He came into my life unexpectedly, as people often do. A dark symbol of beauty, my mind’s peripheral vision caught him in the second year of high school. He was a year older than me, though you wouldn’t know with us standing side by side. He was odd, of the social castaway sorts. Maybe that’s what drew me to him initially. Charcoal black hair, longer. Light skin and eyes that hinted of Asian ancestry, though it’d be a stretch to assume.
A tuba player, he had the posture of a ballet dancer, even when sitting. He kept an old record player in the band room by his tuba, got it at a garage sale. My mind went to infer he had a good taste in music based off of this fact. We shared the opinion that school dances were impractical, and the music was often below par. I was drawn to his lack of interest in all things normal.
Sadly, I am, to the majority of the unassuming world, very normal. Maybe that’s why he never gave me a second glance. Always walked past me to discuss something I did not understand with someone I did not know. It was an autumn affliction, my involvement with him. The beauty that consumed my life slowly faded away with the dying leaves, until it was nothing but a memory.