I could see my face in his glasses as he spoke, hair too greasy to be pushed by the summer breeze, thick eyebrows furrowed and dark eyes (squinted in the afternoon sun) hiding depth and experience too voluminous for my short life, chipped tooth and scraped nose as my battle scars of boyhood, and I didn't like it. I wanted to see his eyes and believe for just one moment in my life filled with worry and wanting and the fluttering of butterflies in my stomach (their tiny wings whipping behind my hand-me-down sweatshirt) every time I stepped off the school bus, that he was going to be there. I wanted to believe that he would remember.

I can still taste that Coors Light on my lips, the taste that would cause my face to pucker as I struggled to swallow. I never liked it, and I would never have asked you for those sips (I would have preferred a coke), but I wanted to be with you.