My October Symphony

The City is Ours

1

The face of a model, the face of an angel. Just thinking of his face makes your heart flutter, both with disgust and love. He was the one that got away, rather, one that I put away, even against my best wishes. I still remember that one day we had together. In all my life, that one day was filled with more love than any other days I've spent on earth, spent with someone I couldn't even call anything. A friend? A lover? Something in between? Or nothing at all? It was ambiguous, and I think that as painful as it is and was, that's how it must be.

The first time we ever spoke alone and got to know each other, we were running down to the plaza near school to grab last-minute supplies for our club's food sale; some vice-president he was (oh, so prepared). It was freezing cold, and both of our noses were pinkish-red. We talked about how annoying this girl in our class was; she was trying her hardest to catch his attention, and she was desperately crushing on him, but she wasn't a good person, to say the least. I thought her attempts were pathetic, and her general demeanour set me off; he noticed this too and admitted his own experiences with her being the same, negative.

From then on, we exchanged numbers, started texting every now and then, talking about god knows what, music, our family history, and sharing baby pictures. Eventually, we'd go and get coffee for lunch after class, just the two of us. I remember the first time we went down to the cafe; I didn't know what to order, so I ordered an iced americano, something an old lover told me to order the last time we talked months before. I had never had plain black coffee, but to my surprise, it was easy to drink, bitter but bearable. He didn't know what to order either; he admitted that he didn't drink coffee often, so he ordered the same thing as I did and offered to pay for my drink. I insisted that I made my own money, he deflated, and I laughed, but now I wish I'd let him. Then, at least, he'd owe me something.

The fateful day came — an unplanned, spontaneous rendezvous. We were sitting in our usual nook of the cafe, and lunch was quickly coming to an end. I said we'd best be going or we'd be late. He looked annoyed and dismissive. Oddly, my mind took a turn, and I told him to skip class with me. He looked at me with surprise, not being able to read my expression or what I had planned. He asked me if I was serious, and I raised my eyebrows and shrugged. My proposition was to take the bus downtown and explore and get more high-quality coffee instead of spending our extended lunch here. A curious feeling between us; I could tell both of us were excited yet unaware of what the future held in our time together.

In a matter of no time, in a whirlwind, we gathered our belongings and ran to the bus stop across the street, waiting in the nipping cold. Once on the bus, we talked of many things; I don't remember how, but it eventually even came to war crimes, torture and sexual tendencies. Nothing out of the sort; there was very minimal filtering between our conversations. We got off the bus, and for some reason, I took his arm and held it. He shrugged me off at first, and I assured him that I did it with all my friends; it meant nothing of the sort, even if he hoped for it, haha. We walked for what seemed like hours, passing the high-end cafe I meant to take him to. We found ourselves walking through the city aimlessly, no plan, no nothing, just our feet and our hearts to guide us.

We got stopped by a random salesman selling a credit card service. He lied and told the salesman that I, his cousin, was 20 and that I was interested in subscribing. I was shocked, but I played along, hearing out his proposition, and in the end, I told him I already had a credit card, and I was fine. We walked speedily off and couldn't stop laughing. We walked all the way down, right before the bridge, and we saw our holy grail; the Rock Shop. There we found endless amounts of apparel, of all our favourite bands and illicit substances. An entire flock of t-shirts and clothes catering to our niche and not-so-niche tastes; it was a little slice of paradise on earth, fitting for someone with a face like his. We spent a bit of time traversing the whole of the shop; every corner was checked and chuckled at. He got a bright neon green t-shirt that read 'tits and beer'; high fashion, of course. We picked up our things and went on our way.