The Day We First Met

meet

Some people are just lucky. I'd never really thought of myself that way, but that was before I met him. I guess I'd always been a romantic. I can't remember a time when I wasn't dreaming of the day I'd fall in love, but I'd never really had much luck with it.

I met him in the fall. I was in medical school at the time, and I'd just failed my first exam so naturally, I went to a bar with my roommates. I'd never been the party type, but they insisted.

"Remy. Drink," my roommate said, placing a bottle in my hand.

I faked a smile and muttered a quick "thanks, Rebecca" as she ran off to join my other roommate somewhere in the dancing crowd in front of me. I hung back by the bar, taking small sips of my drink every now and again as I watched the crowd jump up and down to whatever band was on stage. I laughed to myself, almost positive that no one here knew what band it was.

"What's so funny?"

I looked to my left and was faced with a tall blond. He looked vaguely familiar. I glanced down at the remaining liquid in the bottle in my hand and downed the drink before replying.

"Do you know this band?" I asked, making him laugh. "What's so funny?" I asked again, poorly mimicking his tone from just before.

"I'm in this band," he told me.

"Oh," I said. After two seconds of neither of us saying anything and him just staring at me, I raised my drink to my lips only for them to be met with a single drip.

He laughed at me. At least one of us was amused. "Do you want me to buy you another drink?" he asked. I nodded, and he flagged down the bartender.

"Hey, can I get a..." he let his sentence drift off and looked at me expectantly.

"Water," I told the bartender.

"Two waters," he said, holding up two fingers.

The bartender stalked off to get us our drinks, and he turned back to look at me.

"What's your name again?" I asked.

He put his hands over his heart. "You mean you don't remember me, Remy? I'm honestly hurt."

I opened my mouth to reply, almost completely convinced he was a stalker, when my friends came over to join us.

"Alex!" Shari, my other roommate, shouted as she neared us. "Remy, I didn't know you knew Alex."

"Yeah, we had a chemistry lab together last semester. And I was just asking if Remy wanted to go on a date with me. To...catch up," Alex told them.

A date to catch up? Seemed a little nonsensical to me. I glanced over at my roommates, both of whom were nodding at me encouragingly. I redirected my attention to Alex, who was watching me with a smile on his face. Why not? I thought.

"Yeah. I do," I said. And that was it.