In many of my stories, the first meeting between main characters is a favorite scene to write and to read. Here's the first meeting between Evan and Caleb in Dreams We Remember. Do keep in mind that this has been revised only once.
The quiet footstep slunk by my door each night.
I left high school at sixteen, forsaking my senior year of in favor of community college. I then managed to whittle away three entire years, each semester signing up for five classes and proceeding to drop at least two of them after a month or so, throwing in a couple summer sessions because I hated hanging around the house. Worked at a bike shop, Albertson’s, Starbucks. Bought myself a beater Taurus to spin girls around in and stuff with old books. The latter purpose was my guilty hobby that not a soul but mine knew of.
Reading facilitated my education more than any of my classes, which I spat at and passed with honor student ranking. If I threw up on a piece of paper my teachers adored me; if my heart tried to leak out the scores plummeted. So I swallowed my instruction with ipecac syrup and tucked Hemingway and Stevenson beneath my pillow.
I grew up in a modest city on California’s Central Coast, so my family visited San Francisco at least once a year. Often we merely drove through on the way to see relatives in Nevado, but once in a while we’d bustle through Chinatown or attend a Giants’ game. I loved the city for its architecture and its fog, and my attendance at any state university would please my family.
At nearly twenty I was fairly old to be a newbie in the Mary Park Residence Hall. I showed up with a duffle teeming with books and underwear, thrilled to be on my own in a place of learning. My roommate had been at SFSU since freshman year, and why he didn’t room with a buddy was beyond me. He certainly knew enough people.
I adjusted well to dorm living. Pre-made meals suited me perfectly. I’d never had any trouble making friends, feeling like I had fifty after the first week.
One night in late September I woke to the sound of footsteps. They crept as inconspicuously as possible, shoelessly, careful step upon careful step. I thought little of them and went back to sleep. But the next night they came again: same time, same rhythm. They came every night for a week, and finally I waited until they had been long past, then slipped on my robe and snuck out.
The hall was empty and I breezed through it carelessly. I had no idea where the footsteps headed, and peeking into other dorm rooms seemed blatantly unacceptable. I wondered why I had decided to follow the footsteps; they likely led into the bathroom. But the same time every night? And gone so long? I never heard them return. When I reached the bathroom I stealthily opened the door and entered.
I knew I had found the owner of the footsteps in the fellow student before me. He sat on the floor with his back leant against a stall, his eyes closed but clearly not sleeping.
He twitched, hearing something, and opened his eyes. Upon seeing me he started terribly.
“Good evening,” I said.
He couldn’t look at me, smashing his teeth together. I think he tried to respond, but it was all he could do to plaster his face with some semblance of composure.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
He painfully closed and opened his eyes. “Couldn’t sleep.”
“You come every night.”
“I can never sleep.” He stared straight ahead, his jaw bulging in his narrow face.
“I’m up tonight also. May I sit with you?”
He took a shaking breath. “Of course.” We sat silent. I thought his eyes would close again, but they only shimmered at the chipped porcelain sinks. For his weight he was unbelievably tall, his legs extending nearly across the room, and for a young man who had presumably seen the sun within his lifetime, extremely pale. A jagged, raised scar twisted along the side of his neck, a Lucifer vein writhing through the skin. He was like one terminally ill, spending his final hours alone in the dark, starved and abandoned, waiting to die. The scar flourishing as he failed. A horrible thing: swollen and red. It could only be an incision, but then the surgeon who put it there should have been stoned.
“What is your name?” I asked.
“Caleb.”
“Mine’s Evan.” I took his hand up from his knee. “You’re frozen!”
He snatched his hand away. “Then you had best not touch me.”
“I had best share.” I pulled off my robe and tossed it in his lap.
He looked even more uncomfortable than before.
“Come on, Caleb! You went to kindergarten, didn’t you? I have fleece pajamas and a robe. You’re multiple inches too long for your pajamas and robeless. Sharing.”
He thought me insane. “What do you want?”
“For you to put that on.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re cold and I’m sweating like an idiot.”
His tight shoulders softened a little; he stood and put on the robe. We sat still and awkward again, but at least in my mind he was a bit more comfortable.
“Did I really say that?”
He turned to me.
“Did I really say ‘I’m sweating like an idiot?’”
The green eyes actually met mine, and we began to laugh. His voice had been thin, but laughing lent it new fullness.
“I certainly am making an idiot of myself,” I said. “In every way I can muster.”
“You’re the idiot? I’m the one sitting on the bathroom floor at one a.m.”
“But I followed you. I could get nabbed for something like that.”
He laughed again, then subdued. “Sorry for waking you. I try to be quiet.”
“I waited for you to go by.”
“How often do you hear me?”
“Have every night for a week, but only because I listen.”
“You’re the first, thankfully.”
“Do you do this every night?”
He nodded.
“Since when?”
“A month after I started.”
“When was that?”
“Three years ago.”
“You’ve spent every night in the bathroom for three years?”
“Almost. Not those between semesters, of course.”
“Do you go home for breaks?”
He couldn’t answer a moment, gathering strength for the next round of questions.
“Never mind. Believe it or not, I don’t actually mean to interrogate you.”
A hollow chuckle accompanied his glance. “This is not interrogation. I spend summers in various cheap hotels. FAFSA likes me so even my dorm fees are covered; I save up to pay for summer accommodations.”
“That sounds better than going home. Maybe you can show me the best places.”
He smiled. “Gladly. Thanks for the robe.”
“Don’t mention it. I feel smarter without it.”
Another laugh enlivened his frame. “We can go back to the rooms now. You’re falling asleep.”
“Am I?”
“Your eyes are heavy.”
“But you’ll stay all night.”
“You know all my habits! Then just fall asleep here; I’ll wake you in the morning.”
“When do you break for lunch tomorrow?”
“Eleven thirty.”
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