1. I saw you first in a room with music so beautiful it made my legs shake. It was your confidence and your gray eyes that caught my interest. Your melted chocolate voice stuck in my head for days. Your eyes stayed there for years.

2. We became friends. I tried to keep my heart out of my brain but it insisted on keeping an eye on you.

3. In the summer we sat on your futon with friends. You played guitar while the guys played video games. It was so simple and the guitar looked natural in your hands, like an extension of your true being. You touched my knee absentmindedly while you told me about Katie, the girl you loved. My heart swole with blood with your touch, shriveled into a raisin with the sound of her name. The syllables came out of your mouth like rays of sunshine but turned to shards of glass in my ears. She didn't notice you. She would never notice you. I tried to smile but instead hid my face.

4. We got drunk at your friend's house and started doodling nonsense on a whiteboard. Marcus told you to draw the world, you drew her. I drank half a bottle of gin and threw up. 

5. I thought about your hand on my knee. I remembered how you touched it in a moment of passion and I wished that you would one day look into my eyes instead of at my face.

6. Smoked weed in your basement with a few others. They fell asleep and we went upstairs so we wouldnt wake them. We talked about our friendship and then you kissed me. If I could have been any higher I would have shot into space. I closed eyes in pure bliss. You thought I fell asleep and carried me to the couch, tucked me in. I didn't open my eyes. It was too good to be real life, I preferred it stay a dream.

7. I heard you sing more. I fell in love with you more. 

8. Katie began dating your best friend. They had their first kiss in your basement.

9. You drank yourself to sleep the next few weeks. I tried to help, you wanted nothing of anyone.

10. The next year I got a boyfriend. You got a girlfriend. We were friends again. We sang a duet. I looked at my boyfriend's beaming face in the audience the whole time, afraid if I saw your eyes I'd cry from your beautiful face.

11. I didn't see you for months. I loved my boyfriend and I forgot about you. It was a concious decision on both parts.

12. "Let's drink for old time's sake," you said. I agreed. We drank half a bottle in your basement. We talked about my severe depression and your breakup. You clenched your fists and punched a wall. I wrapped your fist in gauze. You told me that when we kissed the last summer it was your first. You kissed my forehead and told me I was beautiful. I told you you'd regret this all in the morning. You laughed at me.

13. It's 4am the same night and we are both sober. I make you french toast, you turn on Norah Jones and insist we slow dance in the middle of the kitchen. I lay my head on your chest. 

14. "I'm sober and you're still beautiful."

15. I cry in your arms. Tell you I've always wanted you. Tell you it's not fair because I'm with someone who I don't love and you're not over your ex. I don't let him kiss me. 

16. I want to kiss him. 

nsr