Alyssa Quach

The escalator narrowed to a false vertex; it was fairly long. To look at it was arduous. I was standing still and couldn't stop rising on the incline which was a strange feeling to not move and be moved. Actually I wasn’t still, I was shaking, I was so nervous. I looked at the stairs adjacent to myself. I imagined going down against the direction of the machine, but then I had the image of him watching me from above the train platform—his view of my backside, far away and small, quite literally running away from him. I thought that might not be a great first impression. 

Instead, I checked my right wrist as a bit that I do. a bit. If there are eyes around they turn curious. I tell time by arm, they tell time by two. In any case, the time goes forward, even with the absence of a watch on my person.

I was being moved forward toward the platform, and I felt unsure of things that I was so sure of before. Retrospectively, I was more skittish than I’d anticipated, and he was supposed to be more nervous and less charming.

When I reached the top, the sky was bright. There he was. He turned around a ways away and walked tall toward me. He smiled like a prince. I felt purely and stupidly happy. We boarded; as the train departed I said in passing that my parents would shelter me—he looked a little too energized by that.