sometimes I look at a stranger by warren green

She went to a private school so she was probably wearing the uniform. Her hair was dyed pink and there were Sharpie blossoms drawn onto her forearm. My friend Molly introduced us. After that we were inseparable for about 3 years. It just made sense. We were each the people we were supposed to be with back then. My parents adored her. Exactly what they wanted for their children.

On our first “date”, we sat in the cafeteria and tried to talk other over the bustle outside, never sure if we were hearing each other, but dreading awkward silences, trying our best to keep our voices running. My movements were clumsy. We were at a football game or something under social obligation and would take the first chance we got to split away. I remember looking at her next to me that night and thinking: I can make this last forever. 

I also remember knowing that wasn’t true. I think I was trying to convince myself more than anything. I wanted to prove to myself that I could do it. That I could live a normal life like that. What was I so afraid of? 

Sometimes I look at strangers and wonder how long they’ve known each other.

In the passenger seat, he struggled to find a song that fit the mood and the feng shui in the Audi. The leather seats seemed untouched and untempted. Empty Juul pods littered the cupholders. Liam, whom he hadn’t seen since middle school, picked him up on his block. They had run into each other at a party earlier that night. He hadn’t wanted to leave, but his girlfriend insisted that they go home. I’m sure she was going through something that he didn’t notice. He had his mind on other things. 

They fought once they got back to her place, so he stormed home. That's when Liam came over.

“Smoke?” he asked. 

“Thanks. You got a light?” the indulgent Liam mumbled from the driver's seat as he gazes with the headlights through the thicket of the hill. The boy had stolen the pack from his grandfather who lived next door at the time. Neither of them were smokers, but it felt like a good time for it. 

They seemed committed to wasting time, parked in that dead end. “Where have you been all my life?” They struggled to get comfortable stretching their limbs around the center console that was keeping them apart.

VVVVRRRRRrrrrrr. The engine revved. He watched the boy’s eyes drop in the rear view mirror. “Where are we going? I don't want to go home yet.”

“Let’s just drive.”

I wondered if this was a first date or a goodbye and farewell to what could’ve been. That blonde colt wasn’t the first guy he had been with, as ashamed as I am to admit it. He was the only one that ever meant anything to that kid⁠—to me.

Sometimes I look at a stranger and wonder how long I’ve known them.

We got dinner once during my second semester at Fordham. She went to Manhattan College. It was the first time we had seen each other since graduation. I couldn’t believe she would even see me after what did to her. I didn’t know how to express how sorry I was. I said it in as many ways as I could. I wish I had done things differently. I wish I wouldn’t have allowed my problems to affect someone else so drastically. I wish I had been honest with myself.

“How have you been?” she asked. 

“I’ve been alright. How about you?” 

She looked so different; her clothes were pressed and her hair was straight and cut short. She seemed happy. I didn’t want to think about the past. We were both determined to put it behind us. We both knew she was better off without me. 

I remember thinking that we were both strangers then. We had been best friends once.

Sometimes I look at strangers and wonder how long we’ve known each other.

Now, I look back at myself in these memories, and I don’t recognize the choices I’ve made or the thoughts that had beat in my ears like a pulse. They seem so unfamiliar and foreign to me now. How could I have been so cruel? I wonder: Do they—these characters in the semi-lucid dreams that are my memories—know the me from then better than I myself do now?