Reflections

Chapter2:TheDate

Saturday evening he invited me to go running with him. I have never gone running before. The only reason I ran in high school was because it was part of the curriculum and I had no choice. Not like I even liked it. But in varsity you want to blend. Try new things. That’s the only reason I agreed to go. Put my water bottle in the freezer and waited for the evening. Gosh, I didn’t even have running shoes. I just took the only sneakers I had and put on my leggings and a vest and went to the university field. I got there before him.

I waited for like 15 minutes and when I was about to give up and leave, I saw him panting and looking relentlessly around for me. It was as if he had waited until the last minute to leave his dorm. Maybe he had anticipated that I wouldn’t come, so he waited for me to arrive first. Almost made me look crazy desperate.

We went on for like four laps at first, during which I was fighting for my life before we took our first break. It was a starry spring night in mid-September. We took the chance to talk about astronomy. We now had more of the same interests. He went on and on like he was an expert in the field. I didn’t even want to continue jogging from the way I was enjoying his company. I was just looking at him and admiring how his jaw moved. Like a crazy fan seeing her idol for the first time. He turned and looked at me to find me staring. I reached for my water bottle and gulped down lots of water. I was red from embarrassment. Finally, I got my courage and said, “Please continue."

He was telling me a beautiful story about stars. He said, “according to legend, once upon a time in space." For someone who loved science, He loved fantasy as well and somehow it worked for him. I thought it was romantic. So, He continued on to say, “There were these two stars in space which were far away from each other, but these stars didn’t shine half as bright as other stars. Now, although they were in different places far away from each other, the magnetism between them was out of this world. One day a stray asteroid hit one of them, causing it to move closer to the other star, and together they have never shined so bright, closer to each other than they were apart. Now, I do not know if its fate or what, but that is how I feel about us. We could be like those stars”.

I was red crimson. I didn’t even know my face could turn that color. My cheeks were burning. I couldn’t stop smiling. He leaped in, I thought he was leaning for a kiss, so I slowly closed my eyes. When I felt no contact, I opened my eyes to see him reach for my water bottle. He took a huge gulp and finally said, “Are you up for more?’ I knew what he meant; we were there to jog after all.