Her

Despite my best efforts, I don't think I could ever forget the first time I saw her.

During the summer of 2010 I did my fair share of procrastinating. Some of the things were minor, from selecting my summer camp shirt in the correct size in time for the order to be placed, to delivering my vacation requests for the summer. One thing I really thought I had boned myself on was registering for classes during my first fall semester at WSU. My initial roster consisted of both micro and macro economics, a core class or two, and some other monstrosity of a freshmen class that I don't recall.

Perhaps it's the fact that I listened to my counselor when I registered for classes initially, though I suspect it's just my rather insane luck streak: I checked back frequently on the open classes, and come my first week of instruction, my schedule was 80% different. I had weaseled my way into the one math class I had to take, English 101, Psych 105, and... some music class that I honestly remember close to none of.

It's fairly safe to say that I changed quite a bit throughout college. One thing that never really did was where I chose to sit in lecture-based classes. I'm left handed and have relatively poor eyesight. I also despise sitting in the very front of the class, i.e. where the professor can easily gaze upon me. Given this, damn near every single lecture session I attended, I sat on the far left-hand side of the room, about 5 or 6 rows back from the very front. This provided me both with a left-handed desk, and the ability to see and hear well enough without having the make eye contact with the professor.

My psychology class that year took place in Todd hall room 211. The main entrance led straight to the professor's podium, with the seats exactly 90 degrees to the right of the entry. Just so you don't have to paint some ridiculous mental picture that I did an awful job of describing, what I'm trying to say is that as you enter the room, you'd walk right past me if you weren't sitting in the first few rows. The people who sat toward the back composed some 90 percent of the attending students in classes like this.

It wasn't in the first handful of classes. We were about two weeks into the the first semester of our college experience when we first met eyes.

As I said previously, about 90% of people who entered my psychology class walk past me before finding their seat. Earlier on this particular Thursday, I had a friend excitedly proclaim that they had switched into my psychology section. Given this, I glanced up virtually any time someone entered the room that day.

She turned the corner into the room and I glanced up halfheartedly, expecting to see my floor mate enter through the double doors. Her bushy, curly hair turning the corner before anything else, I drank in her appearance as a strange feeling overcame me. I knew I had never seen her before. At the same time, she looked incredibly familiar. I held my gaze too long and she broke eye contact first, I blushed somewhat and looked back at my smudgey notebook.

I'll admit, the feeling shook me a bit. For the most part I brushed it off as me just falling in love with literally any woman who makes eye contact with me.

Early the next week, as the crowd of people shuffled their way back to my dorm from our communal class (I forget the term but the idea is that you have one easy class with a lot of people from the residence hall you live in). As usual with the rather massive influx of residents, there was a considerable line for the elevator. Gently placing myself as far into the crowd as I could, I glanced up to see the status of the open elevator in front of me. As I focused on the very back of the elevator, she turned around to get into a more conventional placement in the cramped lift. Again, we locked eyes and again, the feeling of familiarity came over me. I held my gaze as the elevator doors closed, ending the strange moment which had now happened twice.

A week passes. Nothing happens. I begin to write the dual experiences off as a coincidence. As I finish my tray of biscuits and gravy at the closest dining center, I look up to see my friend Randy just across the room from me. My hand starts to raise as words begin to form, soon to bellow a greeting toward my high school friend. My hand spazzes and I choke on my words as I see that he is conversing animatedly with this same woman who I'd made seemingly meaningful eye contact with twice recently. I quickly sit back down in my seat and carve out a plan to meet up with Randy that night.

The plan I'd carved was soon forgotten in lieu of Ben coming to my dorm, proclaiming he'd found a party the he was certain he could get us both into. We bullshit back and forth as we do. Randy messages me on facebook, asking what I'm doing tonight. I fill him in and say that most likely, Ben will be lucky to get himself into this party. A few seconds pass as I imagine Randy did a quick head count, and he responds asking whether or not bringing 7 girls would increase our chances of entry. Fifteen minutes later, we met Randy and his mysterious posse in the lobby of my dorm.

I recall where I was sitting, facing directly away from the entrance, facing Ben. I heard Randy enter and a collection of giggles not far behind him. It took most of the effort I had at the time to stay focused on Ben, so as not to appear overly excited at the group of women that had miraculously chosen to spend their time with us for at least part of the night.

Randy walks up and says hello, and I finally gather the courage to stand up and turn around. To my amazement, she is standing there in the middle of a group of women who I vaguely recognized as other residents in my building. There is a round of introductions, and I finally learn that her name is Mallory.

The 10 of us depart from the Stephenson complex toward Greek Row. One of us has the address, but no one yet had a smartphone to pull up proper directions. We ask several people along the way, consistently getting opposing directions as we wandered our way through the section of Pullman dedicated to underage intoxication.

Something like an hour into what could have been a fifteen minute journey, we come up to the backdoor of the house that Ben swears is the correct location. We hop a short fence and stumble our way into the backdoor of a rather large house.

Feeling as if I was walking on eggshells, we made our way toward the thumping sounds of music coming from the living room, passing several people who don't seem the least bit concerned that 10 strangers just walked in through the back door. We find a sort of tub of punch, and Ben, Randy, and I pay the five dollar fee for a cup, free refills included.

We all stand in a circle, a room or two away from the dance floor. Conversation begins slowly, but as we enter our second, third, and some of us, fourth cup of punch, the words begin to flow far easier. One of the group that Mallory came with, who later became my good friend Erica, announces that she knows of another party not far from here that we can all go to. The group of women all seem very keen on moving on, so I naturally announced my own passionate desire to move to the next venue.

After a handful of loud thanks and high fives to the residents of the place, we depart as a group. We turn left at the sidewalk and begin our journey to the next place we plan to imbibe. Just ahead to my right, I see two campus PD vehicles. I casually look around, and to my horror, notice that one of us brought their drink outside as they left. As the phrase "hey dumbfuck put your cup down" escapes my mouth, an officer approaches and singles the offender out, inquiring as to what is in the cup. Out of the 10 of us, perhaps two others were aware of what was happening at the time. I half beg, half shove them along as I figure that anyone staying back will probably face similar charge to the MIP (minor in possession) that our friend was undoubtedly facing a few feet back.

We reach the end of the block and the realization that someone had left our group dawned upon the rest of us. A few of them decided to hang back and do what they could to assist our recently arrested friend. At this point the roaming group is down to myself, Mallory, Erica, and another who I became very close friends with, whose name I'll omit for this part.

The four of us enter the next house, and I am immediately aware of a weird fucking vibe. It felt like the three women who I'd arrived with were the only in the building, and everyone else was keenly aware. We traveled as a group to a room upstairs where shots were poured almost immediately. On the way up the stairs I look down to see someone pointing directly at me. Seconds after the girls took their first shot of vodka, a student entered the room complete with high top black socks, flip flops, gym shorts, a tank top, and backward hat. He singles me out and says "bro you gotta go." I look for a moment toward my newfound friends, who seem perfectly happy to stick around as I'm booted from the place.

Completely out of options, I agree to leave and do my best to be friendly to the piece of shit who escorted me out. It didn't go well.

As I walked outside, I looked up and realized I was somewhat trashed. I went in a few circles before finding the path back to my dorm. I slid my cougar card to gain entry, rode the elevator to my floor, entered my room, and slopped down into my chair as my phone began to ring.

Erica, who I'd exchanged numbers with earlier that night, began talking before I could say hello. It took me a moment to soak in what she was saying. After a few high pitched iterations of her speech, I gathered that during my journey back, Mallory and the fourth of our group drank quite a bit, and now needed to be escorted back to our building.

I gaze toward my computer monitor as I'm almost finished loading into a Counter-Strike server. I sigh, shut my system down, and deliver the news that I'll be there in about fifteen minutes if I can remember the best route.

Without too many wrong turns, I arrive at the same house that I was recently rudely removed from. I approach the door man and explain that I have two friends inside that need to be helped. His response, totally not reinforcing the rapey reputation that fraternities have, told me that they could make their own way out and that I wouldn't be let in to help them. I call Erica, who comes out, yells with the door man unsuccessfully, and re-enters to try to drag the two barely conscious freshmen out of the now extremely sketchy building. I take a seat on the nearby curb as the chairs near the entrance were apparently "for brothers only," and see a familiar face approaching me.

David fucking Beatty walks up with a pile of pizzas in hand, and after saying hello to me, walks up to the door man and begins to enter the house. I let out some sort of noise that indicated I needed to speak with him.

I explain my situation, and I don't even have to ask the favor that I need so badly before he walks in and returns moments later with a babbling friend #4 in his arms. I place her in a chair, defiant of the asshole door man's gaze, and wait for him to bring Mallory out. To my immense pleasure, she was at least able to walk out the door herself.


At this point I am charged with the task of escorting two extremely drunk women whom I barely know back to our dorm some 20 minutes away. A series of carrying, stopping for puking, dragging, chasing, and yelling later, we are finally in the elevator in my building. I soon discover that the fun is far from over as the puking is in full effect, and Erica asks if I can assist further. We travel up to their 13th floor "penthouse" and I begin hauling people to the bathroom where Erica takes over with the fine tuning of vomiting assistance. She tells me that they'll all be sleeping in her room tonight, and that she'd appreciate if I stuck around to help if needed during the night.

I ride the elevator 9 floors down to my room and grab a blanket. As I'm about to exit my dorm, a silly idea crosses my mind, and I retreat a few steps to put a spray of cologne on the blanket that was accompanying me.

I finally fall asleep as the sun comes up, and the clouds were visible slightly below us, so elevated on floor 13 of Stephenson North. Two or so hours later I wake up on the uncomfortable floor, and quietly see myself out, purposely but "accidentally" leaving behind the blanket I'd brought, somewhat desperate for a reason to talk with Mallory later that day.

Hours pass and I manage to sleep a bit more. Noon rolls around and I'm finally on that Counter-Strike server when I hear a knock at my door. I open it to see the three women who I'd spent so much time with the night prior. Mallory is holding my blanket and my heart rate shoots through the roof.

I invite them in and we recap a bit of what happened, laughing quite a bit while friend #4 pleads us not to be too loud so as not to aggravate her already throbbing head. Mallory hands me my blanket, mentioning that it smells very nice.

The Tuesday after, Mallory sat next to me in psychology. We did the same the following Thursday, and every class session for the rest of the semester.

It only took a few sessions of quietly chatting while we should having been paying attention for me to have fallen. I fell fast, and for quite a distance.

It wasn't long before I gathered that she didn't feel the same way about me. There was another guy in the picture. I met him, shook his hand, even smiled and laughed as we talked. Looking back it's extremely pretentious and assumptive that I thought this way, but I felt noticeably happier about the prospect of this guy and Mallory after I met him. I was extremely confident that they didn't mesh well. Luckily for me this held to be accurate, and I gleefully heard her say that she wanted nothing to do with the guy anymore just a few days later.

A week or so later, the same group of four+Randy were gathered in Randy's room, taking shots of flavored rum before wandering about that night in search of a whimsical party. The pre-game that took place was a bit more intense than usual, and it was deemed necessary to hold back a bit to sober up before trying to go out and get way less sober. As Mallory and I sat on Randy's roommate's bed she began to unload a set of insecurities. I don't remember putting my arm around her, but I do clearly remember when I leaned over and kissed her forehead for the first time.

We never left Randy's room that night, and her and I eventually slopped over and fell asleep, much to the displeasure of Randy's roommate. At some point in the night she went to our dorm, and Randy told his room mate to return, saying that him (Randy) and I would share his bed.

I woke up early that morning and put my arm around the person snuggled up next me. It's there for perhaps three seconds before realizing that I had just tried to cuddle Randy.

I shoot upright and exit the room. As I'm heading back toward my dorm, silently cursing myself for having done something wrong the night prior, my heart leaps as I run into Mallory. We take turns trying to speak first, only capable of speaking at the exact same time. Finally, we manage to properly take turns making sentences toward each other. We decide to go get breakfast at the nearby dining center. It was this morning that I discovered her passion for waffles with strawberries. I observed the care with which she used the waffle station, and after seeing her beautiful creation, asked if she wouldn't mind preparing one for me.

She turned to me slowly and smiled, and told me that she'd be happy to.

We sat at a table far from anyone else dining and recounted the events of last night. All the while we were careful not to mention specifically any of the "arm around her" business that happened the night before. We finish our excellently prepared waffles, place our trays in the return, and begin the journey back to our dorm.

After we get about halfway back, she explains that she's feeling sick, and begins leaning on me as we continue to walk. I feel half-happy that she's leaning on me, and half-guilty that I'm happy that she's feeling weak enough to do so. We enter our building and she explains that she would rather not go back to her room because of her rather judgemental roommate. I offer my bed for her to rest in while I find some other way to occupy my time.

She climbs up to my bed and falls asleep almost instantly. I sit in my chair for a few minutes stunned at how the last twelve hours had gone, and racking my brain trying to decipher whether or not any of it was remotely positive. I grab my favorite John Steinbeck book and begin reading near my window. I fully admit that I didn't feel like reading at all. I felt like having Mallory wake up and seeing me engrossed in a novel.

A while later she wakes up and I stand to speak with her at eye level as she lay on my lofted bed. She explains that she still isn't feeling well. My eyes dart briefly to her hand dangling off the side of the bed, and mid sentence I gently take it in my own and continue talking. She grasps my hand in response as we continue our conversation. This happened late January 2011.

February 2nd, we began dating.

So much more than I could ever accurately put into words happened between her and I between that cold February night where our journey truly began and the empty November afternoon where we ended things permanently.

I'm sure you're familiar with movies or tv shows containing a breakup scene of two characters who had a long and arduous past. Almost without fail, these scenes contain an intense buildup, and in-person fight, and a whole selection of intense music to fit the scene.

I always watched scenes like that and thought to myself, wow, that's rough. This music makes it all so much worse.

I wish that's what it was like. I wish there had been music, dreadful as it perhaps is intended to be. I wish there had been a significant buildup leading to an era-ending conclusion.

My relationship which had such a rich beginning, which I grew so much from, which spanned five years, was concluded by a text message.

There was no music.

There wasn't really any sound at all.

In fact, only two of my senses seemed to be functioning at the time. Sight, so that I could reread the message over and over again, and touch, but only so that I could realize how numb I had become.

Over the next two days I sought to maintain that feeling of numbness as best I could. Minutes after I concluded my marathon session of reading those words, I looked up to find myself at the QFC self-checkout purchasing a fifth of admiral nelson. I drank myself into oblivion until my roommate finally stepped in and suggested that maybe I hold off for a bit on my next grocery trip. Humiliated and knowing he was right, I took probably the longest shower of my life while morphing from standing upright and screaming, to laying in the tub shaking out of some combination of sadness, fear, and rage.

She hasn't spoken to me in 10 months.

Sadly enough that's where I'm going to conclude this. I understand that I probably overshared to some extent. I understand that hearing about someone's ex is less than desirable. I understand that I didn't deal with this situation in the way I should have, and that all of the thoughts and feelings have been steadily brewing over the last year. I understand that right now, I think writing this is doing much more good than harm.