Almost, in Retrograde

I don’t understand why he never texted, but I do understand the urge to pretend it was more than it was, if only to justify how much I liked it.

One random weekend, weeks ago, I went to a housewarming party for a friend who had just bought her first apartment. She was new to the city, and in classic twenty-something fashion, the only acceptable way to christen the new place was by getting trashed. She invited our core crew–a tight group stitched together through a chaotic blend of high school, college, and home friend overlaps. The six of us, along with a crowd of others–some familiar and some new–had an absolute blast in her unfurnished, virgin apartment.

I had brought a new friend. Not a love interest, sadly, just a neighbor I had known in passing for seven months–we had only started getting close recently. She had just gone through a breakup with her boyfriend of three years–she told me that during our first real conversation–and was easing back into social life. We clicked instantly. She was a firecracker–sharp and bold–and I liked playing tedious games, prodding at her intellect. So naturally, I brought her to the party.

I like to think of myself as a party animal when duty calls. So that is how I ended up absurdly drunk on a Thursday night and, once the party died down, itching to dance. I needed the night to have texture. Thank God I had my new friend with me. While the others surrendered to the anticipated regret of their future hangovers, we shot downtown on the subway, deep into that intoxicating part of the city that only makes sense after midnight. I justified this recklessness by calling it “irresponsibility in the name of a friend,” or “city exploration and networking,” depending on my audience.

We landed in a familiar club and made a beeline for the dance floor. Drinks were flowing, the air sticky with heat and bass–proof of my longstanding theory that the wildest nights are born from the least expectations. I think we arrived around that golden 2 a.m. hour. I never actively seek out men, but they are always on my radar–sue me. I was not looking for anyone specifically, but I am open to being surprised. I spotted an attractive man in a curious blue sports jersey–no name, no number, no team. Clearly thrifted. Something about that dumb little jersey made me want to start a conversation I had not already had a hundred times. I marched over without hesitation and told him just how ridiculous I thought it was.

He smiled, slow and crooked, and said something back–funny, probably charming, completely lost in my memory. We danced. We got close. We talked about the part of our lives that makes us happy and skipped all the bullshit. I did not think it meant anything, not yet, but I remember the strange feeling of comfort I got from the way we connected, like we were in on a joke that no one else understood.

By pure coincidence, he turned out to be good friends with one of my closest college friends. That kind of serendipity with a stranger short-circuits something in me, in the best way.

We left the club with faux-jersey guy, my new friend, and a man she had flirted with all night. I wish I were the kind of girl who rolled her eyes at one-night stands and said, “Take me to dinner first.” I am not. So, I went home with him.

His apartment was small and chaotic, the kind that radiated creative energy. There were posters on his wall of bands and movie series I loved, a messy gaggle of subtly stylish shoes by the door, and a skateboard in pretty good shape leaned against a wall.

I liked it immediately. It felt like walking into someone’s brain.

We did not hook up, not in the traditional sense. I am not sure why not, but it never felt like a requirement. I took off my clothes, put on his shirt, and we talked for hours before drifting off in his bed. I never sleep well next to men, but that night I did, like we had done this before. Or maybe I misinterpreted the feeling of his arm tight around my waist, even after we both fell asleep.

I awoke to his hand on my leg, my thigh draped over his waist, and his breath on my forehead. I groaned a sleepy greeting. I would have said actual words, but I was worried my breath smelled like the mucus I could feel in my mouth.

“You should get on top,” he whispered in my ear.

I did not move. I was still seventy percent asleep. But not in that panicked, where-am-I way. It was a cozy kind of disoriented, like I had just stepped into a slow morning version of the night before.

“You should take this off,” he said, tugging gently at the T-shirt he had lent me.

I was lucid enough by then to register the intimacy of the moment, but I was not turned on (I’m a woman, not a man; we experience mornings differently). I was puffy from drinking, unshaven, with crusty mascara, a bent-out-of-shape blowout, and a hangover-bloated stomach. Still, I climbed on top of him, straddled his hips while he lay back, and sat there. We talked more like that. We still had not kissed, but the nearness felt electric.

Eventually, we got up. Carpe diem. He gave me a clementine for breakfast. I peeled it slowly, sitting precariously on the edge of his bed. The citrus scent cut sharply through the air, bright, acidic, too clean for how I felt. Juice pooled in my fingertips as I split it apart with ease. I slid off the bed to dispose of the peel, which I had almost removed all in one piece. I eyed the record player in the corner of his room and imagined it oozing smooth jazz. It was a strange and sweet and completely unrepeatable moment.

He said he missed a Zoom meeting. Our bond, unusual as it felt, was not strong enough for me to care. I feigned sympathy anyway.

Suddenly, my mind snapped back to morning-after logistics. He laughed from his desk and showed me his phone.

“Look at what you put in as your contact last night.”

It was my full name followed by a kiss emoji. I laughed and told him I did not remember writing that, but it was entirely in character. I believe it was perfectly reasonable, if not a little tame, for a 3 a.m. phone number exchange.

“I’m gonna head,” I said, dragging out the time as I slipped on my shoes and grabbed my bag. He walked me to the door. With me in the hallway and him in the doorframe, he dapped me up.

“See you,” I said.

“Yeah, see you,” he said.

I closed the door behind me and left.

What was that? On paper, it was nothing. No kiss, no emotional salvation, no trauma dumping. But in my head, it felt like so much more. It was a moment I stumbled into by accident, stayed in longer than expected, and could not stop turning over in my mind afterward.

That was not a one-night stand. That was not the start of a friendship. That was not a bad experience at all. It was… something. And I liked it, I decided in my overpriced Uber home. I fantasized about sending him a picture of the billboard I saw the next day, reflective of an inside joke. He would smile at his phone and text back right away.

I told all my friends from the apartment-warming party. I relived it with my new neighbor-friend. Then, I did some casual recon through our mutual friend.

The word was: he had a chill time. He was single. He might have been too nervous to make a move. He was not seeing anyone else.

Promising.

Plus, he looked better in the soft natural light of his bedroom than he had under the smudgy lights of the club. That was rare. Usually, it is the opposite, and I have regretted more than a few mornings for exactly that reason.

So I waited for a text. Nothing.

My friends sensed that he would not text, and they did what friends do by picking him apart until he did not feel worth missing. We decided his forehead was too big, he was scrawny enough to be mistaken for a boy, and only a coward does not make a move on a girl straddling his very obvious erection.

But still, he was interesting and appealing. Artsy. His apartment was full of thriving plants. He had childlike hobbies seasoned with adult intellect. I will take a hesitant, respectful man over a horny, obtuse one any day.

Still, hours became days. Then a week. Still no text. I asked our mutual friend what was going on, but he was not helpful.

I don’t understand. Not why he never texted–that part I’ve come to terms with. He probably just did not want to. But why did it get under my skin?

It was not love. It was not even sex, technically. It was an almost. A warm, weird, quiet almost that turned into something cinematic because I liked the lighting in his bedroom and the way we ate clementines like it was a secret language.

I let possibility dress up like reality. And for what? My beautiful 917 number and full legal name with a kiss to lie buried in his phone forever? For me to never even learn his own area code? Could it possibly be a 917, too? That would wreck me. I choose to believe it is a 701 or 316 or something else unromantic.

But I cannot lie–for one soft, hungover morning, I let myself believe this would become something. That he would become my someone. And for a moment, it was delightful.

Countless blurry nights on the town with various men later, I am still frustrated that faux-jersey guy never texted. It wasn’t deep. It wasn’t serious. But it was something, and something is rarer than people admit. And maybe that’s why it stuck: because even the softest kind of being forgotten bruises somewhere tender, in a place even my friends’ roast sessions can’t quite reach.

I don’t understand why he never texted. But I do understand the feeling of someone slipping out of your life before they have truly entered it. And that kind of vanishing, no matter how gentle, always leaves a mark.