Love at First Conversation

I laid in an unfamiliar bed that squeaked in response to every breath I took. My head rested inches away from a penis-shaped rocket ship that was carefully sketched in pencil on the wall. I stared up, admiring how the sun skates across the naked ceiling, flirting with each crystal throughout the room, birthing rainbows that stretched corner to corner. My motto, “Grow through what you go through,” tossed and turned in the back of my mind trying to get comfortable in its new environment: college.

That night, I found myself out and about, following the sounds of instruments, freedom, and new beginnings until I came across a sporadically put together drum circle. Blanketed by the light of the stars, sitting cross-legged on the sharp grass, occupied by swaying and singing, I didn’t notice her.

Voices collided and the sounds of each instrument took up the negative space. When silence reached the circle, in hopes to keep the unity lasting, I loudly requested that everyone play a John Mayer song. The suggestion was alarmingly and exclusively rejected. Secretly embarrassed and equally disappointed, I settled on sitting and talking to people I hadn’t met, inspecting new personalities.

Not long passed before I noticed an entirely new face approaching. She sat on a tree stump and looked down at me, “You were the one that wanted to hear a John Mayer song right?” My heart skipped a beat as I prepared for a joking insult, but instead, as soon as I smiled and admitted it, her fingers tickled her acoustic guitar, molding the instrumental to "Gravity." The moon glistened on the wood of her guitar and the strings wrestled with the strokes of her fingertips. Her lips pressed together and a hum was born. The combination of the two both kissed my ears and liquidized my heart.

She finished impressing me and smoothly started up a conversation, asking, “Your name’s Chloé right? We’re friends on Facebook.” A rush of emotions hit me: concern, confusion, flattery, all of which were visible on my face. I assured her that that was my name but that Facebook was a social media account I rarely checked. I was blushing more than I ever had before, but thankfully the dark night shielded my humiliation.

I apologized for not recognizing her and explained to the best of my nervous ability that I didn’t know how to even work the social media app, never mind see who my "friends" were. She casually asked for my phone number and I more than willingly gave it number by number, while agreeing we should hang out some time in the near future. Unbeknownst to the both of us, "near future" meant twenty minutes from then.

She texted me as soon as we went our separate ways, ignoring the popular unofficial rule of waiting three or so days. I invited her to my dorm that night and rushed to freshen up.

She arrived accompanied by her guitar and the most genuinely beautiful, glistening smile I had ever opened a door to. This was the first time we had seen each other in more light than the stars and moon offered. She was exquisite.

Before coming inside my room, she took off her shoes and politely asked if I wanted the door opened or closed, allowing me to choose the level of intimacy in the space. We talked for hours that night and the next, picking each other's brains about unsolvable concepts, permitting our thoughts to contort and overlap. Any type of awkwardness between us exhausted itself and dissipated in less than an hour of the first night she was in my room. Diving deep into conversations, we babbled on as if time was only a concept. Unbinding thoughts we had never explored and challenging each other to elaborate and teach the other something new.

After two conversations and two days of knowing each other, we were already shamelessly serious, goofy, sensitive, vulnerable, intrigued, everything in between, and best of all, comfortable. Hour by hour we unconsciously moved around the room, taking up space mentally and physically, searching for newfound comfortability, unaware that we were gravitating towards each other, like two magnets accepting their fate.

Days passed and conversations never ran dry. After our second late night together, I thought to myself, “I could love her.” I suppressed this thought and defined it as a delusional one, stemming from the excitement of being at college. I figured, “Sure I could love her, she is an amazing and interesting individual. Having love for her doesn’t mean I’m in love with her; I have love for all of my friends.” Time slowly passed, and the thought weighed down on my heart. I could love her. I did love her, and I love her even more now. It was, as I call it, love at first conversation.