The basement was soaked in the humidity of the summer night’s heat. At first, there was a gathering of young twenty-somethings there, carrying on like they were doing something. When all they were doing was what they had room to do which was standing next to the keg. The steps down to the basement sunk, so as she stepped down, she actually went lower than what she thought of herself. Her friends came with her, but soon she would find someone different, someone, new. A someone who would redefine what it meant to be a friend. He watched her; she did not notice how he had heard her every step into the basement. As she sat near the keg, one by one no one noticed as they got more beer. She understood this was normal; even though she traveled a hundred miles away everything was the same.

He came over and over and over again like her mind had played it before like an old movie in the VCR waiting to be played.

“Can I sit down?”

He did not wait for an answer; he positioned himself beside her and asked for nothing but to be with her.

“My name is Scott.”

Scott looked at her waiting for a response as she went into her shell, not knowing if this was real. A good-looking guy wanted to sit with her and be with her with all these other girls, including the ones she came with that always got the attention.

“You have a name, right?”

“Aury. My name is Aury.”

Aury gets settled into his eyes; they say things that would never be spoken to anyone.

“You act like you do not know what to do here.”

Aury smiles. Scott matches her smile. The crowd around the basement was soon no longer there. It was just Aury and Scott. They stayed engaged with each other for what seemed like for weeks instead of hours. Aury felt safe for the first time and more than with the people she was supposed to know and what they knew of her. She found herself realizing this was the first time she was known for who she wanted to be and who she was.

The window in the basement was lit with a wet moon which dripped on the two of them and helped them glow in front of each other. Steps came down and hard, it was Aury’s friends whom she came with.

“Aury, are you ready to go?”

Aury felt a defeat she had never felt before. It was finally over the moment she thought she would never have. Scott looked equally disappointed.

Scott spoke up and said, “I know where you live. I can take her, Casey.”

Casey looked at the two other friends with shock and dispute that they could not stop. “Ok.”

As they walked up the stairs they looked back at Aury and Scott who had resumed their affairs that were again in order.

Scott and Aury left the party and arrived at Casey’s apartment. He walked her to the door. Aury brought up the nerve to reach for a hug, Scott had all the nerve and kissed her. Their lips locked for awhile.

“Can I go with you?”

“We can go back to my place.”

Aury nodded, and Scott took her hand. As he opened her door, Aury thought she was becoming open to a new way of seeing.

Scott opened the front door of his place. He told Aury to sit anywhere. The place was a mess, a perfect mess like Scott for the whole night they talked about everything, nothing was off the table or not able to come off the top of their lips. However, Aury noticed something or someone who lived there.

“What do you want to listen to? I got Stevie Wonder, Little Feat, Primus, The Dead?”

With uncertainty, Aury asked, “Does someone live here?”

Scott paused. “My girlfriend.” Scott lurked over to the couch where Aury was sitting. The music had started and reset the mood. For Aury, she knew what was going to happen. She didn’t wonder why she didn’t care who his “her” was. Maybe because she was his “her” for that moment, he reached with his hand to turn her face to him. He began kissing her madly, as if he let go it would be the end of him. He then stopped. He picked her up and took her to the bed. They both took off their clothes with no verbal instruction.

“You are my first.”

Scott looked at Aury for a bit and looked up and down her body. He continued kissing her before fully placing himself on her.

As he drove off, Aury knew she would never see him or have that feeling with another person again even though she got his number. She opened the front door to the friend’s apartment not walking a walk of shame but a proud one. She knew the feeling of being one with someone. Upon entering the bathroom she wanted to take a shower thinking the girls would smell the scent of a man being on her and deep inside of her. Aury removed her clothes and took a shower. As the water ran against her, she recalled how Scott’s hands rubbed against her body. He used his hands like a painter holding their brushes. He used his hands to make her body his canvas, and with tight movements, he made her his masterpiece.

She came there not to fall in love, but she left in it anyway.