I saw you so many years ago now. Yet I can still see you so clearly. Or at least, however my fourteen-year-old mind chose to render you can still see you so clearly. You were tan. Olive-skinned, as they say. With blue eyes and blonde hair. The kind of hair that hung loose around your face because it was on the long and shaggy side. Mangy even. The hair of a guy in an indie band of The Strokes’ heyday era. I don’t remember where the flight was leaving from, only that it was headed toward a layover in Germany, and so for that reason I assumed you must be German. Maybe you were. You did have the blonde hair and blue eyes…plus, you could read in English (all Germans seem to know English, I found out later). I knew this because I clocked the book you held in your hand as you slid into your seat two rows in front of mine. Gabriel García Márquez’s Love in the Time of Cholera. I had heard of the book before, though certainly not from school, where it was strictly the White Male Authors being peddled: Steinbeck, Fitzgerald, Hemingway. That ilk. So to see someone reading something so “exotic” was an additional part of the attraction. The appeal. The sheer animal magnetism.

I’m probably remembering it all wrong, but I could swear you made eye contact with me just before you sat down. We were both in a four-seater row of the plane that’s located in the middle of the three-seater rows to the left and right on international flights. You looked about nineteen, probably too old for me. Though that wouldn’t have stopped most guys your age from “going for it” with an underage girl. And, at that time in my life, I would’ve happily let you. You see, I had a lot of romantic fantasies swirling around in my head when I was fourteen. And while they all involved sex, they also involved some equivalent of riding off into the sunset and living happily after. Blame it on too many rom-coms. And pop songs. I had a tendency to project that sort of thing onto every guy I was attracted to.

However, despite my raging hormones of the day, I was only attracted to a very specific kind of boy. And you fit the bill for what I was looking for to a tee. I guess you could say I had a fetish for the “sleazy prep.” But hey, it’s not like you were wearing a puka shell necklace. That trend probably never made it to Germany. Again, I’m still assuming you’re German. And in my mind’s eye, I can see you wearing a powder blue t-shirt that further accented the tanness of your skin. This detail, paired with the book you were reading, might lead some to believe you weren’t German at all. And since I never heard you speak, I’ll never know for sure. All I could do was watch you like a silent movie, going in and out of the aisle occasionally whenever the inevitable urge to use the bathroom arose. There were moments when I contemplated following you. Not to do anything perverse—it’s not like I was expecting to join the Mile High Club—but rather, just to be closer to you. To make eye contact again (that is, if we even really did that first time).

Of course, I stayed in my seat like a “good little girl.” Taught not to be aggressive or “drooling” when it came to the opposite sex. To never let my carnal desires shine through in any way, shape or form. That’s not what a “lady” does, but a tramp. A slut, a whore, an “easy lay.” All the things that a “proper” woman is not supposed to be. Even if “base” desires are contained (and so rarely unleashed) within everyone. No matter how “respectable” they are. At that time in my life though, I still thought it was the most important thing to be (or rather, pretend to be). Especially if I wanted to get someone like you to notice and be interested in me. Because you seemed like the romantic type. You must have been, right? To have been reading Love in the Time of Cholera… I didn’t know much about the book when I first saw you with it, apart from what the title suggested.

When I arrived at our final destination in Italy, I tried to look for it. They sold copies at Feltrinelli, mostly in Italian. The English copy I finally scouted on the shelf was more expensive as it was considered an import. So instead of reading it, I skimmed through, returning to the bookstore location inside Napoli Centrale whenever possible so that I could try to read the same words you did, know the same story you were receiving in that period when I encountered you.

And the story, in a nutshell, is this: two young lovers, Florentino Ariza and Fermina Daza, make a vow to love each other forever. Time apart (at the fault of Fermina’s father, who discovers their relationship and moves her to another town) is enough for Fermina to realize she doesn’t truly love this person at all, doesn’t even really know him at all—despite all the back-and-forth love letters. So she marries someone else. A man who represents a more sensible choice, a secure future. But in spite of this, Florentino insists he will still wait for her. Even as he has numerous dalliances with other women. Regardless, he considers himself faithful in mind (even if not in body) to Fermina, eventually reuniting with her after her husband’s death. A romantic story, overall—even if it doesn’t say much about men’s predilections for fidelity (Fermina’s husband admits to cheating on her at one point as well).

Yet I prefer to think of you in neither role. To me, you aren’t Florentino or Dr. Urbino. You’re just the hot guy reading Love in the Time of Cholera. The hot guy who awakened something inside of me that I had been trying to suppress. A yearning that was fundamentally more sexual than romantic.