What’s your name?

I don’t know her name.

I feel like I run into her more times than I should. In passing, on campus, on the metro when I’m on my way back home. Subtle and swift moments that last only but a second or two. 

Last night, I was walking my dog. Snowflakes danced along the frigid wind before daintily meeting the ground. The people of Lyon were undeterred by the cold, socializing with friends and going to bars and parties. 

Me on the other hand? I was hurrying home to play my new video game! After a long week of late nights, coffee, and coding for a computer science project I totally didn’t procrastinate, it was time for a break. 

The sky was beautiful that night. Through the clouds, you could catch glimpses of the sea of brilliant stars that reside above them. I imagined myself swimming in that astral sea when a bump on the shoulder had me crashing back to reality. I turned around and it was her again. 

I could tell because she always had on those headphones—the ones with the googly eyes pasted on them. The headphones are always the first thing I notice. The second thing is her face. Written on it was always an expression that said she was lost in her thoughts. This time she barely looked over her shoulder, and I caught a glimpse of something sparkling, but it wasn’t a star. It was a tear. I guess her thoughts were sad that time.

Like all of our other encounters, it was over in a breath. I watched her ascend further and further up the stairs until she was out of sight and my eyes went to my dog who was sniffing something on the ground, something that wasn’t there a breath ago. A book. Her book. 

It was the morning after now and I was on the metro to school. I flipped the book back and forth and looked at the cover as if doing so would magically make her appear in front of me. 

“I won’t have to hold onto this for too long,” I thought to myself. “For some reason or another, we pass by each other where I can definitely get her book back to her. I’m sure she misses it.”

I arrived at my stop and walked to school. No googly eyes. I got through two of my first classes and ate lunch at my usual cafe. No googly eyes. Finally, it was my last class. 

Maybe my awkwardly flipping the book back and forth and looking at the cover made her disappear instead of making her immediately show up. Curse my fidgeting! Hold on, matter of perspective here. Maybe I am magical. I mean, whenever I see her there’s this inexplicable friction in the air, like it’s vibrating.

I looked at my hands as I exited my final class, “Am I… a wizard?” I thought to myself. These delusions occupied my brain instead of the math equations that my professor lectured on.

The setting sun was painting streaks of vermillion and scarlet across the sky. These broad strokes bathed the city in their warm colors, almost as if Lyon was placed next to a fireplace. I was feeling the heat too, standing on the crowded rush hour metro back to my apartment. 

I held the book in my hand once more and gave a defeated sigh. I looked at the front cover for the twentieth time. My eyes wandered as I put it in my bag when I made direct eye contact with eyes that were on the side of a girl’s head. Googly eyes. Just a metro car away there she was, in her own world again with her headphones on.

The beep before the opening of the doors was the starting gun. I tried to push through but was swallowed by the current of people that flowed out and scattered around the station. I frantically searched and spotted those eyes again just as they were leaving the station.

I bolted toward the exit and searched once more. She rounded a street corner and I followed. I gained sight of her once more—wow she was elusive! It was on that same set of stairs that I finally caught up to her.

“Um excuse me?” I peeped, just a few steps behind, not wanting to tap her shoulder.

She didn’t hear me. Great.

My cheeks burned a bit and I was glad that I was breathing so hard that no one could tell if it was from embarrassment or not. “Excuse me!”

I had pierced her protective barrier against social interaction: she turned around and lifted one of her earphones. And judging from the look on her face, not many have attempted to.

She looked at me expectantly in the afternoon light. Oh shoot, that’s right! Words! Uh…

I presented her book. “I think this is yours? I think we bumped into each other last night and you dropped it.”

Her eyes widened with recognition she hurried over and I handed it to her. “Oh, thank you! I was afraid I’d lost it! Yeah, last night I was um…” She was looking for the right word to say. “Well, thank you.” She couldn’t find it.

“Yeah, no worries,” I managed to say.

She gave a smile and a nod and turned to leave. There was that friction in the air again. As if the molecules were on the fritz and jumping back and forth. So many thoughts and questions fluttered through my head, but the one I needed to know now, the one that burned the most was…

“Hey!”

She turned around. For some reason, I wasn’t expecting that, and a nervous lump got stuck in my throat. I was able to swallow it and asked, “What was your name by the way?”

“Oh, uh, it’s Jade. What’s your name?” she asked.

The butterflies in my stomach flew up my throat and made me smile. “It’s—”