He wore the same ragged, cobalt blue hooded jacket day after day. We both transferred in our sophomore year to the conservative Bible at college, and I reasoned it to be fate that he now sat in front of me every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday during our Pentateuch class.  His dark, curly cropped mullet circled down his neck, and the first growth of beard was always visible in our early morning class. His eyes match his hooded jacket; not that I was able to see them with the back of his head to me. But more than once I imagined them as I stared past his head, willing myself to pay attention to the professor’s droning.

Day after day he sat two feet in front of me with his skinny jeans and kicks extended out into the aisles. I willed him to notice me. I tried to think of casual conversation starters, but my perpetual lateness to class left me sliding past him into the last row of seats as the lecture began. The cobalt jacket and curly mullet were my only mode of communication with him. I hoped with time that it would become more.

In a vain attempt to bridge the desk divide between us consisting of little more than cheap wood with a lacquered finish, I reached out to him in a wordless gesture. Should his cobalt hood of his jacket be turned inside out, I would wordlessly tuck it in for him. Without acknowledgment, he stared forward. But I shivered in delight at the touch of him. I wondered if he noticed me at all.

I seemed to be the only one taking note of his presence. I memorized the lines of his curls, his long pale neck, and cobalt jacket. I took them in every day till they were as familiar as my own face. My silent surveying became a familiar gesture as I mapped the contour of his curly hair. But the first notice of a lump on his neck altered the lines and horrified me.  It was an unwelcome protrusion from his neck, causing my eyes to fixate on nothing else. Since our conversation had extended no further than my wordless gesture, my petty “hey, did you know…” didn’t seem appropriate for the growing lump on his neck.  I wondered. I stared in horror. I watched it grow.

His later absence from class left me feeling exposed and vacant. I no longer had the consistent presence of his dark curls and cobalt blue jacket. The next time I saw him, a bandage covered his neck and his hair was cut short. He seemed paler and thinner than usual. I was scared.

I heard round the campus that he had leukemia. Despite my feelings for him, I couldn’t ask him about it. His hair grew thinner along with his body as the chemo ravaged his body. Before I knew it, his presence in class grew fewer and fewer and fewer. The bold lines of the cobalt jacket and curls grew fainter and fainter.

The next time I would see him, he was a skeleton of a man with a bald head and paper thin skin. He no longer wore his cobalt jacket but was wrapped in layers of clothing. He was so thin that the wind looked like it could sweep him away. With time, it was the cancer carried him away. 

I look back and think of the times I dreamed of bridging the gap between us. Now the divide is infinite, and I’ll no longer have that chance. But for short while, I came to love a boy while staring at the back of his head. What I didn’t know was that I was falling for him while he was quietly slipping away.