before :: after

i planned an applepicking trip for my residents, freshmen, this past week... or, rather, i arranged for us to tag along with the campus activities board's preplanned trip to the orchard.

i'd been emailing the guy in charge of it back and forth for a few days. we have a friend in common, and have seen each other on campus, but never actually had a conversation. i wasn't sure if he'd remember who i was or recognize my name from the emails.

yesterday i had to drop security waivers off to his room. he opened the door just as i'd slid them under the crack between it and the floor, and explained when and were we were supposed to meet tomorrow to catch the buses.

then, we talked for another twenty minutes, and i left.

this morning, a crowd of us stood in the foyer of the uppermost level of the campus center, avoiding going out into the rain for as long as possible. he said hello, i signed in on the checklist, and went to talk with some people i knew. none of the girls on my floor who signed up wanted to go in the rain, so i tagged along with sophomore friends.

the ride was about a half hour long, a nice distance, through several scenic massachusetts towns. it was wet, and the houses lining the streets were shabby victorians wanting paint jobs and promising infinite potential.

when we arrived, five of us got off in a gang. we'd all lived on the third floor last year, and three of us still lived in the same building. we split a small picking-bag for three dollars each and set off to find the macintoshes.

after about fifteen minutes of sloshing through the muddy orchards, we met up with a freshman who lived in our dorm and asked if he'd like to come along with us.

then, the guy running the trip came, literally, out of the trees and undergrowth.

he walked over to me, and we joked about how no one from my hall had bothered to show up. then, he didn't leave.

the group, which had grown to seven of us, wandered through the orchard, took a hayride, and bought pumpkins. he joked with me the whole time, and we tossed apples down to each other from up on the ladders.

i walked off behind a tree set to the side, with an open clearing under its branches, a bower, once you got past the rough twig barricades.

he came, too. we spent three hours there, together, and that's not even counting the bus ride home.

(we sat together.)

and now that i'm back here on campus, sitting behind a computer at my work study job, typing away because nobody comes to the library on a saturday night, i can't help thinking about it.

i'm not going to write some sentimental goop about how incredible it was to be able to talk so freely and be so comfortable around someone i had literally just talked to for the first time a day before, and

i'm not going to delineate every single detail, glance, or touch that passed between us. i am going to let this seeming preference for me just settle, and chalk it up to circumstance, or whimsy on his part in wanting to be with me the whole time. he's talkative, you can tell he likes meeting new people. and i'm fun to be around sometimes, i know this.

the only thing, though, worth dwelling on or noticing, however, is

the way his knee was pushed up against mine the entire ride home. i guess we were both angled inward towards each other on the bus seat, and i could feel the pressure from his leg next to mine, and he didn't move away, and i didn't either.

no jerky pull back reactions.

he looks me right in the face.

we had a good time. and now i'm tired.