to this day, i can still feel the warmth of your knee against mine.

we were fragile in the beginning, careful not to touch, angling inwards but never letting our legs entangle. i remember the silence; i don't know what you were thinking, but my thoughts were mostly angry accusations to the heavens. all my careful planning, and i was just getting over -
but it didn't matter.

18 weeks. 90 days. 2160 hours, 194,400 minutes, and 11,669,000 seconds.
that was my sentence;
i was stuck
with
you.

i still remember the shock, the liquid fire coursing through my veins
ignited by the warmth seeping from where your jean cloaked knee flowed into my own.
this time, you didn't move your knee.
i wish i knew
why.

the fights and discussions in the hallways, fifteen minutes on a good day, were my highlights. sometimes the cards ******* it, but those fifteen minutes were what made my day a little
easier.

i especially liked it when you told me i was smart, and
i felt equal to you for the first time in my life.
i didn't feel inferior anymore-
i felt like your friend.

(it is often i wonder if i were one year older, if we'd grown up together and i had been a skinnier,
more loving girl,
if you would have fallen in love with me.
somehow, i doubt it;
we aren't in the stars.)

i never faxed things. i was afraid to, always sure i'd flip it the wrong way.
you laughed, but you enjoyed faxing far too much.
maybe that's why i let you do it.
but you fought me for the copier far too often;
i liked that one.

you wrote me notes and inked my skin.
i wish you'd do it
again.

i admitted, in so few words, that i believed you would go far.
your eyes sparkled, crystalline, when you smiled
like i couldn't have said anything
sweeter.

(this was not in the period of memos and trips that never required two, but i let it slip out
in the city of lights
that
i
loved
you.)

i meant it.

the time you looked at me and said,
"you love me,"
i replied - "debatable."
i really meant
always.

i brought cards and won for a week. you won for nearly all of the following weeks of games. i grumbled and was often too competitive,
but sometimes your laugh
sweetened
a loss.

i wish we'd gotten a picture together.

when you told me i landed the role
in the play you wrote, i had never been happier.
even though you tormented me for an hour and a half.

you could really be a ****, but for those eighteen weeks,
you were my ****.

we didn't say goodbye that last day, and i'm still not sure if that was for the best
or not.
it felt like losing a connection,
something that reminded me of the past
and of things i always believed i'd thrown away.

eventually, your hello's in the hallway stopped
as your attention shifted.
but you told me happy birthday twice;
i was too scared to tell you the same.

to this day, i want to freeze time
and live it all again.

because of you, of course;
it has always been you.