wanna get matching tattoos? I think we can swing it.

I realized how far gone I was when I found myself Googling how to pronounce her name.

I hadn’t ever encountered a name like that before, let alone heard it spoken aloud. I have a thing about names: if you’re not saying someone’s name right, then that’s not their name. So that’s not them. That’s an entirely different person. I figured it was only fair, then, that when I talked shit, I made sure the universe knew I was talking about her. So off I went, to watch a six-second YouTube video repeating her name slowly at first, and then at normal talking speed. I liked the way the clunky robot voice took on the cedilla.

All this for a woman I hate. I mean, really fucking detest. Even if I could somehow prevent our very first encounter, I’m convinced the universe would orchestrate our paths crossing thereafter somehow, some way, based on the simple fact that we seemingly couldn’t stop running into each other. It started when she had a ceramics class across the street from my job, and every other Tuesday at 4:45 she'd saunter over, nose in her phone, to buy a Red Bull and drink it without looking up. She took her time while she did this, so that the wet clay on her thumbs would eventually dry down, silky and powdery, by the time her mid-class break ended and she left.

This was after I noticed I had seen her last month; she was the girl in front of me in line at the campus bookstore. She had worn a powder blue puffer jacket and spoke in a nasally voice to someone on the phone, tossing a used paperback copy on Chinese art toward the cashier and reaching into her shitty canvas tote (the kind you get for free in the park, advertising a start-up of some sort) to grab a Prada saffiano wallet. This was before, of course, I realized we were both assigned the same first-year seminar on Chinese art. This was a class of 200 people. She sat directly in front of me. I watched the box dye she used progressively eat away at her hair for twelve straight weeks. This disturbed me for some reason, watching the bleach and Manic Panic fry her split ends to the point where the sunlight streaming in through the skylights set me on edge. I thought the strength of the rays through the window would finally spark a flame in her half indigo, half platinum little bird's nest. I didn't understand why she did this to herself. Or why it felt like everyone in this lecture hall was drawn to her, exchanging glances as they walked past her seat to turn in an exam, brushing their fingers across her own when she'd pass out printed syllabi. Who the fuck was this girl?

It incensed me. And my favorite thing to do when there’s a fire inside me is to stoke it, so needless to say I went on social media and lurked like my life depended on it. Perhaps if I stopped after perusing the entirety of her feed it’d be an average background check, but of course I couldn’t do that. First it was tagged photos, and then a deep dive on her side account where she reviewed vegan breakfast sandwiches all over New York. I found myself on a page outlining her high school athletic stats, not that I have any concept of gymnastics scoring. I used Google Street View to check out her house in New Canaan. Someone clearly has a green thumb, judging by the meticulously maintained hydrangeas underneath the bay window. I looked up her parents’ Facebook pages. Then I looked up her step-parents’ Facebook pages. By the end of it, I was teary-eyed when I found out her childhood dog passed away a couple months ago, and I briefly considered supporting her aunt’s jewelry-making business on Etsy. All this to say that I discovered she fucked the hot guy who lived on my residence hall floor when we shared an elevator at midnight. I was printing an essay out for the Chinese art class. She was shuffling around in his button-up à la Carrie Bradshaw, on her way down to pick up an Uber Eats order, presumably to return to bed and share a 20 piece McNugget meal with the man I had imagined marrying earlier that year.

I am a Pisces. Weepy and watery and intense, less so like an explosion and more so like a tidal wave. Perhaps this is why I am so sentimental, to the point where I catch a whiff of her perfume on the subway and instantly recognize it, or recoil at the mention of her favorite band (naturally, she has obscenely bad taste in music). I started thinking about it; about her. I realized that after imagining kicking her teeth in for so long, I had memorized the slope of her nose and the sharpness of her chin. And from scrolling through her Instagram grid, I noticed the same drink in so many photos that I unintentionally internalized her coffee order.

It had become a habit of mine to arrive early to lecture so I could scope out my peers as they come through the two entrances flanking either side of the podium up front. She always came from the right entrance, because this is closest to the south-facing security desk, which is closest to the subway. She takes the subway because she lives in Ridgewood.

There's this heart-shaped lighter from Vivienne Westwood that I saw online. I wished dearly that I could wrap it in a little ribbon the same baby blue as her coat and mail it to her. It's a good thing her roommate leaves a very sloppy digital footprint and posted a boomerang of herself puffing on an ELF BAR on their stoop. If one was to cross-check the visible house number with the community gardens in Ridgewood, like the one visible from her window as previously posted on Twitter, one would find that there is only a single garden that makes logistical sense with these parameters. And that garden is across from a squatty red four-story building that you might miss behind the hulking above-ground subway track that runs right past her living room window and beside the stained glass windows of the neighboring Eastern Orthodox Church. This, of course, makes perfect sense considering the frustrated Instagram story she uploaded last night as the church bells continued to ring for what felt like an eternity in celebration of Orthodox Easter. Part of me relished in her discomfort. But the other part felt for her anguish. When she showed up to class the next day, the hollows under her almond shaped eyes looked a little puffier. Her roots were growing in, dark and shiny, and I hoped she would sleep better that night.

It appeared that I had forgotten that I wouldn't see her in person next class to find out. We would be taking our final exams online. For the past several months, I had grown accustomed to our routine. I internally delivered a scathing review of her outfit. She took notes on her iPad. I went home to stalk her on the Internet. She went home to pursue her own hobbies and lead a healthy social life. There was something so dizzying about the rush I got when I would double-tap her posts. I didn't do it from a fake account. I didn't have to. She didn't know who I was. She never would.

When the semester ended and I failed our Chinese art class, I couldn't bear to take it again without her. I enrolled in a seminar on the colonial history of Australia and swore I'd really focus this time. The boy on my floor moved out when classes concluded. He didn't end up with her, and this somehow drove me even crazier. On Twitter, she announced a new gig at an art gallery. She'd be assisting in sculptural acquisitions. I would be taking summer classes to try to catch up.

Fall rolled around and I was still clamoring for a glimpse at a sky blue puffer. The new job had kept her busy, and I was starving for content. I had run out of ways to bring her up at parties and over dinner with friends. I sat alone poring over her LinkedIn until I couldn't anymore. I swiped a scarf and headed to the subway station nearest my dorm.

It took two transfers for me to clamber onto the M train with dozens of other evening commuters. But while everyone else was itching to disembark and walk home in the cool dusk, I made myself comfortable, settling in my seat and flicking the gun metal, heart-shaped lighter in my lap. I would have less than 20 seconds to do what I came here for.

The train sways as it rounds her apartment, creaking and screeching along the curve. I turn around in my seat like I always did as soon as we passed the scaffolding with KING BABY scrawled across it in white spray paint. Inside, she's nestled on her leather loveseat with a woman I've only ever seen on her Snapchat stories, knitting or crocheting something, illuminated by the glow of a TV. That's it. That's all I get. My glimpse is gone. I'll have to get off on the next stop and head back toward Manhattan unless I want to waste my time going deeper into Queens. The trains are subject to delays now, since the after-work rush has quieted. It'll be a while until I can catch another. I will sit on the big wooden bench and relax before I return home to start on my seminar assignment. I think I have time to watch her new YouTube video.