You notice him gradually. Like early morning dawn. A shadow here, an outline there, blue, green, redyellowpink, and before you've realized it, morning is spilling through your window like the tide, urging you awake with just enough time to catch your 7:30 AM lecture, halfway across campus.
He's like that.
He's in your Tuesday/Thursday Chemistry lab, geeky and brooding and alluring (god, even a little bit sexy, you allow yourself to think). You sneak glances at him over the flame of your Bunsen burner, but Andrew's the one who sends flowers to your dorm.
You had boyfriends in high school. You weren't a total square. You even allowed one of them to walk that delicately blurred line of technicality (you're still a virgin—technically). Andrew is College and Attractive and In A Fraternity, each word capitalized with importance.
And yet, the boy with the nose-that's-too-large-for-his-face and the lips-that-make-you-a-little-dizzy lingers in your mind like an unsolved problem. And unsolved problems intrigue you. You've always been the sort that demands solutions.
….
He seems to follow you. Or do you seem to follow him? Regardless, he flits in and out of your days like a hummingbird, gone before you realize he was even there. He lurks in the library and hides in the halls, and each small flit captivates you further, until you want nothing more than to capture him, to hide him in your dorm room so you can pore over him for hours, cataloguing his every hidden secret.
Fox. That's his name, you find. Such an uncommon name for such an uncommon boy. You want to pet his soft fox-fur and fall inside his dark fox-eyes while sipping coffee and debating Einstein.
Intelligence and torment ooze from his pores like honey, yet they're so quiet you wonder whether anyone besides you can hear them. You relish in their sticky whispers, hoping one day to hear them directly against your ear.
….
Andrew breaks up with you. It hurts (you didn't love him, but it feels like a failure all the same). Your girlfriends take it even worse than you do. You drown in their sympathies until you're desperate for a life ring. When you slip away, they don't even notice you're gone.
You act appropriately upset for an appropriate amount of time (there are unspoken rules for these things). Until Tuesday comes.
And then there he is. Lonely and sulking at a lab table, in Converse all stars and acid washed jeans. You've never seen anything so adorably pathetic in your entire life.
You pick up your Bunsen burner and whisper against its small copper ear, "Don't let me down." It seems only fitting that a fiery piece of lab equipment should be the one to light this very first match. When you sit beside him, he smells like foxhole secrets and pepperoni pizza.
You think you may be falling for him, and he hasn't even opened his eyes.
….
He steals it. The Bunsen burner. The first time you visit his dorm room, it's there, tucked on a shelf between a basketball and boombox. Basketball, Bunsen burner, boombox. You're more than charmed by his unintentional alliteration.
His space is so different than Andrew's. It's mysterious and cozy and unquestionably male. It draws you in and invites you to stay. Sitting on his rumpled bed together (your mother would be ashamed; your sister would be impressed), you tell each other stories late into the night. His are wild and strange and unbelievable, and his eyes light up in the darkened room like fireflies. You want to catch them and save them in a mason jar. You want to bask in their glow when you're lonely.
He finds your hand on the bed, plays with your fingers, traces your lifeline. Your heart thumps more wildly than it ever did with Andrew (and Andrew did a lot more than touch your hand).
By midnight, he's discovered your arm. You gasp mid-debate when he grazes the crook of your elbow.
By 1:00, he's hovering beside you, and for some unknown reason you're still talking (maybe it's a good time to stop?). Your mouth finally gets the message when his breath warms your cheek. The moment before a first kiss is better than the darkest chocolate, you think.
His firefly-eyes close. His pink fox-tongue flicks out to wet his full fox-lips. You hold your breath.
His roommate returns, and the light and sound slams against the two of you like hurricane wind.
He calls you later, after walking you home in the dark, just to hear you breathe. You sit on the phone for twenty minutes, and it's the most romantic thing you've ever done, listening to a boy breathe after almost kissing him in his dorm room at 1:00 in the morning.
….
When you think of him the next day, you get goosebumps (and you've done nothing but, since then). He makes you giddy. Your friends say he's strange, but you find his strangeness exciting. He's intense and vulnerable and seeping into your skin like raindrops.
He's a quirky old novel (you imagine blowing the dust from his cracked leather binding). One that's hidden in the back corner of a used bookstore. One that changes you, alters you— even this soon, even in the middle of the first chapter, even before you've shared your very first kiss.
You're in the library when your hairs stand on end. Maybe it's an electrical storm, you think. But in your next breath, you realize the electricity is HIM. He's neutrons and protons and electrons, imploding quietly in the very next aisle. His sparks hit your arm (he's in Roman Literature, you're in Greek Tragedies) and he catches your eye between the spines of Medea and Antigone.
You blush (your damn fair skin), and his mouth curves up like a comma. Before you know it, he's sweeping you through the stacks to the most tucked-away little corner you think you've ever seen (weren't you just picturing him somewhere like this?). There's no-one around, and frankly, you wouldn't care, because you've thought of nothing but his lips since 1:00 this morning.
You giggle, then curse yourself for being such a child. He wants a college woman, not a little girl. But then oh my god, his fingers are in your hair, and your giggle turns into a gasp, and you feel more like a woman right now then you've ever felt in your entire life.
"I've been thinking about you," he murmurs, and it's wonderful, the boy you've fallen for saying such a thing.
"Me too," you whisper. You can still see the firefly glint in his eyes, and you wonder whether anyone else ever noticed. Whether anyone took the time.
"Sorry about last night," he says. You slump against a shelf full of fiction as his hand slides its way down your neck.
"S'okay," you breathe, hoping you don't sound as desperately in love as you feel.
"My roommate's timing kind of sucks," he chuckles, and your eyes linger over his bottom lip as he speaks. It's soft and plump, and reminds you of a cherry gumdrop. You want to taste it.
He curls around you, and you realize how very, very tall he is. He's a towering sequoia to your mulberry bush, yet your roots are already entwining. You grip his shirt in your fists as you tilt your neck—back and back—until your head is resting fully against Judy Blume (Are you there God? It's me, Dana. And I'm about to be kissed by the most beautiful boy in the world).
Your eyes flutter closed and your heart skips a beat, and your knees turn slowly to rubber. His breath against your lips makes you tremble. It's perfect.
"The library is NOT the backseat of your father's car!" says a voice as shrill as a teapot's whistle.
He pulls away, and you feel like crying.
….
It's time for class anyway, but as you make your way to English Lit., you can't help but press your fingers to your lips. The void of his lips against them is tangible. Already he belongs there; already you miss something you've never even had.
He finds you in the dining hall that evening, tugs you away from your flock of twittering pigeons (you secretly delight in their astonished open beaks). His tight grip on your hand as you make your way across campus feels like a secret. Everything about him feels like a secret, you realize, a delicious secret that belongs to only the two of you.
"Where are we going?" you ask breathlessly, struggling to keep up with his pace.
"My friend has an apartment off campus. He's gone for the weekend…," he leaves it hanging there like a piñata.
In your mind, you pick up a stick. You swing, and imagine thousands of cherry gumdrops, falling down like rain. Your mouth waters.
As he unlocks the door, you can feel your heart racing. You somehow realize that this moment will transform itself into one of the most pivotal of your life. Can you really properly prepare for something so significant?
The apartment looks (not surprisingly) like a thrift store, mismatched furniture abound. But there's not a single roommate in sight. Nor a single librarian. Just him. And you.
He takes your hand and leads you across the room. To a large, black, leather couch. You roll your eyes at the cliché of it, until you're seated, and the perfection gives you chills. How can a piece of furniture feel like it touches your soul? "Nice couch," he says, and you can tell he feels it, too.
You look at him. He looks at you. Excitement and fear and anticipation weigh on your shoulders like anvils. It's divine. It's scary. It's finally happening.
He bites his lip (lord help you) and looks you in the eye. Then murmurs, "Dana, I…I've really never felt like this before…like there's something…something greater…" He stumbles his way over the words as if they're cobblestones. But there's no need, none at all. Because you've never-felt-like-this-before either. And you're both never-feeling-like-this-before at the same time. Together.
He tries to continue, "I just…just…"
Your mother would gasp if she knew you made the first move, but his lips are calling to you like a child who's lost its way. Right here, right here, this is where you belong, yours whisper. You climb up on your knees (he's so very tall), and you kiss him. You fall against his mouth and swallow the rest of his stumbling words down your throat.
And he kisses you back.
And his mouth. And his lips. And his tongue. They're so much better than a cherry gumdrop. They're love and lust and home and comfort and trust.
He pulls you closer, and you're drowning. You realize already that you'll never gain your fill of him. His lips touch places so deep inside you, you didn't even know they existed. His fingers twine through your hair, and you slide your greedy hands across the expanse of this chest. When he breathes your name, the sound of it matches that of your most secret fantasies.
You stay on that big, black couch for hours, kissing and touching and kissing some more, until your lips are swollen and your jaw is raw from his stubble. Until your body aches at the thought that it will ever need to leave him.
He's everything.
He's nothing like Andrew, nothing like those boys in high school.
He's Fox Mulder, and he's a part of you now.
…
He inherits the couch from his friend.
It's your very favorite place in the world—it's where the two of you began.
The Bunsen burner sits on the table beside it.