“Our kids would be awful singers,” she says, staring at the ceiling, not letting go of our intertwined fingers, hands, arms and legs and toes. 

“I know. ‘Good singer’ would have to be one of our sperm donor requirements,” I reply.

“But then what if they still got our genes?”

 

We remember it the same.

Hot, sluggish summer mornings. 

Conversations bathing in detail, each of which

We remember because we agree upon the importance of memory.

 

             We’ve been lying on the queen-sized bed of her room in Brooklyn since last night. Somehow, it’s past lunch time. We probably shouldn’t have cancelled our only plan of the day. I feel the increasingly large knot forming in my hair as I pick up another pillow from the ground. I always throw the hard pillow on the floor before falling asleep because I don’t want to risk waking up with neck cramps. She has three under her from the barricade she perpetually creates for herself throughout the night. I stroke my messy hair. The very thought of the pain I will endure while untangling it keeps me from doing so.

             Lying on her side she now stares at me, reaching out her hand to indicate her desire to hold mine once more. Her thin body stretches across the grey linen comforter, almost fully separated from its insert. “Snile,” she whispers, staring at the mis-spelled ‘smile’ banner she made as a child. This isn’t the first time we have discussed this creative masterpiece. “I can’t even look at that anymore,” I respond. My eyes focus on the little crease separating her bottom lip from her chin. She never notices my regard but I keep scanning her features — deep brown eyes, unfairly beautiful thick brown curls. “Are you looking at my acne? I hate how you never have any.” I smile at her typical remark, her inability to recognize my adoration. The oversized teal t-shirt with drawings of Italian landmarks she stole from Jonas looks better on her this morning than any other. Or this afternoon, I guess. Light shines through the opaque white cotton curtains which don’t really do their job. Looking at me reading a few minutes later, she says I’m beautiful. I jokingly sing a few words of “Beautiful Girls,” hoping she’ll follow my lead. As expected she does, allowing me to hear her tone deafness. “I’m a disturbed person to have told you I’m tone deaf the first time we talked,” she says. “The second time, you mean.” She smirks at my remark and I can almost see her searching through her memory, hoping that this time she’ll find what I’m referring to. Her nose scrunches, communicating her inability to recall. 

I can’t believe she doesn't remember. I’ll never not remember. Let’s try telepathy.

 

             It was one of those college nights where everything seems the slightest bit too perfect. You know what I mean. I looked around and wondered how every person I love ended up in the same 30x20 foot living room. The Lindsey Lohan magazine photos and egg shaped paper cutouts on the walls hadn’t changed since September. The DJ seemed to have entered each person’s brain because every song pleased more than the last — no wonder you want him to DJ your wedding. The heat produced from dancing bodies permeated the room and coated each of us with a distastefully sexy layer of sweat. Upon the first sensation of discomfort I stepped outside to smoke a cigarette in the cool January air. An unexpectedly friendly conversation occurred with the drunken stranger who offered me a lighter. I came back inside and saw my friends moving synonymously, eyes closed and smiling. I joined them and for a moment didn’t know where I was because of the numbing feeling of the flashing lights. That kind of party. 

             Lucy let out an ecstatic scream when she noticed you behind her. My goal for the evening had been to catch someone’s attention, but his attention was caught by someone else. I moved into the center of the room to find Lucy and distract myself from him. She made me laugh and I forgot my disappointment. I can’t recall the song playing but want it to have been “Homecoming” by Kanye West or “American Boy” by Estelle. Months later you told me those two tie for “top song that makes you dance.” You two exchanged a hug after she saw you. I stood behind her, unable to catch a glimpse of you, and grew curious about who you were. Oh sorry! Cleo, this is Lola. If you remembered you would know I grew uncommonly nervous. My first instinct was to reach out my hand for a shake. Your hand was warm and you exclaimed an overly-enthusiastic yet evidently blurry “hello!”. I grinned as I grasped that too many shots had made their effect on your 100-pound body. I’d noticed you in the dining hall a few times before, intrigued by your fearless energy and beauty, by your striped-shirt-and-dark-pants uniform.

             Three weeks passed before Lucy shared my absolutely secret infatuation with you and we exchanged more than a hello.

 

You remember it differently. 

The way we first met. 

The first time I said it, the first time you thought it, 

the moment we knew it. 

But I remember it differently too.

 

             “Can we please eat something? I'm starting to get hangry,” she says as I blink back to reality. Blood rushes to my head when I stand and attempt to find a sweatshirt. “I can cook? Or do you want to order?” I pause from my search to see why she hasn't answered my question. Fixated on her phone screen, she’s unable to give me a response. It’s the ADD. I can’t lie down again if I want any chance at remaining vertical for some part of the day, so I head out the room and down the creaky, deep brown, wooden staircase. “Where did you go?” she yells from the bed after ten minutes. “Eggs and french toast! I couldn’t decide,” I shout back, waiting to hear her coming down the stairs. 

 

             Small flash forward.

             I look into the sink in disgust. The sticky bread crust and scrambled eggs hit it off and left their residue for me to deal with. She knows I can clean anything but the sink itself. She taps my shoulder signaling her kind request for me to move. 

 

             Medium flash forward.

             It’s been nine weeks and there’s only more waiting to look forward to. Her world is a coffee shop and tuna melts and three roommates and a middle-aged Republican neighbor who they’re embarrassed to like. Mine is a campus I can’t escape and Thelma and Louise and veggie sausage and friends who I love and who also love me. Hers is me through the phone and mine is her through the phone.

 

             Big flash forward.

             4:30pm and the room doesn’t even need curtains because darkness permeates the entire city of New York. There’s supposed to be snow tomorrow, but we agree the weather people cannot be trusted. “Close your eyes, I think I want to give them to you now,” she says as she gets out of the grey linen and bounces off the bed. I hear her scrambling through her walk-in closet. “Ok,” she warns me, “I know I’ve said this but don’t expect anything. It’s stupid, really.” I take my hands off my face. She doesn’t seem to understand I’ll be happy with anything. This is the first gift she’s given me. “See, I told you, they’re just silly trinkets.” The start of a letter she tried to write eleven weeks ago. A blank birthday card and a satirical collection of erotic short-stories. Fancy canned tuna.

 

We pretend as though the differences in memory matter,

That difference equals frightening when really it doesn’t.

In combined interpretation, in our neurotic overthinking, 

We remember.