I’ll never forget the first time I met him. It was at the college near my house, the very day after my ex and I had broken up. I wasn’t wearing any make up, and the amount of tears I had cried the night prior may or may not have been obvious. It was a struggle to keep myself together even then.

I was there for an Environmental film fest with two of my friends. I saw someone I knew from my church and went to say hi to her. An attractive guy approached behind her, and although my first thought was maybe he was this friend’s boyfriend, I was immediately attracted to him. But besides that, I got the scary, familiar feeling. “This person is special. This person is important.” I’d only felt it a few times in my life before, but I knew all too well what it was. “This is my little brother,” friend from church said. “well, not so little,” he said smiling.

When a few months ago he told me he remembered his first words to me, I admitted that I didn’t remember. He was disappointed I hadn’t, but I begged him to remind me, so he did.

“Well, not so little.”

“Do you know what I First thought of you?” he asked me.
“No, tell me.” I said.
“Why the fuck is that girl carrying around a bag of dirt. What a weirdo, but she is pretty cute.”
Oh, I laughed when he told me that. At the film fest, they had been giving out little baggies filled with dirt and vermiculture worms, so people could start compost bins and I had taken one.Of course, he understood that later.
“From the moment I saw you. I knew.” he said.