I thought I saw you but I couldn’t be sure. The wind was whipping and I had buried half of my face in a scarf, eyes watering searching for the path of least resistance among the black ice. You were walking around in a white T-shirt, though, fists carelessly loose arms swinging to an invisible beat. It must have been you. No one else would wear just a T-shirt in this weather.
But you have fooled me before. The other day, you were walking in front of me. I could tell by the way your feet planted and scuffed the dirt at each step, not so much pawing but a slow deliberate march. Your hair was messy, too. I wondered if you had gotten enough sleep last night. If your eyes were still bloodshot from a mind whirling too fast and fingers that labored to catch the grains of sand before they fell onto your bedsheets. You were wearing my favorite white T-shirt again, the one that brings out your cheekbones.
Sometimes I’ll be sitting in the cafe and someone will sit down next to me and I’ll think, I’ve finally got you. And I will convince myself of this fact until my coffee turns cold and that someone will have left and come back multiple times. I never raise my head.
I ran through the city last night when the lights were low and you called out to me in the darkness. I was so surprised that I ran all the way to the bridge by the water, the shadows pooling around my feet. The bridge was slick with condensation and the water resembled black sludge. I peered into its depths and for a second, I thought I saw a disembodied torso among the churning dead leaves and ice. I heard your laughter right behind me.
I look for your eyes everywhere. In newspapers, puddles of mudwater, the eggs that I eat for breakfast.
Tomorrow in the cafe I will listen carefully for the scratching of your steps and when you sit down next to me I will listen for the sound of your barking laughter, the hot breath of your internal monologue washing over me. I will look into the window and extract from the ghostly reflection the boy in the white T-shirt I have been in pursuit of dreaming of in the black river by the bridge. I may even reach out to touch you, my foot nudging yours under the table. But I dare not look up in fear that as soon as my eyes meet yours, I will recognize you for who you are.
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