Kitchen Sink

wintergreen gum

In the next few days, Joyce found she had a renewed sense of purpose.

That purpose was Matt.

Now of course she hadn't seen him or his kind swirling eyes in 3 days, 16 hours, and 32 minutes but every second of every day was absorbed with thoughts of him.

She couldn't seem to get back into her regular routine. Every day was different and it was... strange.

For the past three days, Joyce had gone to different locations every day after school and had taken different routes to her classes every day, even causing her to be late to physics on one occasion.

Despite her best efforts, she couldn't find him anywhere.

She often found herself drifting off into a world of make believe - one where her hand fit into his and only she could make him smile.

She couldn't decide what color his eyes were - or maybe she just couldn't remember.

She couldn't remember if his hair was brown or black.

All she could remember was the feeling of him.

It wasn't love. She didn't believe in love, especially not at first sight. But it was... special. He felt like the hug of a grandmother who remembers, or a hazy memory from when you were three where you can't quite recall what happened but you knew you were happy. His smile had made her feel like how her tongue felt after drinking water while chewing on Wintergreen gum - tingly, refreshing, and painful in a good way.

She could still hear his voice when she closed her eyes, and every night she wore his shirt to sleep.

It wasn't weird - at least she hoped not. She had only ever heard of couples sharing clothes, but he started the exchange so she supposed it was socially acceptable.

Plus it smelled like him. She couldn't quite describe it and she didn't know how he smelled exactly, but it smelled like those hazy decade old memories and sunshine.

And so she continued her search.

Not quite sure where to look,

and not quite sure how long it would take,

but willing to give it all up for that taller than average mildly attractive bass drum with the nice smile and kaleidescope eyes.

After all, what's the point of going back to a routine that's already been broken?