vicarious.ly Read Online Free PDF Page B

exotic girls and I want a girl next door. We’re the perfect combination of people,” He said.
    I’m not going to lie. Paul’s a good guy. He’s the best male friend I have in the world even though we don’t speak regularly. I’ll never forget how he told me he wanted the girl next door. Nor will I ever forget how he told me I wanted an exotic girl. Now he is married to his college sweetheart he met shortly after this night. That night was one of the last nights I saw Paul act in a manner that was so individually focused. I’m honored to have seen how great of a person he could be to a friend.
    That’s not the point of this, though. I’m trying to explain how I met Kyla. I feel like I always get sidetracked when trying to write about her.
    During Paul’s little soliloquy that night a girl bumped into my shoulder. A part of me wonders what Paul would have said that night had our conversation not been interrupted.
    “You know smoking kills,” she said.
    “So does secondhand smoke,” I said.
    “I know, I think I should head back inside,” she said.
    As she said that, she took the cigarette out of my mouth and stomped it out with her foot. I looked at Paul and then I grabbed into the contents of my back left pocket where I kept my cigarettes. I took another cigarette out and lit it. I looked into this girl’s eyes and said,
    “Hey I’m all for health, but please tell me why you had to violate my personal space like that? By the way my name is Jake.”
    “I’m Kyla. Tell me something about yourself I don’t know already,” she said.
    “I like linguistics and you were interrupting my conversation with my roommate Paul. Isn’t that right Paul?” I said.
    “You’re Jake. You have this project Eden going on. You like whisky right? Oh wait, this is the third time I’ve met you this year and you won’t remember the next. I’m just running an experiment on how many times it takes you to remember me.”
    I can’t tell you what went through my mind at that moment. Of course I knew who she was. She was in my freshman level Ancient Languages class. Well, a class I took for one week. I never forget a face. I stayed silent.
    “Come on Jake. I don’t know how, but I’ve met you a few times over the last few weeks. Every time I see you, you’re wasted beyond belief. I’m just making a point here. It was nice knowing you,” she said.
    I knew she was the girl from Ancient Languages. I tried to think of a response quickly.
    “If we’ve met so many times, what do I say next,” I said.
    “You’ve always just told me until next time. Then you disappear,” she said.
    Ancient Languages was a course I dropped my first semester freshman year. I dropped it because I got into an economics class I was dying to get into by a world renowned econ professor. Thing is, I remembered who Kyla was.
    “You took Ancient Languages last year. I remember you contributing to group conversation before I dropped the course,” I said.
    “Wow,” she said.
    “So you do remember,” I said.
    “I just never thought you did. I didn’t think we even interacted directly,” she said.
    That’s how I formally met Kyla outside of a forced academic setting. It had been two years since I had seen her in that class. I couldn’t forget her, though, and I let her know that. The next day I felt like it was such a mistake to reveal so much so quickly.
    Kyla and I spent the rest of the night talking to each other about how the past two years had turned out. Truthfully, we didn’t know anything about each other. At the very least we did acknowledge each other’s existence two years prior even though it was just a chance happening.
    Over the course of the night she told me that the Ancient Languages course depleted all her interest in linguistics. I told her, even though I dropped that course, my main focus in life was linguistics. Of course, Eden came up that night. Near the end of the night I asked her,
    “So, have I been like this every