Page 95 of Backslide
I pick up my glass of wine, lean back in my chair. Take a sip. He watches me lick my lips.
So I lick them extra.
“Didn’t your mother teach you not to stare?” I say.
“Yup,” he answers. And he keeps on staring.
“What are you thinking about?” I ask finally, shifting in my seat.
“Goats,” he says. “Mostly goats.”
“Oh, yeah? What about them?”
“Mostly about how lucky that baby black goat is that you don’t have official naming rights.”
“Hey! Humbug loves me, okay?”
He shrugs. “Who can blame him?”
I look across the table at Noah, at the angles of his face in the dim light. It would be helpful if he wasn’t so damn good to look at.
“What were you really thinking about?” I ask, if only to keep talking and distract myself.
“Honestly?”
“Preferably.”
“The first time I saw you.”
“Oh.” I’m surprised, by both that fact and his frankness. “Outside my drawing class?”
He shakes his head.
“Um, excuse me,” I laugh, leaning in, loosey goosey. “Are you saying you don’t remember meeting me that day?”
He shoots me a look, rubs a hand over his stubble. “Of course I remember. I remember your V-neck sweater and your attitude. I remember coming back to introduce myself, properly. I remember it all.”
“Okay, but?”
“Okay, but that wasn’t the first time I saw you.”
I am stunned. In the narrative that is my relationship with Noah, that run-in on the sidewalk was, for sure, the first time he knew I existed. I realize it’s so cemented in my head—our story—that it feels earth-shattering for it to change.
What else have I taken for granted as the truth? What else from our history needs a fact-check?
“When then?” I ask.
“A couple weeks or maybe a month before,” he says. “I was at a club…”
My mouth drops open. Mind blown. I even lift out of my seat, which is no small feat, as I have melded to it. And before he can even continue, I say, “No. Wait—seriously?”
“Yes?” He looks at me like I’ve lost it. “Why?”
“Because!” I say. “I saw you for the first time that night too.”
“Wait, really? But how do you even know it was the same night? We went to a lot of parties.”
But I know. And so does he. Because something magnetic happened in that moment between two strangers that left an indelible mark.
