Looking at the room there is nothing particularly distinguishable about its size, décor, or layout. This one is utterly forgettable in most aspects and can only be described as a room in which one waits. Many may pass through at one point or another but the uncertainty and risk inherent in the process prove discouraging enough that some may never enter.

He has been sitting lightly on the edge of the bed for an indiscernible amount of time but with some inclination that what he’s waiting for is another person, even if he doesn’t know whom. He’s already discarded the thinly structured black Jansport backpack that accompanies him everywhere in the topmost corner of the room near the headboard. Maybe he’s calculating how much longer he’ll stay. Maybe he’s reciting his favorite lines from Rimbaud. Maybe he’s meditating. He is not watching the door.

She carries the green Eddie Bauer backpack she’s had since middle school slung over one shoulder, partially opened, ready to pull things out but not worried about them falling out of their own accord. She hesitates before applying pressure on the door handle to swing it open. She’s been here before. No, not this exact room but the rooms just like it scattered all over. The modest, vaguely uncomfortable ones that can deliver delight and despair in equal amounts but are ultimately pivotal in the lives of those who enter. It’s been awhile. She remembers the times before. The feelings of emptiness and exposure when the contents of her bag have been dumped out and scattered across a room. The instances when there hasn’t been enough time to go through it all before hastily jamming everything back in and having that extra anxiety of losing something in the process. She hopes this time will be different. She hopes she won’t have to rush out of the room with papers and notebooks in hand and that unzipped, unfinished, hurried feeling accompanying only the notion that she has to go. Now.

Walking into the room she finds him perched on the edge of the bed unaware that she has entered. She has just long enough to see him and note his black shirt, jeans, black belt, and boots before he turns to see her. “Oh, this one could really fuck me up,” she thinks in that half second before the first hello. And it is the first of many “hellos” they’ll have. The kind that are still an introduction even after you’ve already met. The kind of “hellos” to another, new facet that they discover about one another. A “hello” that more means I see you, I feel you, I am arriving here at this place of knowing you and myself more deeply. But that hasn’t happened yet. They aren’t even quite sure how to begin.

She joins him on the bed and places her backpack upright between them. It’s full of notebooks, papers, mementos, and more. Unpacking it is the reason she has come. To see if he will be interested by what’s inside and patient enough to let her take things out in her own time. She thought she might start with something easy like a modified list of the here and theres of the past five years but instead finds herself digging deeper into her bag as Hafiz’s line, “we have not come into this exquisite world to hold ourselves hostage from love” pulses through her. As she nervously sets aside the noncomplicated version of how she ended up back in this city, she pauses to meet his sea glass green eyes. The ease with which they connect, his gentle but direct curiosity, and her determination to remain honest throughout it all has her reaching for the things she’s slow to show. The photographs she has taken over the past year. The ones of places and people she loves. The ones she can’t quite explain but knows she needs to share if he will ever understand. The swarm of doubts and fears bundled up in a binder from school, a mosaic turtle from home, and a tattered old notebook of poetry she’s written or copied down. The daydreams of the future and the hope that one day she’ll have someone to do it all with.

And so she continues emptying her backpack piece by piece while he looks on noticing and commenting. Asking questions and offering his thoughts. They place everything in piles with stacks forming everywhere on the bed they are not. Her backpack is light. Its contents will effortlessly slide back in once it is time to go. And eventually, it is time to go but not in that rushed or hurried way she has known before. This time she finishes the process. This time she isn’t worried that someone else knows what’s in her backpack. This time she packs her bag slowly, purposefully, with his help.

There is an understanding between them they are not meant to remain in this room forever. That this was always just the meeting place. She swings her repacked backpack up off the bed and slips one strap over her shoulder. Their pinky fingers are still hooked as they pause in the moment before everything that comes next. This uncertainty and risk were promised, it’s the sweetness and resonance that make continued momentum so difficult. Just as the in breath has drawn them together, the out breath naturally follows and leads the way on to the next movement. Neither knows what will happen beyond the room but with each other they have been enough.

He remains sitting on the bed after the door has clicked shut. He might just stay here a while longer. But as he contemplates all his options- should he stay, should he go, can he go, will he make it if he leaves - he catches sight of his own black backpack in the corner, forgotten until now. Its neatly stored contents don’t reflect his own internal state of disarray. The temptation is to stay and sort through it all on his own, to make sense of all the pieces before ever sharing them with another. But then he thinks it might be nice to have someone there- if he’s ready and if they’re willing. He grabs his backpack, strides toward the door, and takes one last look of gratitude at the room before stepping over the threshold into the “and then.”

The room stands empty once again, open, waiting for others to come in and use it as a holding place. A place for taking things out and putting them back in before moving on, if they can. A place from which they try to learn this process of knowing one another and themselves more deeply. A place that makes whatever happens outside of the room possible.