I went down to America to hang out with a friend. I hadn’t seen him for a while, and I felt I needed to get away, anyway.

I happened to head down there on a rather busy weekend, I later found out. He had a lot of friends around. He was the kind of cat who spent a lot of time alone. It was strange to see so many people in his house. I knew a couple of them, but then there were some I didn’t know. A couple guys and two girls. One of the girls was attached to one of the guys I knew. Most of the guys didn’t seem to pay too much mind to me being there. I couldn’t tell if the girls liked me being there or not. I hadn’t talked to either of them yet.

I wasn’t entirely sure where they were all from, or even if they had all come from the same place. All I knew was that they were here now, and here was usually not where they were.

We all met up at my friend’s place and hung out in his basement, waiting to go out for the night. I wasn’t too privy on what we were doing that night. I didn’t really care. I was just happy to be there. His friends tried making small talk. Chatting about what I went to school for, what I was doing now that I had graduated. All that rhetorical, meaningless bullshit everyone is always asking each other. No one really cares about any of it, and I certainly don’t care about repeating it all ever again.

We got into some conversations, got to know each other a little better. Me and the girl were stealing glances from each other, but we were both a little bashful about getting too friendly.

Eventually, we did end up talking. She just joined in on a conversation I was having. Soon we were the ones having the conversation. And the other guy left the room to find someone else to talk at.

We sat on the couch, facing each other. Her legs were half crossed. One dangled off the edge of the cushion, grazing the hardwood floor. She was wearing these little black shorts. Some athletic company had designed them to move and breath with her body as she exercised. They also designed them to draw attention to the curves and attributes of the parts they covered. Just in case women weren’t being sexualized enough. She wore a thin, grey t-shirt that hugged her slender body in a way I wasn’t too upset about. She was leaning forward a little bit, so the scoop neck of the shirt hung down and gave me a pretty all right view of what was underneath, if I chose to take advantage of it. I really don’t think she would have minded catching me taking a look.

Mostly I was concerned with her eyes. They were blue. With little flecks of white and grey throughout that made them look bluer than they really were. They were framed with slight brown freckles, and thin eyebrows that looked like they had been groomed, but probably hadn’t been. She had never even thought about it. She didn’t wear make up. At least not today. She was the kind of girl that you would say that she didn’t need it, but knew she could make her self look that much more stunning if she used it.

I’m not sure how much time had passed. People came in and out of the room, giving us updates on the night. Where we were going, what was closed, what we were going to eat before hand. We didn’t pay too much attention to them. We just kept talking. I can’t really remember what we were talking about, exactly. Not that it mattered much. We couldn’t have gotten a better connection if we had plugged wires into our brains and started feeding information to each other through them. We considered each other’s opinions; we listened intently to each other’s stories. When one of us said something funny we laughed. But genuinely. Not that kind of laugh where you’re trying to get someone to like you. Loud and boisterous. A laugh that says “Hey, look at how funny I think you are, do you like me yet?” No, this was a real laugh. I could tell because sometimes it was just a chuckle, other times I coerced a guffaw out of somewhere deep down in her chest. It was almost like she had been storing up a couple of laughs for when she had heard something that really amused her. The laughter was just as happy to get out, as she was to let it out.

We could have been sitting there for days, rather than hours, and I wouldn’t have noticed it at all. The only thing that would bring me back into the natural course of time was when the guys would come back into the room to give us updates. They always looked at me with a glint of disdain in their eyes. Some of them I got the feeling that they were irritated I had come here, seemingly out of nowhere, and stole away the affections of this beautiful girl they all knew. Some of them gave me the idea that she had been hurt before, and they were worried about her. And then one of them I was positive was truly in love with her. I felt sorry for that guy. Looking into his piercing, hot gaze, and then going back to being in the cloud-soft comfort of her eyes. She didn’t seem too phased by any of these guys. She knew them all her entire life. They were her brothers. I was something new, something exciting. Even though I was just from Canada, I was something exotic and interesting. I would later hope that there was more to me than that.

Time passed. It seemed apparent we weren’t going to be heading out for the night. Most people congregated upstairs, in the kitchen. They were talking loudly. But the ceiling above us muffled their yells and laughs. And once she had closed the door, there was even less to hear.

She gave me a new look. Smoldering, and piercing. Her eyes left mine and wandered down to my mouth. She stuck the tip of her tongue out between her teeth so that it rested on the inside of her bottom lip. I couldn’t really explain it properly, and putting it into words sort of bastardizes it, but it was incredibly sexy.

She sat down closer to me. Her legs were touching mine. It would’ve been really uncomfortable if I hadn’t wanted her there. We kept talking. I couldn’t fully tell if she wanted me to kiss her or not. I’m terrible in those kinds of situations. It’s not so much that I haven’t caught on to what’s happening, rather than I’m too scared to act on it.

She grabs a fistful of my shirt and pulls me in. Our lips meet and it’s everything I’ve ever wanted from a kiss. Her lips are even softer than I thought they would be. When we part, we both keep our eyes closed for a while. Her a little longer than me, otherwise I wouldn’t know. We both smile as if we had just sat down after a long day of labour. Comfortable, relaxed. Shivers of eternity and finality course through our blood streams as we share a single moment as one being.

Time passes. A couple of strange jokes ends up with me taking my shirt off. Neither of us think about sex, or even consider it. That’s not what we want right now. We’re just trying to get closer to each other. Her small, smooth hands rest inside of mine as we talk. She rests her head on my shoulder and my heart boiled over with adrenaline. I felt detached for a second, as if I was already remembering this moment. Aware of my weightlessness, I pulled myself back down onto that couch. The fruity scent of her shampoo wafted into my sinuses and it calmed my nerves.

The guy who was in love with her came downstairs. When he saw that we were so close to each other, he started making stupid jokes and saying things that painted him as a complete asshole. I’m sure he was a really nice guy though. She tried her best to pretend he wasn’t standing in the doorway. Shortly after, a couple more people came down. We had lost our privacy, and so we decided to go back to being part of the group.

I got up from the couch to look for my shirt. I couldn’t find it anywhere. I looked all throughout the room and it was nowhere to be found. I knew it had to be in there somewhere, considering I hadn’t left the room for hours. No one really gave a shit to help me find it. The girl would have, but her ride was leaving and she had to go. I walked her to the car. Before she left we made sure we were connected on all forms of social media. We exchanged phone numbers. We looked into each other’s eyes one last time. I felt her grip tighten slightly around my hand and our lips met. She got into the car, and she was gone.

The next day I woke up on the couch. I continued the search for my shirt. I asked everyone that was in the house if they had seen it. This shirt was special to me. It had no real value, but I attached some to it because I had spent thirty dollars on it at a concert. The band wasn’t even one of my favourites, and the concert was all right. I just liked the way the shirt fit me, and thought the design was pretty cool. It was a live photo of the band, their name in distressed, white letters across the chest. I had a tendency to wear the shirt for days on end, even though I only washed it maybe once a month. It smelled fine, in my opinion.

I was leaving for Canada later that day and I needed to find the shirt before I left. It was coincidentally the only shirt I brought, and I doubt they’d usher me through at the border bare-chested.

I quickly became agitated. Everyone was so busy being mad at me for stealing this girl’s attention away for the night that no one was willing to help me. They would scoff and shake their heads and make comments while I over turned chairs and searched through bookcases. I had a suspicion one of them found it and took it. Most likely, that guy who was in love with the girl, in some immature attempt to make himself feel better than me. I may have stolen the affections of the girl he loved, but at least he has a shirt, am I right?

I sat down on the couch to take a moment to collect myself. I took out my phone and saw that I had received a message from the girl. I felt a small fraction of the adrenaline rush from last night as I opened it.

Hey! I was just thinking about you! I wanted to let you know that last night was one of the best nights of my life! You really make me feel so comfortable and I can be so honest with you in a way that I don’t know if I’ve ever been with someone! I know it sounds pretty crazy. I hope I can see you again! I’ll come visit you in Canada soon, and I hope you can come down to Portland sometime to see me. I’m really happy I got to meet you, and I hope you’re happy to have met me! I’ll talk to you soon!

I thought about how happy I was last night.

I thought about the beautiful relationship this could grow into.

I thought about the idea of a long distance relationship.

I thought about having to move somewhere to be with her.

I thought about us breaking up and me being left alone in a city I didn’t know.

I thought about the shirt I still couldn’t find.