How an awkward person makes love to a stranger

It is baffling at times, to realize how one has fallen in love with a stranger. Strange as it may be: it began on a sweeping fall afternoon, underneath the flaming maple tree as a gust of wind blew embers into the sky and your package out of your arms. The box took a small tumble, maybe bouncing once or twice down those steps before spilling foam nuggets across the lawn. I watched as you hurriedly packed everything back in and skittle off, nude pink stilettos stabbing into the asphalt.

I would not have thought anything of it, if not for walking by a few seconds later and finding a piece of paper stuck to the ground. Clearly you had dropped it during the incident, but when I picked it up and turned around, intending to yell out and return it, you had already disappeared long ago. I do not even really remember your face, or even the exact colour of your hair, which was only revealed as slight wisps underneath a red (or was it black? grey?) woven beanie -- was it a dark brunette or a light chestnut, straight or wavy, long or short?

It was perhaps wrong of me to tuck that letter into the inner pocket of my coat then, just as perhaps I am being punished for reading it now. I am not entirely sure why I did it, but in the moment it made sense. Maybe I thought I would run into you again.

I fell in love with the writer of that letter. The awkward but gentle curve of your letter "i", something I had always mechanically drawn as a perfect vertical, the way you connected the letters in "life"; these showed me a way of seeing the world I hadn't seen before. You wrote of beautiful places and ideas, to an anonymous recipient that I placed myself into the role of, introducing him to the beautiful person that is you.

I at least hoped the letter would give me an excuse to approach you if I ever did meet you again, in the off chance that I recognized you.

***
"I'm so sorry!"

These were the words you spoke to the bus driver that spring morning, scuffling through your handbag for your absent transport card and empty wallet. I looked up and saw the sun hit your apologetic eyelashes, and did a double take. Something impossibly familiar about you drew me to stand up automatically, ready to offer you my spare change.

"I've got it, don't worry."

The man behind you steps in and puts an extra ride's worth of coins into the driver's hands. I feel embarrassed and awkward, having stood up for no reason. The guy sitting next to me has already gotten off his seat, anticipating my need to exit to the aisle. I move into the path he paves for me, stepping off the bus as you turn to the change-offerer and thank him profusely, and by the time you have sat down together and have begun to exchange names, I had still yet to process what exactly had happened.

The bus drives away and leaves me at my premature stop; I arrive home 2 hours later.

***

I'm not sure how we ended up on the same path that winter afternoon, but the familiar tick-tacking of your nude high heels interrupted the music coming through my earphones and I knew it was you before I looked up. An orange umbrella obscured my view of your head, but the combination of that handbag and those shoes gave you away.

I thought the orange umbrella suited you perfectly, and smiled to myself silently. Orange was so outgoing and bright, and happy -- things you represented that I wished I had for myself. Yet it was also what kept me from you at that moment, keeping you hidden from my line of sight. I had been secretly wondering when I'd run into you again, partially convinced we were fated to skim our lives against one another's until we met officially, partially hopeless that the city was too large for it to happen more than twice.

I started to contemplate how I should introduce myself. I supposed I should just be direct, but there seemed to be something strange about a stranger approaching a girl in the middle of a deserted road professing his love for her. Then again, maybe girls were into that. I hadn't done this before.

A light cough blew a cloud from under your umbrella, and I watched you stop in your tracks next to the bus stop. You opened your handbag and took out a bottle of cough syrup, poured yourself a dose and put it to your mouth as I walked by.

I didn't have time for an introduction; I walked by without saying anything as I watched in slow motion the pink syrup disappear behind your lips.

***

Indeed it is baffling, to realize how one has fallen in love with a stranger. I wonder if I will ever see you again; I swear if I did, I would not waste what should be the last opportunity to meet you. If you're reading this, I swear I will keep our lives from continually blowing away from each other like curtains covering an open window in the night breeze.

But tonight all I can do is lay here in front of that window, letting those curtains brush over my face and swear I can almost taste your cough syrup on my lips, the ghostly mirage of a kiss that never happened.