Looking For a Memory

First impressions are everything, which is exactly why I remember the most minute, miniscule details, instead of their first impressions. The first time I met up with Tyler I prepared myself alone in my room instead of like usual when Ada and Amareah were there and I could hangout with them before. I put my earbuds in, left my dorm, and walked down the hallway, nervous because I had decided to show up in my slippers and they sounded differently on the carpeted floor of the dorm hallway than my sneakers. I was listening to music but I was not listening, it was drowned out by the thumping of my heart that I felt in every limb of my body. I decided to take the stairs and with every step my anxiety and height grew. I reached the floor he lived on, pulled out my phone with a shaky hand, and texted him that I was here.

He opened the door to the dorm section and I followed behind him, looking all around me like I always do when I’m in a new place. Being a boys dorm there was a stale smell lingering, but it disappeared once we got to his dorm room. He took off his boots and immediately shoved them under the broken black futon against the wall, being held up by an unidentified black object. I made him give me a room tour, even though I had already made all my observations when I entered the room, I needed something to calm me down. He detailed everything in his room, including his roommate’s unmade bed, family size jar of peanut butter, and general unclean state that he did not associate with. He had a top bunk with the bed made so well it looked like it had never been slept in. His corner of the room was full of his instruments and records.

He spoke with an accent I was not expecting, southern but unsure of it. I let him do all the talking which his anxiety met by twiddling his thumbs the entire time and profusely apologizing for the unsupported state of the futon he had been gifted as a hand-me-down from his older sister who is also in college. I remember feeling myself ease, not freed of anxiety, but I realized this was a good kind of scared. I didn’t want this to be an experience that “at least I tried” and “if I don’t like it, I don’t have to see them again,” I wanted to see him again within the first five minutes of being around him. A comfortable, exciting nervousness, racing thoughts of “does he like me,” sneaking glances at him because neither would dare to make eye contact for longer than a second, Seinfeld on the TV with a plot wasted on me because that isn’t what I was paying attention to, distracted by the flickering street lamp outside of his window and the rowdy thumps and crashes of the teenage boys above. All of these distractions and details make up a day that I will never regret.