i remember it sweetly because i walked out during the best part

When I think of him I think of rainwater. Because when I met him I lived in that town where, if you ever woke up in a man's bed, it was grey and rainy outside and you had to walk through the downtown streets in heels and wet stockings, toes and cigarette getting wet. He had a little studio and a white bed that managed to look comforting in the dreary light. I remember waking up there, him still asleep next to me, and thinking long and hard about whether to escape. I snuck out and when the door to his building closed and locked me out, I regretted it. Not that we were some perfect match, but it was better in his life than back in mine.

He'd been the most stylish man in my class, an arrogant smartass. I bought something from him over the summer and he answered the door shirtless. So then I wanted him. But a couple of one night stands never worked out and we were too jagged to fit. Nothing ever came of it.

Then I ended up alone in a bar in the city, after years. He sat down at the table next to me and neither of us noticed until he got up, or shifted, and found me there. We caught up. I was drunk already. I'd been drunk for months and I told him the whole sad story. But I was confident, taller, grown up, and he noticed. I wasn't hanging any measurements on the prospect of going home with him, I was too blindsided and raw to care. He looked more normal than I remembered, more wealthy, slightly vampiric, but in the tragic sense, not the evil one.

He did walk me home that night and I don't remember if it was raining. He walked me to my porch ten blocks away or so and after an awkward moment, we kissed. It was sweet, the kind of kiss that stirs those teenage butterflies. He left me with his phone number. I always wondered whether he expected me to really call.