hello

The first time we met was at a bus station.

I had just come home after a long day of snowboarding. Your sister skied.

The man at the station referred to you as "our dad" because your face was hairy, and I was only 15.

"Your Dad is here to pick you up" the man said, pointing at you, in your mom's plum coloured mini-van.

I was cold and sleepy, so I crawled in the back seat without much of an introduction.

You were her big brother. Her old old old slightly dorky big brother, who quoted Lord of the Rings, and memorized the Bible.

Her old old old big brother, who wore the same oddly shaped navy blue sweater, with a terrible orange stripe across the chest.....everyday.

You were this. and I was a 10th grade, wanna-be-punk, with a hot-pink cat collar around my neck and metal studded goggles.

I sat, indifferently, in the backseat and you drove- making small talk like a Dad might, and every now and then I could see you smile awkwardly at me through the review mirror.

You dropt me off at home-- I forgot to close the van door behind me. You laughed a little. Awkwardly. I wandered inside, unfazed, and without much of a goodbye.

This was our beginning. The unromantic and anti-climatic hello that pre-empted 9 years of intimate friendship, six years of love, and 3 months of marriage.