Chapter 4: The countdown.

Before I left for winter break, I had to decide what classes I would be taking next semester. Since I needed only one more class to fulfill my academic obligations, I was looking for something with minimal time and work expenditure required. Ah, the beauty of graduate classes... however, the thought often forefront in my mind was that Liz would be leaving Hopkins at the end of January, and only coming for classes and special events. College had taught me the painful lesson that taking classes with someone rarely brings you closer. So, gritting my teeth, I selected the class I would have normally selected had a certain Elizabeth Carstairs not come into my life. When I came back from vacation (with a few less teeth to grit--the joys of getting one's wisdom teeth pulled), I found out that she had decided to take the same class. That's the way it goes, sometimes.

By then, I knew that I wanted to see Liz on a regular basis after she leaves Hopkins. Granted, it wasn't likely to happen, but I had to at least try. So I won't be able to drop by her lab anymore; I knew that. However, I wanted more than a few minutes before and after class once a week. I'm not sure when the idea of dinner came up, but it persisted in sticking around.

January flew by. Liz wrapped up her rotation, while I was further traumatized as my comps were postponed due to a miscalculation on the part of an examiner. I spent two hours in the three nights before comps studying, and the rest alternately reading paperbacks and freaking out. My lab was kind enough to throw me a bash after my two-hour ordeal, which I deeply appreciated. Later that afternoon, Liz and I were walking back to her place (while she was teasing me about sleepwalking through class), chatting about the upcoming weekend, when I asked her to have dinner with me next Friday.

An unreadable expression flickered in her eyes before she said that her sister might be visiting next weekend, but that she would enjoy having dinner with me.

Interlude--Parting and sweet sorrows.

I should have known better. Our friendship--such as it was--was built on our daily interactions. With that removed, it was inexorably bound to slowly fade away, leaving only a palimpset of itself. It's like watching the tide go out--you never realize that it's slipping away until you take a look at the expanse of wet sand before you. But then, I've always been fond of tilting at windmills.

We went out to dinner a few more times. It was a convenient way to catch up on the past week, and a relaxing way to spend two or three hours, chatting away. When summer began and Liz started full-time in her lab, even the last vestiges of casual contact faded away. It was my choice to stay on the periphery of her life, and I accepted the consequences. Truth was, I didn't know how to be someone Liz would enjoy being friends with, and still be the introverted, approval-seeking, neurotic, manipulative fool that I know and love to hate.

I threw myself into my work. Not that anyone noticed--my advisor was in once every week or so, when he could spare the time from his responsibilities as Dean. The rest of my class, enduring the rigors of comps together, grew closer through shared tribulations, while I stayed aloof, having scraped through all by my lonesome earlier. June came and went. I flew over to Philly over the Fourth of July weekend to direct a chess tournament and visit a few friends from the West Coast playing there. After some deliberation, I asked out one of my ex-students from the lab section I taught in the spring. A few dates later had us parting amicably, both realizing that it wasn't working out.

Little did I know what fate had in store for me.