A Change of Heart

2

In freshman year of college I was attracted to this boy who was part of this well-known trio on campus. Looking back, I see how that trio was an odd one but somehow, they managed to make it work.

You had Steve—the alpha, the leader of the pack, always wearing leather jackets and sunglasses indoors. He was known as the cool one, but Trent later told me he really became cool by telling a lot of dubious stories. One in particular comes to mind: he was walking his dog in the city—he didn't trust Okin so he always kept his eyes on the dog—and he got distracted by a phone call from an unknown number. He took his eyes off the dog for ten seconds to turn down the call and, when he looked back, his dog had grown 25-feet tall, struggling to fit through the skyscrapers and turning over cars with his gigantic paws. Steve was forced to walk the dog back home in that state—which was the most embarrassing thing in his life—and, not to mention, fit him into his small apartment.

Then there was Rodney; he was a bit of a wild card. He'd lived most of his life as a loser, always targeted as a weirdo. Especially after the first day of high school, when he was so anxious his stomach was killing him, so he squatted in the middle of the classroom, pulled down his pants, and dropped a deuce on the floor. Had that been all there was to it, maybe it wouldn't have haunted him for years, but it should also be mentioned that his feces were perfectly round like those of a rabbit. Some poor janitor had to pick up the several fecal pellets, but the smell didn't leave that room for weeks and nobody ever set foot in it again. Somehow, Rodney managed to turn things around, when he was seventeen, and get this story to make him look cool. When asked about it, he said he embraced his spirit animal: the rabbit.

And last, but not least in my eyes, was Trent. He was the perfect middle ground between Steve's charisma and Rodney's ineptitude. You'd often see him wearing hoodies and t-shirts and his trademark All Stars. With a perennial dimple printed on the left side of his mouth, you'd believe he was always giving you a faint smile. But, when you got closer, his gray eyes clouded both his facial features and your judgment and, with just one look, he'd make you feel like a fraud for that slight backstabbing you'd unconsciously done in middle school. That was his charm, to me. He was naive, and innocent, and cute, but also mysterious, reserved, and cryptic. He seemed so approachable, and yet so unreachable.

You have to understand that, because of my unpredictable life, I'd never seriously dated anyone, nor did I actively seek any relationship. As a matter of fact, at nineteen, I was still a virgin. But Trent was the first person that got me thinking about getting in the game. And my good friend at the time, Kathy, kept pushing me to make a move. But, in the first few months, I never dared get anywhere near Trent. There'd never been any interaction between us, if not for an inadvertent meeting of the eyes followed by a sheepish smile. I'd be lying if I told you I'd never come home to relive that moment for a whole day and maybe imagine some follow-up scenarios to it.

The first time Trent's world and mine collided was after an incredibly boring class—I remember thinking my thirteenth death would be of boredom. At the time, I was self-conscious about this mole I had on the left side of my face, to the point I always tried to get only my right side in pictures. It was so obvious, I didn't even have to tell Kathy. She just noticed me always covering that side with my hand and put two and two together.

Anyway, when we were leaving, we crossed paths with the trio. The bad boy, Steve, took off his sunglasses and sized us up. Then his left eye vanished and a mole—my mole—appeared in its place. I remember my heart pounding and fluttering my empty stomach. I could feel Trent's eyes on me, but I couldn't bring myself to look away from Steve. When his eye reappeared, his mouth disappeared and was replaced by the mole. Steve didn't even look like himself without his mouth. He raised his eyebrows and as he did, a single hair sprouted out of his mole-mouth and curled itself to length.