“Do you want to go out with me?”  I do remember him saying.

          Those dreaded words.  It could ruin a friendship, it could ruin an acquaintanceship, it could ruin, well, I don’t think me and Dale had ever actually spoken before.  I silently gave him points for pure nerve.

          “Uh,” I said.  Was he actually serious?  I mean was I on Candid Camera?  I didn’t know him.  Did people really date people they didn’t know?  My social skills were next to zero.  I half smiled.  “No,” I said.  “Thanks…I’m not really looking for a boyfriend right now.”  And boy, what truth that was.  I had already had enough of stalkers even in those days.  Boys gave me nightmares.  They ruined lives.  They ruined perfectly good pocket watches. 

          “Oh,” he said.  His voice kept the same perky rhythm as it had when he sat down.  I noticed a slight bounce as he continued.  “Can we still be friends then?”

          The same surprise was in my eyes as it was when he had asked the first question.  There was no awkward silence, no underlying insult to his words, just pure and simple.  Can we still be friends then?

          I wiped the bit of spit off my lip that had jumped from his mouth and said, “Sure.”  And then we carried on a small conversation.

          To say we became close chums would be a complete lie because I wasn’t close to anyone back then.  I barely am now.  But I saw him around.  I saw him one day out of the corner of my eye running fast toward me from a dark hallway at our school.  His black hair blew backward from the speed, his black trench coat flapped behind him and he landed beside me with a thud.  With his books clutched tightly at his side he walked with me, slightly out of breath.  I smiled and said he looked like a vampire coming at me like that.  Or maybe I just thought it.

          The last time I spoke to Dale I was at the Gallery Hop the September after I graduated.  He came up to me and my friends out of nowhere again and told me about his photography being in one of the galleries and I should go see it.  I said “Cool” and “I will” and then I went on. 

          It’s funny how your mind works as you go along in life and you think there is always time to see people.  You get caught up in your lives and believe that time will continue and there is always time.

          I didn’t get to see Dale’s photography that night.  The crowd was big, I had forgotten the name of the gallery and I was with some friends who wanted to get to the movie we were planning to see.  So I left that night always wondering what I had missed.