I was at a bar having a drink with a friend and playing pool. S. and I had been friends for a long time, and she’d been there the night I met O. I hadn’t had my cell phone long, barely knew how to work it beyond answering and talking.

As the night wore on and S. and I were laughing and drinking, I noticed a tiny image of what looked to be an envelope at the top of my phone’s screen. I had no idea at the time was a text message was, and even less of an idea of how to retrieve what had been sent. I asked S., who fumbled with the phone briefly before handing it back to me, defeated.

I just started pushing buttons, and finally words appeared. It was O., he was at home and had been thinking of me and so decided to send me some tender sentiments. I beamed at S. and showed her my message, wanting to share this overwhelming feeling that was burning and building inside of me.

Yesterday, I was remembering this night, the feeling of something new and exciting, so full of hope and potential. During the slow recollection it occurred to me that O. was the first person to ever text message me. I kept those words, dragging them from phone to phone, letting them lift me up from time to time.

Until one day, I didn’t.

I remember the phone call like it was yesterday. I was sleeping, unaware for the time that you weren’t next to me, though you hadn’t planned to be. When I left you after dinner, feeling sick, you told me you were going to go stay with your Mom and Dad, catch up, laugh, talk. “I know my mom misses me,” you said, wandering somewhere between how nice it is to be missed and how much you’d miss me. “Promise me you won’t walk home,” I answered, turning toward my car.

Your father’s voice was unmistakable, even with my eyes still closed. He started speaking and didn’t stop until he’d gotten it all out, until he’d said exactly what he needed to tell me: “Michelle, I am afraid I have some bad news. K. was hit and killed this morning.” He didn’t take a breath, and I don’t know that I did either. I was half off of our bed, one hand on the floor trying to steady myself when I answered the call. All I remember is screaming. It’s true what most people say about unexpected tragedy, the only thing you can think to scream is no, over and over and over and over until, like a skipping record, your brain jolts you forward by an impossibly small distance, breaking the repetition.

“I have to call my mom,” I told him, hanging up.

The details are clear. I can still see the green phone hanging on the wall in the too-dark brown kitchen. I reached for the receiver and dialed, not stopping to think how I would tell my parents you had died. Like your dad, I couldn’t think of a better way to put it, so I was blunt, to the point and hysterical when my mom answered, her voice still groggy with sleep. “K. was killed this morning,” I stuttered, the words burning my tongue as I spoke them.

Those five words independent of one another are benign and full of potential. Strung together as they were that morning, my life met it’s first end stop. Everything had changed.

When everyone met O., they all said the same thing: You two belong together. We got each other’s jokes, we made one another laugh and we just fit in a way immediately apparent but impossible to describe. Though we started dating from the start, O. soon became my best friend. He is who I turned to when I wanted to talk about my day or laugh about something I’d seen or heard. Several times a day, I’d find myself thinking, “I have to remember to tell O.”

 

We had a shorthand, a stable of inside jokes that only made sense to us. Being that close to another human being both comforted and terrified me. I had lost everything before; I’d had to piece my life back together after tragedy and, once solid, or seemingly so, risking another personal earthquake that would send me crashing to the ground was difficult.

 

As I look back, I am beginning to understand that perhaps I never truly trusted in my life again, didn’t trust that the Universe wouldn’t pull the rug out from under my feet, laughing at my willingness to love again. This distrust, unconscious and as habitual as breathing, caused me to shield my heart just a little bit, keep something aside so that if my life shattered I’d have a remnant, a scrap upon which I could rebuild.

 

O.’s love has always made me want to try to make my heart whole. I’ve just never known how.

After we started dating seriously, I’d find any amount of time I could to spend with you. Teaching freshman English didn’t require I be at school every day, or every hour, and so sometimes in the afternoon when you got off of work we’d go have dinner and then head to the bar and play pool for a few hours. Sometimes we’d have a beer, other times we’d drink ginger ale.

You were a good pool player, much better than me, and so I’d ask you to take it easy on me after you’d run the table, leaving me no sign of a possible shot. “I’m not playing with you,” you always teased, “I’m playing against you.” And you were right. Playing with someone with superior skill only served to make me better. I don’t have a mind for angles, at least not in any way required to be excellent at the game, but watching you negotiate the lines helped me better intuit what I needed to do to make shots.

One night, shortly after you died, I was playing with a friend of ours, S. He and his then girlfriend, now wife, had taken me out for a drink. S. and I played a few games together, and, like you, he bettered my efforts. But that night, as I stared down a really long shot on the eight ball to win, I willed you to come and help me. I needed to bank the ball off the far end of the table and bring it back to the left corner pocket. S. didn’t think I had a chance in hell, and, to be honest, neither did I. But I took a chance, and was amazed when the eight zipped up the table and back down, plunking into the identified pocket like it had finally made it home.

S. stared at me, and then he said it: “That must have been K.”

And I laughed at him, nodding my head in agreement, thanking you for finally letting me win.

Once O. and I started dating, we would talk on the phone for hours. He was still living in the suburbs, so we didn’t see one another every day. Some weeks, he would come down on Thursday and meet me in the bar in the basement of my building, other times, he’d wait until Friday and then spend the weekend.

During the days we didn’t see one another we’d call in the evening, just to say hi, and end by talking well into the night. Many times my cordless phone (yes, I still had a cordless phone), would begin to lose its charge and start beeping, meaning we had to start saying goodnight. Our conversations were varied and interesting; we’d talk about whatever came to mind, asking each other questions, quietly probing into the other’s heart, mind, soul.

I know that sounds dramatic; I know these sentiments might seem childish and adolescent. But truly, O. and I were weaving our lives together in a tight knot, beginning with the basics, tentatively moving to larger landscapes. “Let’s just make up a word and see if we can get it to catch on,” he playfully said one night. Try as I might, I couldn’t really think of anything worthwhile. “Flurpy,” he sputtered, “meaning something really good.”

I agreed to give the word a chance, though, honestly, I don’t think we used it very much outside of our own little circle. More than anything, the word became an endearing way for us to tell one another how we felt. I have a number of cards marked in O.’s clean, uncomplicated handwriting: “I love you. You are the flurpiest.”

The fact that spell check continually marks the made up word with a red line, announcing its unknown origin, makes sense. There is much about O. and I that may cause confusion, go against convention, exist outside the boundaries of what everyone has collectively approved. And that is fine, because in-between the thousands upon thousands of words we’ve spoken to one another throughout the years is a lot of flurpy love.

Even falling in love rather quickly couldn’t stop O. and I from keeping alight the spark that drew us together, a magnetism evident and obvious. One night, before I picked him up from the train station, I taped a rather scandalous card to the dashboard in front of the passenger seat. I don’t even remember what the inside said, but it was sexy, not quite tipping the scale fully toward raunchy, but certainly heading in that direction. I had written a single cursive O. on the outside, perhaps there was a heart somewhere.

When he came out of the train station he was wearing a leather jacket. Though a little too Fonzy for my taste, he looked good. Something inside of me panicked, I don’t know what, and I reached over and quickly ripped the card from his side of the car, stuffing it in the side pocket on the driver’s side. He climbed in and said “Hi,” and I put my foot on the gas, edging us toward traffic and home to my apartment.

I never did give him the card. Never did mention that I was thinking of him in dirty adult ways all day and thought the surprise sentiment on the dashboard would be like whispering in his ear, “I want to fuck you.” Driving down Michigan Avenue, stopped at a red light, another car had blocked the intersection trying to get through on a yellow signal. I started honking my horn and yelling, the woman in the back seat looking at me like I had lost my mind.

And perhaps I had. I couldn’t contain my desire for the man sitting next to me, couldn’t wait to get him home. When we finally walked into the apartment we kissed standing up, as we usually did, slowly moving toward the bedroom. I was too shy to let the card do the talking, but my body had no problem finding the words.

I have vivid memories of you that come without notice. Little pieces of what is left, like a puzzle that doesn’t have a clear image or recognizable pattern. Unstoppable and not unwelcome, but somehow incongruent with my life now. I could spend forever, perhaps I will, trying to fit these two lives together, in harmony.

We are in my blue Corolla outside a gas station, you fresh from buying two packs of cigarettes. It was summer, as it will always be when I remember you, and I had made a wisecrack that caused a smile to slide across your face. You looked over at me and simply said, “Well, I guess I won’t be giving you this,” as you pulled the cigarettes out of my reach. We laughed, together, as you handed me a pack.

You humored my silly requests, never complaining when I asked to do something unusual or seemingly boring. This particular evening I was driving us to Bingo, when, halfway there, I couldn’t remember if I’d blown out a candle. I asked you, the panic disguised, if you could remember. You answered “No,” and then asked if I wanted to turn around. I tried to be nonchalant, telling you that I was sure I had, but you knew that what I was really thinking about was my black lab and what she would do in a fire. “Let’s go check,” you said, as though it were your idea. I didn’t argue, silently changing direction, thankful for your patience.

You come flying down the stairs, two pairs of black jeans in your hands. You look at me and grin when you ask, “Should I wear my black pants or my black pants?” Talking to your Dad, I glanced over at you, returning your smile and quoting a long-lost line from a band I used to listen to in high school, “Do you wear black on the outside because black is how you feel on the inside?” You didn’t miss a beat as you said, in all seriousness, “Sometimes.”

I knew what you meant then; I know today, too.

It wasn’t too long until I knew that I was in love with O. I think we’d been seeing one another for two or three months, and I could feel in my bones that this man was in my heart. I didn’t know how to tell him, didn’t know if I’d sound ridiculous or if he’d look at me with pity in his face, apologizing for not feeling the same way about me.

My heart was too, full, though, and I couldn’t help myself.

We were in bed and I was straddling him, laughing down in his face between kisses and silly jokes. I could feel the smile on my face, so wide and true I didn’t stop my voice from starting the unstoppable, “I really la la like you,” I croaked like a grade school valentine. I knew he understood what I was going to say, what I wanted to share with him.

O. was patient, letting me figure it out, helping me along. “I love you,” I finally said, or something like that. My meaning was clear, my heart was out there, pumping with excitement and anticipation. I don’t remember, exactly, what O. said back to me, his words didn’t mean as much as his actions. The way his lips found mine, his hands on my face and in my short hair, pausing at the back of my head. His deep brown eyes staring into mine. I knew he loved me, too.

After that first tentative declaration, we fell into an easy pattern of affection. We wrote each other lovely e-mails describing our feelings in tender detail. Text messages that would leave me smiling for the entire day, a warm feeling spreading through me. We were slowly growing into one another, our lives so different from when we met but somehow neither of us could remember what they were like so natural was our union.

“Love like this could save the world,” I once wrote of O. and me. I still believe it, somewhere deep inside.

O. came down on the train that weekend. All I could think about was seeing him again, and I couldn’t wait for him to exit the train station and enter my car. As I pulled over and put my flashers on, I saw him coming in a leather jacket, a knapsack slung easily over his shoulder. I was still nervous, but seeing him smile made me calm and giddy.

Driving back to my apartment, we talked about everything. Work and music and books, whatever came to mind. Our conversations were always so easy, trading remarks back and forth, back and forth, like a slow, comfortable game of ping pong. We spent countless hours talking to one another and could easily slip into deep, meaningful discussions just as readily as silly, mundane wisecracks.

During this time, the very start of our love, we’d get to my place and kiss like we hadn’t seen one another for years. His lips on mine were always soft, his tongue gently pushing, waiting for me to give in. Our hands would explore the other’s body, feeling for the tender spots, the touches that released a sigh or set free a giggle. Sometimes we’d stand in my kitchen for more than a few minutes, connected, eyes closed, heart open to the warmth of possibility, naked desire.

Occasionally we’d meet his friends at a bar, and other times we’d go out alone. During these first months, our time was spent looking at the world through the eyes of the other. I learned about alcoholic fathers and sexual molestation, he learned about losing love and always feeling misplaced. We were teaching one another, slowly showing our cards, hoping that together we might make a winning hand.

I don’t know if I ever told you, though I think I probably did, that I had received offers from graduate programs in both Washington state and Ohio. Stuck in Minneapolis, a city that leeched every ounce of happiness from me, I looked around my studio apartment and at my black labrador and knew I didn’t want to be in a place where I’d have to fly home. Avery, the lab, wouldn’t have done well on a plane, she didn’t even have the stomach for a car ride, and I just couldn’t bear another long stint away from home, not as depressed as I was at the time.

So I chose Ohio.

At the time, it seemed nothing more than a decision of convenience. No plane rides to visit home for the holidays, no staying in place because I couldn’t afford to make the trip. I’d done both of those things while studying at Bard, and I can still remember the loneliness of a deserted campus, how I’d wander around and see next to no one, as though I’d been asleep through a disaster and had woken up to nothingness.

Looking back, however, Ohio was anything but coincidence. I belonged there, despite the lower stipend they offered, and any doubt I ever entertained vanished when we met. I can still remember you walking down the stairs, greeting my friend, S., who had come back to school early from Christmas break and spent some time playing pool in the bar where you were working. “This is my friend, Michelle,” she told you. “Nice to meet you,” you said to me, reaching for my hand.

S. would have no way of knowing what she started that night of innocent introductions. In her eyes, you weren’t anything more than a nice person who worked at a bar she liked — you weren’t in a graduate program, that is, and so couldn’t be seen for more than the sum of his parts.

But I knew better. And, thankfully, so did you.