Author's note: this is the first installment in a ten-part series.
~
All of a sudden, here he is,
the guy
. I suppose I had forgotten about him over the summer. But when I see him in the locker room, walking toward where I am sitting on the bench, the memory of him comes back with a flutter in my stomach. This is the guy who I kept seeing around campus last year, who always seemed to catch my eye, even if it was from far away. I must have met him at some point early on, maybe during orientation last year, or maybe at some party, so that afterward, when we saw each other, we were in that awkward category of recognition where it's not clear if we are supposed to say hello or otherwise acknowledge each other's presence.
Most likely he would have faded into that nebulous mass of familiar faces on campus except for the odd feeling I got whenever I saw him, something simultaneously unsettling and exciting. That, and he always seemed to light up whenever he saw me. He would grin and give me a little nod whenever we passed each other on the quad.
These thoughts speed through my mind as he walks toward me, now.
He stops at an empty locker across from me and throws some clothes down onto the bench, a gray and white striped rugby shirt and blue shorts. He looks at me and there is a flicker of recognition on his face. He smiles, the same grin he flashed at me all last year when we'd see each other around campus. I smile back.
"Hey," he says.
"Hey," I say.
I figure he is having the same thoughts as me. He had probably "forgotten" about me. I was one of those people he'd met once or twice during freshman orientation, or we'd chatted while drunk at any one of the endless parties that had continued well into the fall. But not since then. I wasn't a friend or really even an acquaintance, just someone he peripherally "knew".
"Rec soccer?" he asks, nodding at my cleats and laces, which are lying on the floor.
"Yeah," I say. "You?"
"Yep. I need the exercise."
"Me too," I say, laughing.
~
I really do need the exercise. My schedule this semester is insane. Against the advice of my advisor, I signed up for two of the hardest classes in the chem major simultaneously. On top of that, I am taking an upper-level politics class and an intermediate algorithms class in the comp sci track, since I am trying to decide if I want to add a major in either, or both, of these departments. I am also treasurer of the Persian Student Association, thanks to my troublesome and persistent friend, Mahan, who nominated me last year in spite of my objections.
Looking at my calendar as classes were about to start, I realized I was going to have to schedule in some regular exercise; otherwise, I would never make time for it. I had an extra half-credit of wiggle room, so I perused the various recreational module classes offered through the athletics department. I scrolled past soccer, not really giving it a second thought. Once I reached the end of the page, though, nothing else really stood out except for swimming, but the thought of wearing a swimsuit in front of a ton of people... I gave it a hard
no
. On impulse, I scrolled back up and clicked the link for soccer.
I told myself I would take it easy and just enjoy the game. It was just way to wedge some aerobic exercise into my week, nothing more. I had played on competitive club soccer teams from fourth grade through middle school. As a freshman in high school, I played on the JV team and made varsity the next year, the only sophomore to do so. For my size, I was surprisingly fast, and I excelled as a midfielder. The one year I played varsity, our team placed third at state, the best our school had ever done. I was in summer training before my junior year when I suffered a complete tear and detachment of my quadriceps tendon and had to quit.
My parents were devastated. But, honestly, for me, the injury had been a relief. My body really wasn't cut out for soccer. By sixteen, my proportions were all wrong. I was too tall and too bulky. I'd always trended toward stocky, but once I hit fifteen or so, I started to put on weight quickly, both fat and muscle. As I filled out, the game became more and more of a grind, and the huge time commitment strained everything else in my life.
Mostly, I had been playing soccer so zealously in an attempt to be the perfect, well-rounded scholar/athlete I thought I needed to be to get the best scholarships, get into the best colleges, have the golden career that my parents -- achievement-obsessed immigrants from Iran -- expected of me. After my injury, I doubled down on my studies to make up for my perceived deficit. I took math, science, and Farsi courses at the local university in the afternoons and evenings on top of my high school courses. To keep fit, I would train in the weight room with my soccer buddies in the mornings before class. I guess it's fair to say I worked myself harder than ever.
In the end, I got into the schools I needed to in order to appease my parents. They were a little upset that I chose to attend the farthest possible school from them, on the opposite coast, but they couldn't argue with the brand name. I needed a break from my family, and going away to a place where I didn't know anyone felt like the best way to do that.
For a while at least, I felt I had found the freedom I was seeking when I got to school. I quickly met a group of guys who became good buddies. We drank and smoked weed together, something I'd never done in high school. I went to parties. I met a ton of people. I made out with girls and had even drunkenly hooked up with a few of them. For the first time in my life, I felt unburdened.
Pretty soon, though, the intensity of college kicked in. My AP courses and college credit had waived me out of most of the intro classes required for my major, which meant I was taking relatively intense courses as a first-semester freshman. My friends continued to party pretty hard and I joined them when I could, but I ended up drifting away from the social scene and just studied really, really hard. I didn't really miss the parties, honestly, or the socializing. I was truly absorbed by my work.
I decided not to go home over the summer, and placated my parents by landing a paid internship at a nearby pharmaceutical company. I worked really hard there, too. Everyone I interacted with at the company was older and had a family, so there wasn't really anyone to hang out with. When I wasn't in the lab, I worked on computer programming projects, and worked out in the small gym in the apartment building where I was subletting. It was lonely, but again, I loved the work I was doing and found myself ever more enamored with the world of chemistry and chemical engineering. After a brief trip home in August to see my parents and sister, here I am, back for my second year of college, facing another daunting semester.
~
And here
he
is. I watch his back as he unbuttons and removes his shirt. He has a farmer tan that reveals he was probably wearing tank tops all summer. He is slim. Well, not slim, exactly, but his frame and musculature are definitely set slighter than mine, and I can tell he is generally a thin, lanky guy. But there is also an intriguing thickness to him. It looks like he is carrying some extra weight, like maybe he never shed that freshman fifteen, or maybe twenty.
My heart is thudding hard in my chest. I find that I can't tear my gaze away from him.
He is my height...
