When I saw him walking in the distance, I had no idea what this would turn into. I contemplated waving, but decided against it at the last minute when I watched him walk into our student center- I guessed that he hadn’t seen me. Later I would find out that he had, but was nervous and needed time to gain composure.

It was the Monday after we had returned from Thanksgiving break and I couldn’t wait to see him. Throughout the break he and I talked everyday and I had liked him since September. I was so nervous but so excited. I followed him in to the student center and met him at the water fountain. I greeted him with a slightly over eager “hello!” and he replied with a slightly squeaked “hi!” and that’s when I knew what I had suspected that morning we had a three hour breakfast- he was beginning to fall for me.

We left the student center and talked about something- I honestly don’t remember what. I remember some talk about how I was accident-prone and how I lived in a really rural area of Vermont, but I don’t remember much else. I was too busy studying his every movement and trying to anticipate his every move. He walked me to this spot he had discovered the other night with some of his friends. It was beautiful, this spot was; a grassy area near the art museum on campus that looked over the highway. In this spot you could actually see the stars and the highway looked almost magical- a beautiful mix of white, yellow, and red lights just soaring down the open road. Maybe it seems more magical now than when it happened, maybe that’s what memory does. Maybe memory changes how you view things. I don’t know, I’m still figuring it out.

We stood there for a while, talking about whatever two people on a first date talk about. I don’t know why we didn’t sit down, but we didn’t. The conversation never lagged. It just kept going and I was so happy just to be spending time with him. Somehow our conversation wandered to talking about the arboretum that was across the street from our campus and how I had never really been into it. According to him, this was basically a crime. So we walked down to the arboretum, hoping to get in even though we knew that it gets locked at night. We worked our way down the winding road along the arboretum and, inevitably, started holding hands. I think he mentioned something about his hands being cold and mine were warm so I offered them up. Eventually we realized there was no way into the arboretum and headed back towards campus and back to the spot where we started our night- our spot near the art museum.

We awkwardly walked back to our spot holding hands and occasionally walking with our arms around each other. I don’t know if we talked much during this walk. I was cold and he was cold- the autumnal chill was really starting to get to us. When we arrived back at our spot, we sat down together. We held hands and we snuggled and we talked. It was perfect. I had never felt more in sync with someone. Eventually, I started counting cars (I do this often, it’s one of my many strange quirks) and out of nowhere (although it wasn’t unexpected) he kissed me. We kissed there for a while and by the end of the night, I knew he was going to fall in love with me. And the moment that I knew he was going to fall in love with me, I knew I was already falling in love with him.