I remember how we used to be.

"You're not old enough to drink that."

I laughed and looked down at the bottle of root beer on the counter. It's good to see people from high school again. I smiled and paid for the soda.

I remember running with a cup of Turkish coffee across downtown to where I could find a parking spot. Trying to get the timing just right. Just before five, so it doesn't get cold, but so he doesn't see me.

I taped the note to the car door. "Hi there! Look under your car!"

The sharpie hearts all over the green coffee cup. The note about keeping him up until five.

I set the bottle on the ground, and hoped it wouldn't roll away.

That the coffee cup wouldn't tip over and spill hot coffee all over his windshield.

That no one would see the bottle on the ground and take it.

That the coffee wouldn't be cold by the time he got to it.

That the soda wouldn't be hot by the time he got to it.

I got a text from him. "You are a complete bad ass. I was just thinking about Henry Weinhard's on my way out."

I got a text from him. "No one has ever done anything like this for me before, that's so sweet."

But now we don't talk anymore. And I've changed drastically, but not at all.

Do you want to see the world, do you want to see the world?

Do you want to see the world a different way?

I get nervous for next fall, breathing, preparing, knowing I will have to sprint smiling through the animosity and resentment. The place I no longer belong. A place where I will already avoid eyes. When he offered me a seat in government almost a year and a half before, I had no idea I would have to avoid his eyes a year and a half later.

A different way.