Our eyes met first.

I remember seeing you from across the shop, shuffling through the dusty records that had torn edges and folded corners with your shoulders slumped like luck hated you and there was nothing to buy. You looked up when the shitty cash register made an obnoxious dinging noise, and I couldn’t help but be puzzled at how wonderfully endearing your face was covered in concern. You looked over to where I was standing, behind the register as a customer strutted away happily with their purchase. Our eye contact was brief, but it was filled with waves of heat and intensity that kept me awake at night for months. You left the store five minutes later, but you never left my thoughts, staying somewhere in the dusty corners of my mind where cobwebs were a plenty.

Our hands met second.

I was putting some records up in the storefront when you came in and asked me where you could find a 1977 Styx vinyl. I nearly laughed out loud, but you didn’t seem to be joking. When I handed you the record after scouring the tiny shop, your fingers just barely grazed my knuckles, and it felt like a shock rippled through the right side of my body. I held my hand out to you in an introduction.
“I’m Jensen.”

“I’m Aaron.” You said as you shook my hand. Your grip was like a vise, nearly bone crushing yet I didn’t feel anything but numbness throughout my whole body. There was something about you, the way your hair never laid flat, the crystal quality of your eyes, the ethereal beauty that poured out of you and made me feel like you were otherworldly. You fascinated me and I was drawn to you like magnet.
When you made your purchase, I turned on my charm and said, “Come back sometime and I can show you what real Rock music is.” It was all in jest, but you looked at me, head tilt and all, and said, “I would enjoy that. Thank you.”

I showed you Zeppelin’s IV first. You liked the apocalyptic imagery because it reminded you of a book you wrote in college. I thought you were f***in’ weird, but that didn’t stop me from asking if I could read it. You were reluctant at first, but the next time we met up you brought a soft bound book that looked like it had been thumbed through several times, a messy scrawl and blotches of ink tattooing the yellowed pages.

It became a weekly thing we did. We listened to a different album over and over again, the music crackling over the turntable while exchanging stories of our lives. When I had to close shop, I would invite you over to my place so we could continue with your musical education. I lived with Sam, a buddy of mine from college, and the first time you met, you geeked out over some book Sam had left lying on the table. Sam got a kick out of you, all your eccentricities and how you enjoyed a good piece of literature. We all got along great. I started to make sure my messy apartment looked somewhat presentable, started to make sure that Sam didn’t embarrass me too much and you started to loosen up. You started to smile and laugh and I found out that you have a wicked sense of humor. And even though you hated cooking, you offered to make dinner once, when ordering in had gotten old and we had exhausted all of our options. That’s what our relationship was built on; collection of rock music, a couple beers and greasy take-out food.

And then our bodies met. Third, if I remember correctly.

It started as brushes of shoulders against each other, a gentle hello by way of meetings. I’d clap you on your back when you made me smile, bending over to catch my breath as my laughter rippled through me. Slowly, gradually our bodies found each other. Just like those magnets. Every time we were together, we had to touch. Small, simple of gestures of our friendship that felt natural. It wasn’t conscious; it just happened.

One night when we were out with Sam, I really started to notice it. We sat together on one side of the booth, our legs pressed up against each other, the length of our arms tenderly touching until they gradually drifted apart to grip our beer bottles. Sam was telling a story about his pet alpaca or his experience from the Pearl Jam concert he went to or some s*** like that, but I couldn’t focus on anything except the heat radiating through your red plaid shirt, (that fit perfectly across the smooth plains of your chest, although I tried not to notice) and down your arm, across to mine. Your laugh bubbled up out of you and you glowed. Your cheeks, which were dusted with stubble pulled up when you smiled. Your eyes were so blue, so beautiful and so wide that I felt like I could see the entire ocean dancing around your pupils, waves crashing endlessly upon the sandy shores.

I remember walking home with Sam that night and he poked and prodded until I nearly had to yell at him, “I AM NOT GAY!” Sam didn’t believe me, his eyebrows disappearing somewhere into his shaggy hair in disbelief. I said, “It’s only him”. It’s only you. Always you.

Our fists met next. Maybe not physically, but the words that were thrown between us felt like punches in the gut, leaving an ache throughout my body. I was beyond angry, so far gone that the only thing I could see was red, the shape of you strolling down the streets with Addison somewhere in the shadows. You cancelled our plans of staying in and eating Chinese food by the pint while marathon-ing the good Star Wars movies because you were “sick”. I was disappointed, sure, a little worried because I had seen you earlier in the day and you seemed fine so how could you be sick? But nothing compared to how I felt when I saw you out with Addison, who hooked onto your arm like a parasite.

You yelled at me, “She’s a friend from college!” like it made everything better.

No, Aaron. Sam was a friend from college. Addison clung to you like you were her oxygen supply. You could have told me you had other plans and maybe I wouldn’t have been so mad, but she was the person who was taking you away from me. I made a point of telling you that.
“I’m not yours to keep, Jensen!” You were still shouting, no remorse in your words. “Sam and I may be your only friends, but that doesn’t mean you’re mine.” Your words dug into me. No guilt filled your cold blue eyes. It was the first time I’d thought they were anything other than beautiful. “Life isn’t a game, I’m not a prize to be won and I’m certainly not yours.”

You ran away from me, chasing after Addison who barreled her way down the street, her heels splashing through the puddles left from a recent rainstorm. I was viciously jealous while simultaneously feeling like an asshole for the way I acted. The way you looked at me burned into my mind, like you couldn’t believe the envious monster I transformed into in front of you. You knew about my temper, but you had never seen in in full affect. I had no reason to be upset but I thought you hated me. I’d never felt heartbreak before because I never let myself care enough, but I shattered that night. Pieces of me fell into piles dust and disappointment, not even a nametag to remind of who I was without you. My heart ripped apart like Addison was stepping into it with her stiletto heels over and over and over again, laughing in my face as she cackled, “How did you ever think he could love you?”

I was greeted by silence the next morning. No text messages from you lit up my phone. No apologies. No dumb pictures of birds that you liked to send while you were out for a run. Deafening silence filled every you-shaped crevice of my life.

When I finally saw you again, you came into the shop to return your Styx record. I informed you about our no return policy, keeping my voice as monotonous as possible, not letting you see me break under your stare. You donated the record instead, before leaving with a newly purchased album. It was Zeppelin’s IV, the same copy that I had played for you. I remember thinking to myself that maybe you didn’t hate me as much as I thought you did.

For some reason, I ended up taking the Styx album home with me. When I slipped the record out of its sleeve, a note gently fluttered to the floor. I opened it and saw the same messy scrawl that covered the pages of your book, and my heart felt like it would beat right out of my chest. My eyes blurred over the words, “I don’t want to lose you. I don’t want to lose my best friend.” It took everything in me not to run to your house and crawl on my knees, pleading for your forgiveness. You did forgive me, and my heart began to stitch itself back together.
When our lips finally met, it was short and tentative, our nervous breaths intermixing until our lips touched. I had thought of so many scenarios of how I wanted it to happen. I would take you out to dinner and kiss you goodbye, or run up and kiss you because I couldn’t help it. Maybe I’d kiss you on New Years when the ball dropped, or I’d kiss you over a cup of coffee in my kitchen one morning after you crashed on my couch. Or maybe I’d kiss you because it was a Tuesday and why the hell shouldn’t I kiss you?

I slowly came to the realization that I would get to kiss you, in every way I had ever imagined, because when we broke apart after that first kiss, you were repeating something into my shoulder. “I am yours,” you said. “I am yours.” We kissed once, twice, ten times, a hundred times until I lost track and didn’t have to worry about counting how many times your lips touched mine because I knew they would never stop. I knew, despite judgment and lack of rights, you would never leave my side, and when it finally became legal for me to call you mine eternally, we jumped at the opportunity.

When we said those two simple words, our souls met, entwined forever and dancing to Zeppelin’s IV in celebration.