Chance Encounters #3: I Have You

I can hear stirring from the living room, the voices and shuffling that indicate I should probably get up. Mickie’s bed is empty, she’s in the interior design program which means she rises with the sun.

My other roommate may or may not have mentioned that her sister was coming to town. It’s muffled but I can hear her making introductions. Our dorm, seated in the center of Center City Philadelphia, is a two bedroom with a sneeze for a kitchen and a passing wind for a living room. It’s cute but isn’t exactly an ideal accommodation for guests, especially when there’s already three people living here. That being said, I’m last to move in, so I don’t exactly have a say in what goes on here.

I walk out of my room to see a rumpled heap of blankets with a messy stand of bed head sticking out of it. I don’t like having company. I definitely don’t like to have unexpected company and I for sure don’t want to see a stranger as soon as I walk out of my bedroom. However, as an introvert, unknown people are only second on my dislike list. The first dislike is unnecessary confrontation.

Taking a seat on the floor (because someone is laying on the couch and we only have one other chair which is covered in clothes), I wait to be introduced to what I hope will not be my unofficial third roommate. The parquet wood floor is cold beneath me, cooled by the morning chill rolling off the eight foot tall windows overlooking Monday morning Chestnut Street. I let my eyes rest on the clear topaz colored sky and think, 'How you doin’ Philly?' It’s hard to be mad when there’s perfect weather and a day completely free of classes.

Then it happens—the blanket covered bedhead turns to face me. Seeing the most explicitly beautiful face I have ever seen I’m suddenly paralyzed. Looking at her makes me feel drunk. What is happening to me? Why am I stuck? She could be sculpted from marble or cast in bronze and displayed in a gallery and she's looking directly at me. It's like her focus is altering my brain chemistry. Does she know? Is she doing this on purpose?

My roommates are still talking, I’m sure of it, even though I can no longer hear them. I can’t stop looking at this goddess on earth. I’m alarmed as it dawns on me that she could ask me for anything and I would give it to her in double portions. I pray she doesn’t ask. I can feel my open mouth gaping. She’s getting annoyed. Although, I’m sure her brow never wrinkles. Her gaze could carve granite. It’s increasing intensity breaks my paralysis.

“I’m so sorry,” the words come with honest clumsiness. “It’s just that… You are so beautiful… I—I can’t stop… staring.”

I whisper the last words of it. My overpowering embarrassment gives me the strength to finally look away. Oh man, I hope she doesn’t think I’m hitting on her. Why am I being so weird? My cheeks are hot and flushed but I’m a redbone, so I hope that’s enough to hide it.

At this she relaxes a little and allows herself to give the faintest of all smiles. “It’s ok,” she says. “I’m Jetia, nice to meet you.”

Jetia or Je t’ai (pronounced juh-tay) French adverb meaning: I have you or I’ve got you.

Krystena Lee is the author of the children’s book series Memory Verse Kids™ as well Ears to Hear, a paranormal fiction novel, that follows 12 year old boy as he begins to hear a strange voice. Her fiction pulls back the curtain on the unseen and makes the unknowable known. She also writes articles on faith, family and finding work. Her freelance writing services can be procured for writing resumés, cover letters, bios and all things SEO & copy writing.