knowing the stuck-up college boy i was, i wouldn't have fallen for this one boy who was always begging to sleepover in my dorm room. this i told a college acquaintance who i chanced upon, of all places, in a mall in manhattan yesterday.
"but you liked him, right?" he asked. "no way," i was emphatic. "i could never fall for someone that needy."
truth is, i cared for the boy. how could i not? he gave me a william faulkner reader. and he could hold a coin in his dimple.
ruing over things lost, never a healthy way of spending an otherwise lovely afternoon. but how could i not? i was reminded of this gift. something miraculous. someone who actually needed me more than i did myself. and i squandered it away. what a thankless wretch.
perhaps, he could have been the one for me. one who would tell my girlfriend then that i actually dig boys. or the one who would phone my mom, just out of whimsy, and impassively introduce himself as my boyfriend.
who knew then that someday i would be oldish, huffing and puffing as i catch my bus back to the bronx, remembering this boy, still thinking of him smoking camel after camel on the hallway of my dorm, waiting for me, growing older.
