In tenth grade, I was required by participation points to go to a certain number of music- and acting-related events every semester. In music theory, we listened to a great number of symphonic scores and I really liked Stravinsky's Rite of Spring (a score to a ballet in which someone dances herself to death, so we're already borderline HCA territory, here). So, when I found out the symphony would be playing it, I decided I wanted to go to that one as one of my events, and my parents, being both my financial backers and very protective of their only child possibly wandering around downtown by herself at night, came with me.
It was a good night. We listened to Queen all the way out to the symphony and sang along to Bohemian Rhapsody and Somebody to Love. I remember feeling that pang of teenage something that goes along with not having a significant other in high school, watching everyone else date like it was easy, somehow? Wondering if that would ever happen to me.
We got to the symphony, found our seats. Every time I go to the symphony hall, I just have to take it all in: the gold, the wood paneling, the crystal chandeliers winking with the breath of people tuning their instruments, people waiting collectively for music. Then I think about the time when I was four or so, sitting on one of the balconies with my grandparents, reading a picture book and yelling part of the dialogue really loud during an intermission. Which always serves to make me really embarrassed and wonder if somehow everyone at the symphony remembers me as the small child who yelled "RIBBIT" because that kind of illogical thinking is what anxiety does to you.
And THEN, because once the anxiety has kicked in, I start thinking about how many people would get crushed in this building in an earthquake, where the chandeliers will fall, if the balconies will fall into each other and then down onto the aisle seats. At that point I usually start worrying about whether I left something plugged in at home that would catch fire or whether I locked the car. It happens every single time.
I'd taken my seat and was going through this process of being in awe of my surroundings to being paranoid, when suddenly this boy did the awkward "sitting in rows" sidle past my family and I and sat down a few seats away. I was watching him out of curiousity, when he sat down and then he turned and looked at me.
I don't mean a glance. I mean a look. We made eye contact and we just sort of sat there, taking the other person in. It wasn't sexual, or creepy, at least; it didn't feel that way, and since I'm the one telling this story in retrospect, it wasn't. It felt more like a curious attraction based on some sort of unspoken connection.
Which is a weird sort of feeling to experience with a stranger, let alone one whose walking past made you stand up because the aisles are too narrow. But it was there. And to this day I can remember what I was wearing, and what he was wearing, and what he looked like: he was wearing black pants, a green plaid button-down shirt, and he had short curly blond hair. He was wearing some variant of sneaker or skate shoe, as teenage boys will do. I remember wondering what he was doing there all alone, and why he decided to come to this particular symphony. I remember him so incredibly clearly, and I don't remember much of anything else from tenth grade that clearly. Obviously things happened that I remember with a great deal of clarity, that I can't forget because the stories are funny, or sweet, or formative; but I don't remember any of those things with as much detail as I remember that moment.
The look didn't last that long, but it lasted long enough to change the atmosphere and make me feel self-conscious for staring at a stranger. The lights dimmed a little, and the conductor came out. Applause happened. I was still pointedly trying not to look back at him and failing.
The music started.
The Rite of Spring is such a cool, creepy, dissonant piece of music, and normally I would have been totally invested in listening to all the weird tonalities and that infamous bassoon, but my eyes kept getting drawn back to the boy a few seats away. And more often than not, when I looked at him, he was already looking at me really intently, which made me blush a little. Getting me to blush is NO MEAN FEAT. I don't usually visibly turn pink. My face gets hot when I'm embarrassed, and I think I'm blushing, but 9/10 I don't actually blush. But I know I was blushing that time because once the whole thing had ended and we were at intermission and he got up to walk past us again because my mom commented on the fact that I was pink. Teenagers are anything but subtle, and my mom is unusually (sometimes annoyingly) observant, so of course she'd picked up on the whole thing.
I was worried the whole time during intermission that he wasn't going to come back in--I don't know why, it's not like we would've been able to hold a conversation--so when he showed up and sat down, I was relieved. But the eye-flirting didn't start, and didn't happen as frequently during the second half. Instead he looked to be deep in thought about something, and I was like "WELL OBVIOUSLY I RUINED IT WITH MY LOOKING AT HIM TOO MUCH." I don't even remember what music played during the second half because I was trying to pinpoint what I had probably done to make him lose interest.
We got up after the second half and filed out, and I remember trying my very best to look aloof and unconcerned, and at sixteen when I tried to look aloof and unconcerned, it always was obvious that I was trying. Walking out of the building to the corner where my dad was bringing the car, though, it was evident that he was following us, just a little, because he wanted to talk to me.
Actually, at the time, it wasn't evident to me at all. I was walking along, fairly happy that he happened to be walking in the same direction as we were, but completely oblivious as to what he probably actually was hoping for. We got to the designated street corner, and he hovered by a lamppost a few feet back, helping someone who asked for directions. Eventually, after a few minutes, he turned and walked all the way back from whence we'd come. I watched him leave, feeling hugely disappointed, when my mom nudged me.
"Hilary," she said. "He wanted to talk to you and was hoping you'd come talk to him."
I turned to stare at the empty space where he'd been as if he'd materialize. "Why didn't he just come talk to me?"
"Because," she said, in a gentle tone that was clearly stating the obvious, "you're with your mom."
"Oh," I said, understanding. "Crap."
All the way home I wondered if I would possibly run into him again if I went to another symphony, wondered how often he went to the symphony alone, and kicked myself for not having gone to talk to him.
But, the semester got busy, which meant I got busy, which in turn meant that I didn't go back to the symphony. Which meant I didn't see him again, assuming going to the symphony regularly was something he did.
That was the first and last time I ever felt that kind of a jolt-connection with a complete stranger. My track record pretty solidly shows that I've only really ever been strongly attracted to people I know really well. It was just the one time that that was different. And I've always kind of wondered what would have happened if we had talked when we had the opportunity, if I had given him my number. If it would've been a train wreck of momentous straightwhiteboystexting.tumblr.com levels. If he would have only been interested in me because he was a horny teenage boy. If it would have fizzled out within a week, because x, y, or z circumstances that get in the way of teenage relationships.
Of course, I also wonder if it would have been something good, too. I feel silly, still, for not realizing why he tagged along a few footsteps behind us.
But there's only so much silly you can feel when it's been seven years. Mostly, I just remember that whole experience with a fond glow, how exciting it was. The funny thing is, if I could go back and choose, I don't know that I would talk to him. Even though resolving what might have been is tantalizing, the memory itself is sweet enough that I don't need to. It could have been really good. It could have been really bad. And myself, I like wondering.
After all, it's not that far off from wondering what happened after happily ever after.
THE END.
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