The first words she spoke to me, interestingly enough, as you may or may not have already guessed were: "You left your empty heart behind." And she pulled out a cigarette and smiled in a grim sort of way and asked, "Mind if I smoke?" And I smiled back, also grim, and said, "I don't care if you burn."

Then she sat down, but I kept standing. She asked me to have a seat but I told her that if Winston Churchill chose to stand, then I would choose to stand too. She was amused. I got us both Venti black coffee, and I immediately put sugar in it. She, however, did not. "I like it black," she smiled. I smiled, as well, and said, "So do I." I then put in another pack of sugar and we sat in silence for a few moments and I couldn't help but say what I had wanted to say for years. "Stefanie," I said. "I wish I had sat in your lap when you asked me to." She looked at me, quite puzzled, so I had to explain. I said, "When we first met, you didn't like me because of my clothing. And you made me nervous. But after Tommy and I bought you a drink, you began to talk to us and we got close." She smiled slightly, but I did not. "Anyway, when we were in that room--the one with all of the glass, and the morning light in it--, you sat on the bench and asked me to sit in your lap. I was humiliated because when I was young, I felt as if this was degrading to my manliness. But I don't feel that way anymore." She looked up at me (her hair is now black, her natural color) and asked if we could leave. And we did. We got in the car and she told me about Guatemala. She said she spent every night with her best friend Emily looking at the stars and thinking about bright lights because there were none in Guatemala. She said she had learned a lot--more than she ever thought she would--then offhandedly, she said, "I see you don't dress like a prep anymore." To which I had to respond, "But I still am." She shrugged, and Interpol came on: Leif Erikson. And I said, "I see your hair color is natural now." She nodded her head and said she preferred things being natural now. This struck me as funny and somewhat odd because of how superficial our relationship had been in the past. She told me her friend Steve had brought me up in one of their phone conversations. She asked me if I wrote poetry. I told her I did. She said I have grown up to be very bright. I told her she should never confuse poets with intellectuals. I told her that poets are never intellectual.

She said, if that is the case, then intellectuals are never poets and if it takes a dumbass to be a poet, she'd take the dumbass any day.

I said, then take me.

She said, not now. I shrugged and we pulled into Blue Grass. It was empty, for once, probably because it was still light outside. I looked at her and took off my seat beltshe wasn't wearing one. I told her it wasn't worth getting a ticket over but she said that seatbelts were more of an inconvenience than citations.

We got out of the car and she pulled a water bottle out that was filled up about 1/4th of the way with everclear and we began to drink. I could feel my liver rotting away. We sat almost in silence and I told her I loved her and she said she loved being loved. I said I wasn't lying.

She said she knew.

We got back into the car and I tried to drive drunk. It didn't work, so we laid in the grass and waited about an hour and a half for me to sober up.

Then we got back into the car, but driving while getting head proved to be even more difficult than driving drunk. That's when I decided I shouldn't go. I pulled over.

"Stefanie," I said. "You belong in Guatemala, but I belong here. We're much too Bohemian and beautiful to remain together."

She licked her lips and I smiled, almost seduced. "Really, Stefanie."

She said, "I know. I love you, Sergio."

I said, "I know."

She asked, "We have it all figured out, don't we?"

I said, "Yeah, we do."

And so I dropped her off at one of her friend's dormitories and she left her number written on the inside of my fore-arm.

I washed it off when I got home.