Some sparks are effortless. Some remind you that sparks fly only when there’s friction, collisions between strong materials.

Because it was a Texas college town in the 90s, there were cigarettes. She smoked a lot. He was surprised if he saw her not smoking. She had the reputation of holding her own. He only knew guys that talked as much as she did, but not usually in dialogue. His friends would hold forth on a band or on a movie, and the fun was sitting back and seeing how long they could unspool the thread. She held her own, not minding where the conversation went, not seeming to have any real stake in the matter. Another cigarette, another chair pulled up to the crowded tiny cafe table, the sun inching slowly away. She listened, she smoked dramatically, deeply, she locked you in her gaze, and she talked back. Maybe that’s what’s so attractive about some young women to some young men. They see and hear so clearly, so openly. Some young men confuse that attention with love. He did.

She transferred schools without telling him. It took him nearly a year to notice. When he asked about her by chance, he misspelled her name in his head, never having written it down to get her phone number, which he never asked for, which she never offered. He had always just run into her. Never sought her out, never missed her, even that almost-year that she was in another state, smoking cigarettes somewhere else surrounded by other unshaved unkempt young men. Years passed. Both graduated. Neither of them lived in that Texas college town anymore.

And then she came to Texas for some reason, a return that became a big deal, one that neither of them anticipated.

Who gave him her number? Or did she call him? How did she wind up in his town instead of the college town? Where did she stay that night? Why was she alone? He looks back, he lived it, and he cannot remember. True chance, true sparks.

He told her that he’d be at the movies with friends that night. A massive theater, packed for some Merchant Ivory film. He saved her a seat. He hadn’t bought her a ticket, hadn’t waited in the lobby, since he wasn’t sure she would come. She did. He found himself watching the movie, not the aisle. A figure walked up and down. Her. She saw the one free seat in the packed theater, a seat he had saved (but not paid for) for her. He pointed at the seat. She pointed back to the lobby. He sidestepped over his friends, the movie running politely, Britishly before him.

With each step up the aisle, he knew he would not be returning to the movie. With each step, he sensed that this was a sign of things to come — following where she led. There was a bar in the theater. They sat at a table and smoked and talked.

She laughed freely, looking him in the eye. She talked with her whole body, sometimes leaning into his space, her hand on his. How many had she charmed in this way?, he wondered. Had she missed me? Had I missed signs all those years ago? What is happening here?

The movie ended; the friends entered the bar but kept their distance. She went back to Iowa. He saw the movie later, wondering what she’d think of its sometimes oppressive sentimentality. He never asked.

He discovered that she could call him at work for free, using the company’s 1-800 number. They talked for hours each day, her at whatever job she had, him in the copy room, all four machines churning & chugging noisily. Somehow in these stolen conversations weekday afternoons, they hatched a plan.

Did she have roommates in Iowa that she’d left ? What was her major? What job did she have there, and why did she leave it? What was her roommate’s name, the one who told her that he was one to hold on to? He looks back, he lived it, and he cannot remember, not a thing.

A year after he followed her to the bar in the theater, he followed her to another city, a city where they knew nobody, where they had no jobs. They shared an apartment with another couple, eventually finding one of their own. Cigarettes & books in bed each night, their own ritual of silent contemplation under the same blanket, the winter wind whipping outside like neither had ever heard before.

He loved one book so much that he ripped it in half, handing her the opening 150 pages while he finished the story. He couldn’t wait for her to find out what happened in the end.