By KARLA MUÑOZ

You stood me up the other day.

I waited for you on the 3rd floor of Frost Library with my back to the wall. I wore my favorite satin
black skirt too. Did you mean to call? I had my ringer off but I think I would have noticed. I always
notice. I just never pick up.

Do you remember when we first met? It was on my 12th birthday and my uncle presented me to you.
You wore red and gold and I was enthralled by your promise of adventure. And what a promise that
was! We visited Paris and London and Scotland and when I couldn’t bear the solitude of sitting in my
desolate room in New York City, I met you again at the library and you took me to Macondo and we
partied in Central City, Colorado and we hid away from Big Brother and took a trip with Ford Prefect
and I cried at Lennie Small’s funeral but you held me until the tears dried.

I used to talk about our adventures with a good friend all the time. Did I tell you that he knows you
too? To tell you the truth, I’m a little jealous that he does. But it’s okay because he adores you (so do I!)
and even if sometimes he can’t understand you, it’s the mystery of wanting to know more that fasci-
nates us. We don’t talk anymore, but I still think about those conversations all the time.

Where were you? No matter how much time I put aside to meet with you, the will to see you becomes
unbearable. Yet, I miss the engulfing magic of your words. But the last time we met, I could only stare
blankly at you. Now being with you feels like everything and nothing at once.
We were inseparable once, remember that! I told all my friends about you I discovered love with you
and heartbreak and forgiveness I came to you with a strain in my heart I came to you with laughs and a
let’s-forget-everything-but-us attitude. You were there with me on all my tedious MTA trips to school,
in my lunch breaks and line waits you were the cause of each car sickness I had but I brought extra
plastic bags with me just so I had more time to be with you and yet…

Frost Library is a never-ending spiral of knowing that you are there and yet, I cannot bear to see you.
So you stood me up the other day. And there I sat, with my back to the wall and my favorite black satin
skirt reaching down to my knees. You don’t understand how badly I wanted to meet with you but the
dread of having to face you again took the paperweight you left off my body. The only thing left for me
to do was leave. I’m sure you saw me. I just wish you would have stopped me.

Karla Muñoz ’24 is a staff writer
kmunoz24@amherst.edu