The Book Nook

12

 I left that night with the sense of something extraordinary happening beneath the facade of my dull, stable urban life. It wasn't that I disliked or even loathed the existence I was living. I had merely actively chosen a direction of introversion upon my desire to not stand out.

It should be noted that I didn't exactly have many friends. I used to, sure. But these days if felt that it always required more effort than it was worth. If I couldn't initially connect or identify with others, I would then subconsciously rotate away from them. I'd lose interest. Fairly quickly; and I don't know if that symbolized something wrong with me internally. This happened with people that could potentially be decent enough friends, even with girls I took interest in. It was always generally the same; I kept to myself, that way I'd always be just fine. When I moved to the city from my home, I managed to go an entire five years and counting without making any genuine companionship. Sure I had acquaintances from school and past jobs; just no individuals I could see making more than a limited cameo appearance in the movie of life that passed by as I watched.

Viewing it unbiasedly, I think I just always had high expectations of others. I knew they would't meet them, so instead of getting let down, I just left. Saved myself the disappointment.

Looking at Alexandria, she sent forth every red flag imaginable. By all logic, I should have been running far and fast. Had something changed inside or had I just finally let my guard down? It was surprisingly easy to talk myself out of thinking I was just setting myself up for disaster. I never forgot Sheila's warning and maybe it really wasn't the kind of adventure seen in Alice's rabbit hole but I knew there was something deeper.

Everything about the whole entire situation just breathed contradiction to every aspect of the way I've sauntered along through the more recent stages of my life. I understand it's realistic to be very confused by something like this. New feelings that hadn't been known before, having long laid dormant. How did I know what I was doing? How could I be sure that I would remain rational? I was still rational, right?

It wasn't something that would just wear off in a week or two. It wasn't like in high school when I would take an interest in the newest hipster girl with big round glasses, rock band shirts, and heavy eyeshadow, feel things out for a while and then disengage. I was desperate to fit in with my fellow high-schoolers who worshiped the gossip-God of who-was-with-who, so I dated my small share of a few of them and, to be fair, I even liked a couple of them. But I never felt like I'd found a kindred spirit amongst any of them. I felt like not finding genuineness had prepared me for a life of being able to distinguish love from afar.

I didn't recall much of that late night ride home after the park, I had spent it seemingly in a daze. That's forgivable though. It had been a strange day.

If there's one thing more prevalent than anything else when I look back at that night with Alexandria - the pub, the playground, the clichéd looking up at the stars (how I wouldn't trade that cliché for anything in the world), it's the realization of it's perfection and how perfection like that rarely happens.

I feel this might be the perfect place to end this scene, she had said.

She had known it even then, that sometimes it's better to not mess with perfection and overstay your welcome. The only thing I wished for was that it wouldn't be the last of those moments.

But life is so unpredictable. So miserably unforeseeable.

Although I didn't end up actually seeing Alexandria again until that Friday, four days later, we communicated quite often. Ninety-five percent of it became one of us narrating the other's lives through cellphone texts even though we had zero idea of what the other was up to.