do you remember

Coming out the dining commons, I saw that a girl had locked her bike to mine. I decided to finish the beets in my hand while waiting and thinking about how many times this would happen to me. I imagined by the time I’d be done, she’d come out to unlock her bike. She had a beach cruiser, a pastel one like many of the other girls. I waited for about an hour. In the meantime, I tried to kick her cheap bike apart and pry open her lock with a pine needle. Eventually, I accepted that she wasn’t coming out.

I walked by myself to the lab. I realized how peaceful the bike path by the tower was at night. I rarely took the time to walk down that path. At the lab, I sat down by a computer on the first floor to study for the french final. I looked down at my bloody beet hands. Soon, I saw that he was sitting next to me. He had biked from his house in the city. His wide eyes were beaming red, his sandals broken in.

We left the lab at midnight. When we walked next to each other, I noticed we were wearing the same pants. We both thought about how he waited 4 years to ask me “what’s our assignment for french?” I told him about my bike story and he laughed. After he got on his bike and rode away, I thought about checking on my own bike. Instead, I inhaled and walked all the way home in one breath.