12:03 am

I remember the first time I saw your name. It was on a computer printout of ordinary students and their grades in an ordinary computer class. I saw your grade-an 85, and I thought it was quite average. I remember how I felt when I saw your name, it was something vaguely familiar, like déjà vu, like coming home every night to a house in your dreams. I remember how I thought you were going to look like-thin, straight hair, with a hint of brown; pale fair skin; a little chunky, like a high school classmate with whom you share the same name. I even wondered if you would be a nice quiet person like he is.

I remember standing outside the doors of that classroom, gathering breath and courage to ask for you and your companion by name. A classmate called your attention; your companion wasn't there. You were leaning across a chair, directly in my line of vision. You might have been taking something out of your bag, or putting something in it. Your hand paused, still on the bag, the other on the arm of the chair. You tilted your head curiously, perhaps wondering if you've seen me before. I didn't expect to see you that soon. I could hear, through some fog in my mind, your female classmates tittering about "some girl wanting to see you" while I stood self consciously outside. They must've sensed something. And months afterward, as you told me of the feeling you had when I suddenly appeared in your life and in the doorway and asked for you… I wondered if the feeling was enough to explain everything that has happened.

Yes, I appeared unexpectedly at your doorstep like an orphaned child, but it was I who lost my senses when our eyes met. I looked at you, and my body was not mine anymore… I looked at you, and my spirit knew something I had not recognized then. It was the anticipation of a torture unwittingly planned yet excruciatingly carried out.

Could skin starve for the replication of a path that fingertips took? Could eyes cry without tears and still not hide the grief? Could thirsting lips still smile? Could longing be a physical pain? No. No. No. No.

So... was it what you wanted to know?