Before Ben left for college, we made a silly pact not to make any friends at our respective schools. We were eighteen, in love, and horribly afraid of what would happen when we were separated by a endlessly long two-hour drive.
It was my birthday the day he left. I was miserable. Because my high school grades were less than stellar, I was attending the State University twenty minutes away from home. And because my parents were disappointed that I didn't go to the schools they wanted me to, they forced me to live at home.
Although my parents and I got along somewhat better than we did when I was in high school, we still had knock-out fights over all those little things that teenagers blow out of proportion.
I didn't really want to celebrate my birthday the night Ben left. Moping around and snapping at my parents was really all that I had energy for. They made me come down for dinner -- Chinese food -- and forced me to "get over" Ben leaving. I can't remember what I said, but I'm sure it was some bitchy comment because it warranted my dad throwing chow mein at me.
Happy Birthday.
When I finally started school, I played the part of a commuter student marvelously. I was focussed on school and didn't let making friends interfere with my work.
Unfortunately, I never counted on people wanting to make my acquaintance.
Near the end of my first week in my finite math class, I spied a guy in my class staring at me. And not a oh-she's-cute-and-I'm-functional kind of stare. It was more like a I-want-to-wear-her-skin kind of look.
So I panicked because I've spent my life thinking that people were out to get me. This is the girl who would bring a kitchen knife out to get the mail because, well, my family taught me that everyone is a potential killer.
After class, I casually walked to the quad and tried to reassure myself that I'm just paranoid and he's probably a really nice person that I had just read all wrong.
And then I realized that Bjorn was trying to catch up with me.
Bjorn: Hullo.
Me: Yes?
Bjorn: Are you an artist?
Me: What??
Bjorn: I like you art you do in class.
Me: These doodles?
The art that Bjorn was so impressed with was basically pen doodles of flowers on a folder.
Bjorn: Yah. Very nice.
Mena: Okay. Well, I got to go.
Bjorn: No wait.
Mena: No. Sorry. Got to go.
Bjorn wore a long denim jacket that had a picture of a woman airbrushed on its back. Bjorn had an accent of some sort. It sounded a bit like a German accent but I never could tell. Bjorn freaked me out.
Bjorn also was a frequent user of our school's BBS. One day, not long after our brief encounter, I found an assortment of his posts which basically stated all his fetishes including the desire to razor-slice the faces of all the women he's loved.
Since he never tried to talk to me again, I got over my fear of going to finite math. I pretty much forgot about him until my sophomore year when I became friends with a guy named Jason.
One day over lunch at Red Lobster Jason mentioned that he was acquaintances with Bjorn.
Me: Oh God, he's so f**cking scary.
Jason: He's a weirdo. You know he isn't even foreign?
Me: Really? How do you know.
Jason: He went to high school with my girlfriend, Amy. She told me that he never had that accent when they were in school and that even though he had a crush on her in high school, he pretends he doesn't even know her now.
And then Jason did an impression of Bjorn asking a very Bjorn-like question.
Jason: Friend Jason. Tell me it is like to make love to the beautiful Amy. Do yah make her scream?
At that moment, I realized that it doesn't take much more than a stare to figure a person out.
