Cactus Juice Romances

Episode 1: Starbucks Girl

So, Ms. Anderson, you asked whether I met any interesting people over the summer... Well, there was this one girl...

You want a longer answer? Jeez, demanding. Okay fine, I'll give you a longer answer. But first, I'll give you a better question. How do you start a conversation with a stunning stranger in Starbucks?

Okay, so after my early summer break-up, I utterly immersed myself in work, that's how we engineering types numb our emotions; but two months later, I found myself simultaneously in desperate need of female interaction and also sitting across from a very very cute girl; bad combination. She was sitting on the other side of the big table in Starbucks and I was like, this girl is SOOO cute. If I don't talk to her, my life will be a minimum of 20\% less awesome. So, I dropped my super cliche Ochem memes, I see the molecules in her notebook, and asked her for her name. I didn't know what was gonna happen, just that she smelled like the best thing in the world and she has really cute dimples when she laughed.

I got her number. And her Insta, and Facebook, and Snap. We started texting 'til 2 am. We got that red heart on Snapchat. We talked about our families, our majors and classes, our dreams. Our similarities were a little crazy. She was passionate pre-med major with a spontaneous little brother who loves computers and math. My commanding older sister is biomedical engineering Ph. D. and my hands feel like they have arthritis from coding in Java(and vim). Her parents came from the same city in India as my parents which meant we spoke the same mother-tongue! She was the second American born Indian I'd found who spoke my language. She loved to sing, and dance, and drink LOTS of coffee. We debated everything from the best characters in The Office and Parks and Rec to our experiences being a boy or girl growing up in traditional Indian families. She opened my eyes to the underestimating words I never knew my sister had to face, and I hope I gave her a glimpse into why her brother puts up his false show of arrogance all the time. I didn't need to tell her how my family barely interacts with each other, she stopped me early to show me exactly how well she knew the pain I felt. Sure, I was in the Bay, and she was in Seattle, but I'd never felt so close to anyone in my life.

I came back to Seattle and, while she was still living at home, we started working 5 minutes away from each other. I took her on daily awkward lunch dates. I had drinks and deep talks with her friends. And, she slipped that 'I was cute' into a late-night text and I fell asleep smiling and thinking of her.

And then she finally moved back to campus. Summer had ended and fall quarter was coming. But then she drew back, but I didn't know exactly why but I knew I didn't want to stop whatever this was. One week in, she sent THE text. The ones where she said she couldn't do this with me. The ones where she where she said she couldn't be in a relationship. The ones where she told me didn't want to burden or lead on me because she wasn't sure what she wanted.

I didn't know what to say. All I could send her was my stunned read receipts. Three days passed.

"Are you okay? Haven't heard from you in a while :/" she said.

"Yea I'm good. I've been busy" I replied.

Read at 11:47 pm. I stared at my phone with the parties raging around me. "Look I'm okay with how you feel, but can we meet up and talk about it? I just want to understand."

"..." I could see her typing, erasing, and typing again. The stupid, freaking snapchat bitmoji of her impossibly cute face kept popping up. I knew I just needed to give her a reason to say yes.

"This guy can barely stand up, I need to get him home, so I'm coming to West Campus already."

"ok"

"cool, I'll be there in 10"

Thanks, Amit.

I ran from Greek row to the Mercer Residential Hall, where she was waiting outside.

Her eyes opened wide with concern as soon as she saw me, "I'm really really Sorry" I'd heard it before. I knew how to play it off. But this time, it mattered to me more. A LOT MORE

"Haha, its okay." I was gasping for breath while wiping off sweat and still trying to look mediocrely attractive. "Sooo what happened?"

She told me about her ex, about her difficult last relationship. The friendships she had lost after starting small things with guys. The fact she felt like she was an emotional roller-coaster.

It was all just part of who person I had come to really really like and care about.

I spent two more hours telling her why I was okay with all the problems she had and that I wanted to help her work through them. And she said, "Do you see me right now? Are you sure you want to deal with this?" She said waving at herself. I took one look, pulled her close and kissed her.

And that was supposed to be all she wrote. But three days later, she needed to talk again. I ran to her apartment. Again. My heart was pounding but I just wanted to her to feel the way she'd made me feel the last three days. She told me she'd thought before maybe this could work, but she'd gone from blissfully happy to having no idea what she was doing in the span of a couple hours. She said she wasn't in the right place, she couldn't settle on her emotions. And she wasn't over her ex-boyfriend. Nothing I could say would change her mind. I told a girl I loved her for the first time in my life, and she said I'm sorry.

How am I? I'm fine. I'll just pretend it was all in my head. I've done it before, and I'll do it again. Yeah. I'll just tell myself I had too much cactus juice. LOL ez