An E(love)ator Story

We met here 11 years ago today, February 11^th, 2009.

Not this exact elevator, of course. But standing under these incandescent lights, between these four walls, it’s easy to see the resemblance. Only this three-story condo was our three-story college dorm and the gentlemen standing to my left--was you.  Although, you were way more conversational than he is. When you told me that you didn’t know any girls lived on your floor, I was honestly speechless. YOUR floor? I’d been here since the first day of summer school. Clearly that must of have meant that I held a higher stake in the ownership of this floor, right? But instead of stating my claim, I just laughed. And you smiled. It was your smile that made me want to keep talking to you. People had often told me that my smile was magnetic and I finally understood what that meant. Two weeks later we would share that our knack for smiling also left people to believe we were flirting with hem. But I’m pretty sure we were flirting with each other that night. We had a lot in common. Even that we both had significant others back home. My boyfriend of a year, like your girlfriend, was finishing up his last year of high school but things weren’t going very well. So when he broke up with me through text message one month later, I figured you might understand. What I didn’t know, is that you would show up at my door in the middle of my cry session and take me to go get ice cream. I could have fallen in love with you then if I hadn’t sworn off love just 20 minutes before. But trying to forget love was like deleting my ex’s number from my phone, I would always know it like the back of my hand.  Falling in love was muscle memory. It came to me as natural as swimming was to a fish. By the middle of March, I’d become the fish, trapped in your pond just waiting for you to throw me a line. We spent almost every moment together that when our friends would raise their eyebrows and ask “are you sure you’re not dating?” I started to question it myself. I was a girl and I was your friend and I was here. In my head, I was not only physically closer to you that your girlfriend but I couldn’t help but wonder if we’d become emotionally closer than “just friends” were supposed to be.

I didn’t have to wait long for my answer. One night in April we decided to ditch the Friday night frat party for the comfort of my dorm room. It wasn’t something new. We’d been napping together for weeks now. Though the first nap time was accidental, it quickly became a regular occurrence after class. “Nap Time?” texts were the highlight of my day. They were harmless enough: you slept at one end of the bed and I slept at the other and we talked until one of us drifted to sleep first. But this time, face to face, we talked through the darkness. After a few minutes, we fell into the normal silence. I lay in the darkness hoping to follow you into to sleep soon, but then you moved. At first, I thought nothing of it but the closer you were, the warmer I felt. I kept my hands pressed firmly against me, afraid to make a move, afraid of what they would do. How would your hugs feel laying down? I thought. I felt something warm on my forehead and when I raised my eyes to see what it was, my lips grazed the bottom of your chin. I swear I couldn’t breathe. You must have realized this because the minute your lips touched mine, I let go of the breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. It was like a sigh of relief. Chained up as a result of recent sorrows, my heart finally felt free. Your arms reached out for me and pulled me closer to you and we stayed this way. I liked to believe it was because we were afraid to let go and face what we’d just done. We spent the rest of our days during the month in meetings, final exams and volunteering for quarterly events. But our nights belonged to us, quietly hiding away from the world. Together, we were two thieves in the night. Stealing each other’s hearts and stealing precious moments. Moments that weren’t meant for us no matter how much we believed them to be. You were not mine and I could not allow myself to fully belong to you.

May came to an end one rainy morning. I sat on your bed, watching you pack up the last of your stuff for the drive back home. Spring semester was over. I would be leaving after the weekend but you had to be home by that evening. It was the night of her high school prom and you’d made a promise to be there. This was it. We never spoke about the end but we both knew we couldn’t go on like this forever. Eventually someone would end up hurt. Summer was coming and maybe this was the break you needed to figure it out. Would you finally choose me? So before you left, I hid a letter in your bag as a last ditch effort. You would write back to me a few weeks later: What we’d shared was amazing. I was an amazing girl but I was a risk you just were willing to take yet. I held on to that word. “Yet”. A few months together wasn’t enough to want to leave behind a year and a half. We were only Freshmen. A little too scared of the unknown, a little too naïve to know a lifelong heartbreak from a soulmate.

I met my husband that same summer. What started as a distraction from what you and I had, turned into over a decade ups and downs. My life had become an elevator. Sometimes, over the years, the door would open and I would find you there, smiling that same friendly smile. To my husband, my family and friends, you were my best friend. But we both knew. You would always be the one that rode to the top with me but on the way down got off on the wrong floor.