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"Hey you," she said as she passed down the stairs, her new orange hair bouncing with every step.

"Oh! I didn't recognize you," I said, feeling a singe of guilt, and then a wave of calm as I turned to meet her face. "I like your hair." She smiled at me and I asked her how she had been. I suddenly remembered all of the confusion of that night that exploded with energy, and then past into non-existance like the spectacle you get when a meteor penetrates the atmosphere.

"I've been good." she said.

Good. I remember wishing that she could be good. Crying, sobbing, clinging to me, I had listened to her story about how she broke up with her boyfriend, her idealistic bond to her virginity, and the pressures of working to support herself. I had barely known her, but I felt compelled to console her.

"How've you been?" she asked.

"So-so," was my response. I wanted to tell her everything I was feeling. I wanted to go back to that night when every teardrop she deposited on my shoulder was a reasurance that I had a place in this world. I wanted to hold her all over again.

"I haven't eaten in days," she said, "I was about to go to the store." I thought of offfering to cook her a meal, but that's how it started last time. An aquaintance, she's distraught, I offered her juice, and she spills her guts to me. Spilled them until there was nothing lef to tell. I listened. I held her. I told her she was wonderful and that everything would turn out fine. She thanked me over and over again, and tragically, as she was leaving.....

I kissed her.

I reintroduced her to a world of confusion. "No," she said, "everything else was what I needed," and she was out the door.

Months went by, I didn't see her, and the twinge of guilt she left behind passed from my memory.

Now, she stands before me again, a new woman, smiling.

"You should eat some food," I told her.

She left me with "yeah, it was good to see you," and suddenly she was just another small character in a story.