Meet Louise, the strangest person I’d ever met. In a crowd, you’d neither spot her out nor would you be able to ever think of her face twice should you only see it once. If she ever comes up to you, you’d probably find it to be just another daily occurrence. Destiny would not be a word you’d familiarize with her, for she simply seemed out of the world with every step she took. Her steps were awkward too, bumping into strangers or tripping into puddles even when the weather got clear. Rhythm? No, she lacked it completely. All she did was bring chaos where she entered. One such chaos was her abrupt intrusion into my life, and I am afraid I have to confess – I cannot imagine life without Louise.

We met in college, a time when booze, cigarettes, and weed did all the talking. It was my senior year of high school when I picked up a “beautiful” habit of smoking half a pack of Marlboro Reds every day. Why you ask? Coming from a dysfunctional South Asian family taxed my well-being. It didn’t help the fact that my family went through a second divorce right when I was giving my SATs. As a result, I committed to, what I refer to, as a “shit” tier college. I didn’t partake in any other substances although now and then I would drink at parties. A shot of tequila and I was the life of the party. Still, I preferred to keep myself at bay with things I liked to do. Even in college, I couldn’t get rid of the lone wolf in me. I had no trouble talking with just about anyone: the washed-up jocks, the Adderall nerds, the crackheads, or the artists. All I needed was an open space and cigarettes. Well, 10 to be precise.

It was the beginning of the year after the parties ended. While smoking in the rain, someone bumped into me. As a result, my pack of Marlboro Reds fell, and all my cigarettes were drenched in water.

“I am so sorry! I have to go, again I am sorry!”, a girl wearing a black hoodie said as she ran.

I stood there, staring at her run. My annoyance was beyond comprehension, to the point where I was simply amazed by her lack of tact. I looked back at the ground, my precious 16 dollars put to waste. 

Was that a sign from above for me to quit? Maybe. But all I could think was about this strange girl that just did that. You would think that something like this only happens in the movies. It wasn’t love at first sight or anything, I was simply curious about this weird entity.

As it happens, I was in the library trying to find a copy of Kafka’s The Trial when I saw the same hoodie in the same aisle as me, right beside me. She had a big pair of headphones on her and boy, she had her volume up to the max because I could hear whatever she was playing. But me being dumb, I try calling out to her.

“Good weather, huh”

No answer.

“You come here often?”

No answer, she’s still looking at each of the books.

I turn to her, irritated by her ignorance.

“Hello, can you hear me?”

She got a book out, it was the exact book I was looking for.

“Hey! I was looking for that!”

She notices me talking and I could see her get startled. By startled I mean, she almost screamed.

“Uh, sorry, are you alright?”, the whole library turned to our direction. I have never been any more embarrassed in my life.

She got her headphones out, visibly apologetic.

“I am so sorry, I couldn’t hear you! You needed something?”

I get it that people can be strange but wow, I have never been this perplexed.

“No I mean I was looking for The Trial too.”

“Oh? Yeah, you can have it then.”, she gestures to me the book.

“Ah it’s fine, no worri-hey aren’t you the girl that made me drop my ci-”

Shit, I am in a library. What if someone reports me?

She immediately covers her mouth with her two hands, her eyes wide open

“Oh! It’s you! Oh my God, I am so sorry I didn’t mean to run the other day!”

“Is that so? What happened then?”

“Um, sorry, I can’t say it.”

God, tell me, why would someone apologize a thousand times and yet, be so oblivious in a circumstance that demands interrogation? 

“You know what, never mind. I ran because-”

She goes on to explain that she saw a senior from her high school on campus.

“Did they do something?”

“No, I just had a crush on him.”

“What? So why would you run?”

She goes on to explain her nuanced idea of why avoiding him would somehow (bear with me), drive him crazy. Honestly, I can’t deny that this was the most hilarious break in logic I’d heard. I couldn’t help but break into laughter.

 “Nooo! Don’t laugh, c’mon man!”

“I’m sorry, I don’t think I’ve ever met someone like you before.”

“Of course not, it’s me after all”, with the most self-assured sass I’d ever witnessed.

“You’re funny, what’s your name?”

“Louise with an ‘e’”

“So you’re French.”

“No, I just happened to have a French name. What’s yours?”

“Ihsan, nice to meet you Lu-ez”, I said with the most broken French accent known to man.

Louise and I hit off fast. I was majoring in philosophy while she was in nursing. We talked for hours on end every time we met. At first, we would meet once a week, usually at the library of all places. We talked about Kafka, Kant, history, and even jazz. You’d think we were two nerds but no, we would talk about everything. Hours on end, no stopping. Eventually, the weekly conversations turned into daily meetups and before you know it, we were inseparable in the most platonic way possible. As someone who experienced nothing but heartbreaks all my life, I simply wanted someone amazing to talk to, and Louise was the exact person I was looking for. Not once, did I feel a sliver of romance.

“Okay, Bloc Party or The Strokes ?”

“The Strokes. No contest.”

“Agree to disagree, Bloc Party it is.”

“Whatever you say, mademoiselle.”

“Shut up.”

Ever since I met her, I quit smoking cigarettes. Louise on the other hand, loved her alcohol. I personally liked alcohol in moderation considering how daytime drinking isn’t my forte. 

“You know, you can smoke a cigarette if you want.”

“Well, I don’t mind doing so in front of you, but I just don’t feel the urge anymore.”

That loneliness, esteemed from my past, was the reason why I even picked up those dreaded buggers in the first place. But now, I had a friend to talk to.

“Yo, this bottle’s empty.”

“You’re gonna die if you continue to indulge like that.”

“Yeah and?”

Louise didn’t care about dying sooner than most people. Behind the coward afraid of strong winds and lightning bolts, was a person who was ready to pass on every day, something that always fascinated me. It wasn’t due to a perpetual sadness that she never told me about, but a genuine acceptance of reality itself. Although she didn’t know, I too felt that way. After all, I never planned on returning to “that” place alive if I ever had to.

However, we never talked about our vulnerabilities, something I always found strange. Neither of us seemed to be emotionally well-functioning adults, yet none of us ever broke into a conversation about grief or anything remotely sad. But I could tell that in Louise’s life, there was a cruel tempest I wasn’t aware of. There was one conversation we had in our third year of college when we were both drunk at a jazz bar that I still recall.

“Hey, imagine if you could leave it all behind”, Louise slurred. 

“Hm?”

“No like, just leave everything behind. Your name, family, friends, dogs-”

“Hell no, not the dog.”

“Okay, not the dog I guess but you get what I mean right?”

“I mean, yeah I guess. Never thought so myself.”

I lied. I think of it every single night.

“You don’t seem to be the type to have a reason to quit though.”

“You’re right, I am kinda uptight.”

I lied again. I desperately feel like stopping my birth by going back in time.

“Eh, you’re no fun.”

“Says Ms. Cognac herself.”

“Fuck off.

Louise was a terrible people reader, she couldn’t tell who was thinking what or why. I on the other hand could tell when she lied, or when she had something more to say.

“You’re going somewhere with this, aren’t you?”, I inquired.

“Haha, no. It’s the booze.”

“Some genius told me the booze makes you say things you can’t say sober.”

“You have a big nose.”

“Hey!”

“The booze buddy.”

If Louise was bad at lying, I was bad at being honest.

4 years flew by. During that time, neither of us hooked up with anyone else. It was an extension of high school with exams and the inclusion of drugs. It was strange, to be honest, in ways people would point out us as if we were dating.

“I find it strange that two functioning adults that hang out all the time, remain, quote on quote, “friends”, for years. Are you sure there was never a moment between you guys?”, asked Bruno, my buddy from high school who enrolled into a good school in Iowa.

“Naw, stop making it weird buddy.”

I recall running in the rain once because Louise was about to miss her exams and she desperately would need me to take her there and have me wait till she was done with them (a ritual that brought her luck). We didn’t have an umbrella so I wasn’t having it.

“Dude, we have done this a million times by now. You’re gonna ace it.”

“No! You have to!”

“IT’S RAINING!”

“YEAH SO?!”

I guess you might call me crazy at this point because I did run in the rain with her and then wait outside while she was done. Thank God it was a short one because after that I came up with a terrible fever.

“Do you, have anything to tell me?”, I asked as I lay on my couch, covered with a blanket.

“Well, I barely passed.”

“Oh wow, that’s a first.”

“You jinxed it, idiot.”

“I jinxed it?”

“Yeah, you were complaining about the rain. Ugh.”

Honestly, her taking care of me would’ve not been something Louise would do. After all, she was too oblivious to the world around her. 

But I didn’t mind that, honestly. It was refreshing to see someone being themselves every single minute of their life. Being surrounded by hypocrites all my life, I couldn’t fathom human beings ever not lying. Everyone lies, and everyone distorts the truth. Then there was Louise, never losing sight of who she was. Yet, I never really knew her.

Every time I asked about her family, she would give me one response:

“I haven’t spoken to them in a while.”

As someone who religiously avoids his own family, I never ask “why”. After all, teachers at my high school put me up with stupid therapy sessions during my senior year. All I got from that was:

“Think positive and break the cycle.”

Going through that abhorrent bullshit, I didn’t want to be like them for her either. So I simply nodded.

There was, however, one particular moment that both of us shared. It was right during the days leading to graduation. We were in the library as we usually were, studying our asses off for our finals. It was then that Louise suddenly took off her headphones and asked me something strange.

“Hey Ihsan, ever think of waking up as a monstrous vermin?”

“You’re referring to Kafka now, aren’t you?”

“Yup. Like waking up one day and you realize you are in no way, yourself anymore.”

“Well, I mean in a physical or mental sense?”

“You figure it, you’re the brains between the two of us after all.”

I could tell, something was up, but I didn’t ask. I regret not doing so now.

“I wouldn’t say physically unless I was terminally ill. I always found it eerie that Gregory’s metamorphosis somehow foreshadowed Kafka’s death. But in a mental sense, well, that would be like Summer wouldn’t it?”

“You mean 500 Days of Summer?”

“Yup, to simplify it but of course, there are more abstract examples of people like that.”

“So you’re saying one can wake up and think like someone they’re not?”

“Less of that, more of, well, people slowly but surely becoming someone like that. Nothing happens overnight. In hindsight, people are too dumb to realize things that shift the tides.”

“That was well-put.”

“I guess, 4 years of philosophy paid off huh?”

She didn’t smile or laugh. Louise would always do so before.

“Hey, Ihsan.”

“Yeah?”

“Who are you? I mean, who is Ihsan?”

I stumbled. It felt like a break in the fourth wall, a departure from any conversation both of us ever had.

“Me?”

“I just realized you never really talk about yourself, but the way you explain things makes me piece you. Or rather what I would want to believe you to be.”

“Well, I don’t really know you either, do I?”

A line I was hoping to ask for years, a line that made Louise smile.

“True, yet somehow we are connected by a strange string of fate. Almost like the universe intended us to meet that day.”

“Probably. Now that you mention it, I can’t imagine life going forward without you. It would be a waste of time.”

Louise laughs at what I just said. Except, her eyes seemed sad.

“Are you confessing your love for me now?”

I laugh hearing that, a smooth response to what I just said. 

“No, I would probably do it in front of the Eiffel Tower.”

“Shut up idiot.”

After that, we carried on studying. Although all I could think was the sadness on her face, not minding the scribbles of text I wrote on paper.  Once we were done, Louise gave me a key.

“What’s this for?”

“An extra key to my apartment. You’re moving out of your roommate’s apartment, right? Might wanna crash by my couch for a few weeks before you get your place.”

“Huh, sure. You’re fine with that? I don’t mean to impose.”

“We’ve known each other for years idiot, of course, I am cool with this!”, she laughed. 

That was the last time I saw Louise.

On the day of graduation, I searched for Louise. I spammed her with a million texts and phone calls (the both of us hated social media). It didn’t seem like she turned her phone off as it still rang but it didn’t seem like she was bothering to pick up either. I decide to wait out the ceremony for her. 

Time flew by, I met up with my cohort and as we were celebrating before the ceremony, I kept lingering about Louise’s whereabouts. Something was up, but I didn’t know who to ask. After all, I realized then that Louise didn’t have any other friends.

The ceremony began, but Louise still wasn’t there. 

Suddenly, it was my turn to go up the stage. I take one glance at the crowd. Louise wasn’t there.

I go and take my diploma, and suddenly all the emptiness of my life before meeting Louise invaded my mind. It wasn’t there for the past 4 years, and now it’s all coming back. I smiled at the camera.

Once we were done with the extra celebrating, I start to head out as soon as possible.

“Hey Ihsan, aren’t you coming to the afterparty?”

“Yeah I’ll be there, I just have to get something real quick.”

I lied. I was rushing to her apartment. Something happened, and it was killing me.

After a long commute on the bus wearing my graduation suit, I reach her apartment. It was quite far from campus.

I carefully open the door, and as I feared, the lights were off. She wasn’t there. 

I think for a while and wonder if I am being invasive right now.

“Fuck it, I have to figure out what happened”, I think to myself.

I turn on the lights, it was a small apartment. You usually don’t have big apartments in New York unless you’re filthy rich. 

From the looks of it, the apartment was organized. The floors were clean, and the kitchen had no sign of use. Almost like it was ready for a new tenant. A tell-tale sign to tell if a place was clean or not was simply looking under the couch cushions. Since I was trying to draw a conclusion, I check the couch. As I assumed, I was correct – they were clean too.

I look around, trying to find some other clue. I’ve been here before, getting high with her as we chowed plate after plate of shawarmas and butter chicken. I go to her room and slowly unlock the door. Although I knew that the place was empty and that she wasn’t there, I still have this habit since I was a child.

I switched on the lights, the bed was completely tidied up. Her table was clear of any books, which was ironic considering she was a nurse. Her window was clean too. 

On her bed, was her phone, plugged into an outlet. Right on top of it was a folded piece of paper.

I unfold that piece of paper. It read:

“If you’re reading this, then it’s probably on graduation day. I paid off the next two months’ rent. My landlady is aware of you moving in here and she’s willing to overlook a change of tenant. I cleaned the apartment for you so don’t worry about feeling intrusive since I know you do. There’s food in the fridge, microwave them when you’re hungry.

P.S. Don’t look for me. I hope you take care of yourself, idiot.

~~ Louise”

I fall onto her chair, gripping the paper. Suddenly the void in me turned bigger and kept getting bigger. Somehow, I couldn’t process what I just read.

My phone started to ring, I don’t pay attention to it. All I could think was about Louise. All I could think to do was sit back and think of the past 4 years of my life with her.

Suddenly, I started to have a strange beating in my chest. It started to get more and more painful. This feeling, it’s strange. I never felt it before.

It was that night when I, I fell in love with Louise.

To be continued.