole a quick glimpse at Emily out of the corner of my eyes, I couldn’t help but feel guilty. It had been a wonderful evening so far with a nice dinner at a swanky Mediterranean restaurant and the concert itself, but I was thinking about Valencia the entire time. I couldn’t help it. I kept thinking about whether she would’ve enjoyed the concert and imagined how dinner would have gone. Yet, I managed to begin some small talk with Emily as we made our way back to the dorm. I asked her what she thought of the music. It must have been noticeable that I looked distracted because she asked, “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. Why did you ask?”

“You just look a little preoccupied.”

“Oh, it’s nothing.” We continued to walk silently.

“Are you thinking about Valencia?”

“What?”

“It’s okay if you are.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, totally.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way. I couldn’t stop thinking about her all night.”

“How so?”

“Well, when we were having dinner, I-“

“Maybe I don’t want to know.”

“Oh, okay.”

We silently got off the elevator and walked to her door.

“Well, thank you for inviting me to the concert. Let me give you some money for the tickets.” She opened her purse and began shuffling around.

“Oh no. Don’t worry about it. It’s on me. I had fun anyway. We should do it again sometime,” I told her.

“Yeah, we definitely should” she responded and looked at me. I looked back into her eyes. They were expressing a mixture of happiness and disappointment. She had a smile that seemed to be hiding how she was really feeling at that moment. It seemed like she knew that I was realizing this, but she wanted to share how she was feeling with me anyway. In that moment, my thoughts were so open and so clear. I knew I was looking at my friend who appeared to be full of sadness for no apparent reason, and I wanted to help her out of it. Something came over me, and I suddenly felt like kissing her at that moment. I had never felt that way before. All I could think about was how much I cared for Emily in that moment. I wanted to share that with her and I began to move towards her

“Well, good night I guess,” she abruptly said. I stopped where I was. She opened the door and vanished behind it.

I woke up early the next morning. Rather than just lie there on my bed, I decided to go for a morning jog. I had a lot on my mind, and I figured some time running on the streets would clear my mind and allow me to think about all that had been going on, especially with what had happened last night. Was there really something going on between me and Emily? We did have quite a lot in common and we match up well together. But I never considered it before. Well, never considered it before until last night and not until that moment outside her room. There was something there and I wondered what might have happened if I had actually gone ahead and kissed her.

Oh forget it, I thought. Emily is Emily. She is your friend, I told myself. Probably your best friend in college. I don’t want to regret ruining a perfectly good friendship ten years from now. You have a crush on Valencia, I reassured myself. She’s the person you couldn’t stop thinking about. You’re wild about her. And then I realized she was the person running in front of me.

My eyes widened. I began panicking at this surprise. Should I tap her and say hi? Should I just pass her and focus on my running and my thoughts? I couldn’t decide, but I knew I didn’t want to be a dork about it. I decided I’d just try to pass her and sprint faster. As I was passing Valencia, she did a double take on me.

“Robert!” she called out. We stopped.

“Oh… hey!” I acted surprised.

“I didn’t know you jogged.”

“I do every now and, uh, then. Do you come, I mean, jog often?” That was awful and I cursed at myself. However, I didn’t realize how fully idiotic that sounded because I was panting hard to catch my breath.

She laughed it off though. “Oh I do too. We should run together sometime.” My heart began to pound harder. I thought it was going to explode.

“Sure thing. Anyway, it was nice bumping into you. I’ll let you continue on your run.”

“Cool! I’ll see you later.” I began to take a deep breath to calm myself down, but she injected, “Oh, before I forget. What are you up to today?”

I was taken aback. She was asking me something. I quickly tried to think of my schedule, but I knew I could be free for her. “Just a little studying, that’s all. Why?”

“I feel a little bad about yesterday, so I wanted to see if you wanted to do something… like have some boba. It’s on me.”

It was a sign. Fate was telling me that yesterday’s events were just a small stepping stone towards my inevitable relationship with Valencia. I couldn’t refuse her offer. We would finally spend some time together. We made plans for the afternoon and I ran back to the dorms. When I got back to my floor, Emily was just leaving the bathroom in her bath towel. She turned, smiled at me, and said, “Hey Rob.”

My heart began pounding. I began to feel embarrassed and tried to look away. My head was feeling hot again. “Hey Emily.”

“You’re blushing again, aren’t you?”

“Maybe just a little,” I said and laughed a little. I tried to keep my composure and not stare at her bath towel, but I couldn’t help it.

She tried not to notice. “Want to have lunch in a little bit?”

“Um, sure. Sounds like a plan.”

“Great. I’m going to put on some clothes.” She went to her room and closed the door behind her. I sighed, pounded my head against the wall for acting so stupid, and went back into my room. Paul was in the room talking to his girlfriend on his webcam.

“Okay, goodnight sweetheart!” He smiled at the camera and turned to me. “Hey man.”

“Hey Paul. I didn’t interrupt anything, did I?”

“Oh no. Mindy was going to sleep.”

“Nice,” I said as I flopped onto my bed and opened a magazine. “Any big plans today?”

“Probably studying. You?”

“I think I’m going to grab some lunch with Emily pretty soon and then have boba with Valencia.”

“Who’s Valencia?”

“Oh, this girl in my math class. I kinda like her.”

“Really. I thought you were with Emily.”

“What?” I was alarmed.

“You mean, you aren’t?”

“No. Who told you this?”

“No one. You two just hang out a lot, so I just thought…” He trailed off.

I absorbed what Paul had said and then asked, “Do you think we should get together?”

Paul sat back in his chair for a moment to think about it. Even though we had been living together for about twelve weeks now, it was hard to believe that this was the first heart-to-heart conversation between the two of us.

“Well, it’s really how you feel.”

“Thanks Paul, thanks.”

The door knocked and opened. It was Emily.

“Ready to roll?”

“Let’s do it.” I looked at Paul who smiled back at me.

“Paul, do you want to join us?” Emily asked.

“Nah. I’m not hungry yet.

“Okay, see you later!”

We got to the cafeteria and placed ourselves at a table isolated far and away from the chatter of the other people in our dorms. Although we weren’t antisocial people, it was nice to just get away from the people you see constantly roaming the hallways. We began our brunch with the usual complaining about the food and random chatter. Throughout our tangents, I couldn’t stop thinking about the others who thought Emily and I were going out. I felt blindsided. I never would have thought that people would think that we were together. We were just friends. Good friends. Why did people have to get so nosy? It was almost comical, and I decided to share it with Emily.

“Hey, you want to hear a funny story?”

“Sure,” she replied as she took a bite out of our stale eggs.

“I was talking to Steve and Paul and it seems like they thought we were going out.”

“You’ve been getting that too?”

“Yeah. I mean, it’s so absurd!” She looked at me blankly. I was looking for some sign that she agreed with me. “You and me? We’re such good friends. Just because we hang out a lot doesn’t mean we’re going out or anything.” Still nothing. “Right?”

“Yeah, exactly,” she said. It didn’t seem convincing. Was she buying into it too? It was getting too awkward and I quickly changed topics.

We went back to my room after brunch and she sat on my bed reading my magazines as I checked my email. An instant message screen popped up; it was Valencia.

Lilvalen37: hey rob

Robert2079: what’s up?

Lilvalen37: im going to have to cancel on boba.

Again? I thought. What was going on with her? She kept getting my hopes up on her and crushes them in the end. It had been too much.

Robert2079: why?

Lilvalen37: I gotta help Dave.

Dave? Who the hell is Dave? Is it that guy who was with her at the café? I needed to find out.

Robert2079: who’s dave?

Please don’t be her boyfriend, I thought. Please don’t be her boyfriend. She’s never mentioned a boyfriend before. I couldn’t be.

Lilvalen37: oh, he’s a friend.

A “friend”? Is she telling the truth? No, this is too much. I needed to know. Are they going out?

Robert2079: are you two going out?

Lilvalen37: yah. We started going out a week ago.

What the fuck? I felt like my heart had just been ripped out. She had misled me all this time. I couldn’t believe it. I had nothing more I could say to her. I needed to stop talking to her.

Robert2079: Gotcha. Hey gotta go. Ttyl.

I signed off and looked away at the computer. Emily was watching me.

“Is everything okay?” she asked.

“Yeah, it’s fine,” I lied. I was surprised I had done that. I had always felt open to Emily, but this time, it just didn’t seem right to tell her what was on my mind. I couldn’t explain it.

I still hung out in class with Valencia and we still met every week to study. I kept telling myself that I should stay away from her. I told myself that I should stop crushing on her because she had a boyfriend. I told myself that we weren’t compatible. But I couldn’t stop but have feelings for her. The more I saw her, the more these feelings became solidified. It was driving me crazy. It was an addiction and she was the drug. I felt like there was something there between the two of us. Should I just wait it out? Should I just go for it?

It was a Thursday morning. I overslept my alarm clock and missed my math class. It was already close to twelve and I decided to give myself a personal day away from class. As I laid there in bed, I turned on the TV. Dawson’s Creek was on. I never really cared for the show, but as I watched this particular episode where Dawson confesses to his best friend that he likes her, something triggered inside of me. The show ended and I found myself still thinking about what had happened on the show and what was going on with me, Valencia, and Emily. I needed to do something about it. I got out of bed, changed, and headed to campus.

The remains of a rainstorm had left the campus damp, dreary, and wet. Littered campus newspapers decorated the campus yard as students tried their best to avoid the muddy patches lining the sidewalk. I walked defiantly across the grassy glade, slipping occasionally on the hidden wet spots. I didn’t care. I needed to do something that I should have done a while ago.

I entered the student union and scanned the scene. The usual clubs were tabling and pimping their events. She wasn’t around. I decided to check out the student store to see if she was working there, when someone grabbed my arm. I turned and saw that it was Vincent, my “best buddy” from Asian Social Services.

“Wassup, wassup Robert!! Long time no see! Where’ve you been, buddy?” he exclaimed.

“Um, you know, around.”

“Reeealllly…. Rob, real talk here. You look like an unmade bed. And I mean that in a bad way.”

“Thanks. I’ve been busy.”

“Okay, that’s cool, that’s cool. Well, what are you up to tonight? We have a social tonight.” He stuffed a flier into my shirt pocket. “You should come. It’ll be nice to chill and kick it.”

“Thanks man. Hey, I gotta go see someone.”

“Okay Rob. Don’t be a stranger.” He pointed at me awkwardly. “Got it?”

“Got it. Later!” I walked away as quickly as I could. For a moment, I felt bad about blowing Vincent off. He had good intentions and was always spirited whenever I saw him throughout the semester. But I just couldn’t bring myself to doing things with such an exclusive club. I almost felt ashamed that I got conned into buying a life time membership.

I entered the student store and I saw her behind the counter. There were a few people waiting in line as she rang them up. I stood there trying to decide how I would approach her. I soon found myself in line holding a bag of M&M’s and when she saw me up next, she smiled.

“Hey Robert.”

“Hey Valencia. How are you?”

“Good. You?”

All of these cheesy lines raced through my head. My mind was processing and rejecting all of them. I fumbled for the right words. “Good, good.” She smiled back and rang the candy. She looked so beautiful and my heart was fluttering at just looking at her.

“$1.09.”

“I’m sorry?”

“It’s $1.09 total.”

“Oh, right.” I handed her the money and she gave me the change.

“Well, it was nice seeing you Rob.”

“You too. I’ll see you later.” I found myself starting to walk off when I abruptly stopped and turned, almost hitting the person behind me accidentally. “Hey, do you think we can talk?”

She looked at my strangely. Oh shit. Not a good sign. “Sure. I get off in 15 minutes. Can it wait until then?”

“Sure thing. I’ll just wait out there in the union.”

“Alright. I’ll see you in a bit.” The next customer went up and she rang them up. It was someone she knew and they were awfully chatty. I felt jealous as I walked out of the store.

If I had only one pet peeve in my life, it was punctuality. It drives me insane when people were late. It was even worse when they were late after promising to be somewhere at a certain time. I looked at my watch over and over again as though hours had passed since I had last checked it. She was five minutes late. I tried to keep myself occupied by people-watching, but the traffic was low. Students were already buckling down to study for exams.

Valencia finally appeared out of the store and looked around searching for someone. I called her name out. She turned to look at me, looked a bit confused, then surprised, and finally walked over.

“I’m sorry. I almost forgot that you wanted to chat. What’s up?” she asked as she sat next to me.

“Valencia…um… I don’t know how to say this…” I wanted to say it the right way. “And I know you’re in a relationship already…” Shit, I said that too early. She started looking at me uneasily. “But I like you a lot.”

“Oh…” she reacted as though she was coming to some realization.

I continued to ramble. “And I think there’s something there. You know, between us. I mean, I know it’s not the best time and I can wait and all, but-“

“Rob. Um, I am really flattered. But I have a boyfriend so I don’t know what to say,” she said and paused. “Can’t we just be friends?” Those words cut through my heart like a dagger. I turned to damage control.

“Um… sure…” My thoughts were interrupted by a guy who had walked up to us. He looked familiar.

“There you are Valencia,” he said. Both Valencia and I got up at the same time as I looked at the man standing besides me. He was the person who had escorted Valencia during that time we had coffee. The person I thought who was gay. He was the boyfriend and for that, I hated him.

“Rob, this is Dave,” Valencia said, then added “my boyfriend.”

“Rob, I think we live in the same building. I think I’m a floor or two below you,” Dave said. He offered his hand for a handshake. I stared down at it in disgust, grudgingly shook it, and then retracted my hand to my pocket.

“Nice meeting you,” I muttered.

“Anyway, we gotta go Rob. I’ll see you around,” Valencia said.

“Nice meeting you,” Dave said.

They walked off together. I had been rejected. What was I thinking? She had a boyfriend. What was I expecting? It wasn’t supposed to be this way. The walk home was a long one. I somehow made it back to my room and crawled into bed. I didn’t want to ever get out again.

Finals season began and I felt even more miserable. Not only was my heart burned by the person I liked, my brain was getting fried by all the insane exams professors were giving us. I had been sitting at my computer for three hours straight, practicing code analysis on my computer and cursing myself for taking a computer science class, when a message screen popped up.

PrincessEm113: hey.

It was Emily. Ever since the night of the concert, we had slowly become more distant from each other. I suppose I had created that chilly atmosphere between the two of us because I didn’t want any mixed messages to be given to her. I also was spending a bit more time trying to get over Valencia too and didn’t feel like talking to anyone about it. I thought about whether or not I should even write back, but I did.

Robert2079: hi. How are exams?

PrincessEm113: okay. I’m done. You?

Was she bragging? What did she want?

Robert2079: Not yet. Still have a few more.

PrincessEm113: Oh, that’s too bad. Are you excited about going home?

Robert2079: A little.

PrincessEm113: You know Rob, we haven’t spent a lot of time together lately. I kinda miss you.

“Kinda miss” me? What did that mean? I felt a bit confused and didn’t feel like talking to her anymore. I didn’t know why I felt that way, but I just felt like being alone. I quickly came up with an excuse.

Robert2079: hey, I gotta go. I ought to study.

There was a pause before her reply.

PrincessEm113: Okay. Well, I’m leaving tomorrow. I just wanted to wish you a happy holiday.

Robert2079: Thanks, you too.

I signed off and sat there staring blankly at the computer screen for a few minutes more. Why did I just do that? I felt a little mean for doing that. The next day, she flew back home. Before she left, she taped a Christmas card to my door.

Winter break began and I settled into a stress-reducing schedule of waking up at 11 in the morning, watching tv, and sleeping at midnight with occasional breaks to shower and eat. The snow had been falling hard for about an hour and I was outside shoveling the driveway once again. Despite the freezing cold and the occasional gust of chilly wind, I didn’t mind doing it so much. It was a mindless task and it sure made the time pass quicker when I was home.

What was great about shoveling was that it gave me some time to think about this past first semester. During the first few snowstorms when I was out there shoveling, I kept thinking about Valencia and what had gone wrong there. Even though I knew I had no chance with her, I didn’t understand why I still went out and told her anyway. My dad had always said that love makes people do foolish things, but he always seemed to associate that with more unbelievable things he had heard about like people robbing banks, murdering people, or talking trash about former partners. My situation seemed to be in a different category than that, but was I just as foolish?

I asked this question to a few high school friends who got back from break. They answered the “hypothetical” scenario that I spelled out for them with clichéd wisdom like, “A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do” and “go with your gut instinct.” I had largely ignored this advice when my friend Chuck stepped up and told us about his cousin.

“You know, this situation is really similar to what had happened to my cousin Dan.

Like the previous three weeks I had been home for, I was thinking about Emily. I was trying to understand why I had pushed her away and had avoided her after that concert night. It wasn’t like I hated her or she had done something maliciously evil to me. She was just being herself, the caring, funny, and kind person that she was. I had been acting like a jerk, but I just didn’t understand the source of this attitude.

After I came back inside from shoveling, I decided to ask the person who seemed like a good expert at women: my dad.

“Dad, I need your opinion on something. It’s about a girl.”

Dad dropped what he was doing. He smiled. “Oh. Well, what’s the problem? Did you fool around with her or something?”

“No, it’s not like that.”

“Then tell me. What’s going on?”

“Well, there’s this girl Emily and she’s great. But I never liked her like that. You know what I’m saying? Anyway, everyone says we should be together. And now, I can’t stop thinking about her.”

“So? Then date her.”

“Well, I kinda blew her off after I crashed and burned with another girl.”

“That’s my boy.”

“Dad, come on.”

“Sorry, Rob.”

“So what should I do?”

“Well, you gotta play it nice and smooth. You know, flowers and shit. Girls eat it up all the time. Right Lois?”

Mom walked into the room.

“Ignore what your father says Rob. He was a mess in college before I met him.”

“Thanks Lois, thanks.”

“Mom, what should I do?”

“Well, just be yourself. I mean you’re already so handsome. What girl couldn’t resist?”

“Thanks mom. I think I may puke later.”

My dad added, “But seriously Rob. If you’re thinking about her all the time, then I think you really like her. You were probably resisting that idea.”

As I thought about what he was saying, I realized it was true. I loved her. What everyone had said was true, that we were had a lot of things in common, she was really attractive, and we were a great match. But I had never admitted it and never acknowledged it until that moment. The thought of Emily warmed me. I couldn’t wait to see her again. I began to count down the dates until I go back to the dorms and when I could go knock on her door to see her again.

The day had finally arrived and I was back in the dorms. Most of my other floormates including my roommates were back. After dropping my stuff in the room, I went down to the local florists and bought some flowers, put on some cologne, and mentally pictured my reunion with Emily. I walked down the long hallway to Emily’s room and knocked on her door. This had been the moment I had been waiting for a long time and when the door opened, Emily was there. I couldn’t help but smile. But she wasn’t alone. How my first semester ended would be how my second semester would begin. Another cycle was getting started.