When she ventured into the park again, she saw that he was waiting for her. She could see him standing at a distance, next to the evergreens. William, she said to herself, letting herself roll the name around in her head. 

He had said that he would be waiting, but it didn’t feel strange seeing him there this time. She thought she would feel self-conscious about it, but she didn’t, only a nervous fluttering.

The little white terrier that she had noticed the other day was sniffing at leaves and grass, slowly wagging its tail. It paused to investigate a scraggle of grass clumped with something less identifiable and she wrinkled her nose a little. It was a cute fluffy bundle of shortness and even if she wasn’t quite sure what to do about its owner, she was certain she liked the dog.

She approached casually, not wanting to seem too eager. She scolded herself a little for being silly. So what if she approached him or not? She wasn’t a high school girl meeting her first crush. He seemed to be new to Canada and she was just being kind. Her inner voice scoffed at the absurdity of that particular thought. Liar. Liar, her brain whispered, Who is going to believe that Viv? What is this really about?

“Hi,” she said at last, taking the last few steps toward him.

“Hi,” he responded, looking embarrassed. 

They stood quietly looking at each other. And then he pointed to the baseball diamond, slowly stepping around the dog. Taking a breath she fell into step next to him, letting him take her where he wanted to go.

At first she thought she would use google to translate what he said, but he had shrugged her off a few times, instead handing her his phone and the ear buds. Each time he had a song for her and it didn’t take her too long to realize that he was trying to talk to her using the lyrics of the song.

Also, it didn’t taken her too long to realize that William didn’t talk. Or at least he was very reluctant to do so. She was more sure now that he suffered from extreme shyness or some other difficulty that made social interaction a chore for him.

Over the next few weeks, meeting in the park, they developed their own way of communicating. A language of sound, music, occasional pictures ripped from magazines, Instagram photos, and the stilted reluctant words that occasionally escaped his lips. They made a language of music and colour.

Sometimes they didn’t try to communicate at all, only wanting to spend time walking around the park or the neighbourhood in silence. They became used to each other, just being in the other’s company.

Weeks turned into months and the weather started to change.

He let her know, not very subtly, that he was interested in her body.  She never quite knew what to expect with him. With some things he was hopelessly inept and with other things, he was quite in control and completely unfiltered. Sex interested him, so not surprisingly he was rather direct in his approach to it, but it caught her completely off guard given that he wasn’t very interested in hand holding or touching in general. In fact, he still obsessed over her hands.

She had walked up to him one day already reaching out for the iphone and stuck an earbud in, only to feel her cheeks flame up. Her eyes shot to his face as she slowly absorbed that she was listening to Ed Sheeran’s “I’m in love with your body”. The shock must have showed because he quirked up his lips, smiling his one sided smile – it was knowing, but perhaps slightly cunning. He was taunting her a little and they both knew it.

She reached out quite deliberately, her smile suddenly matching his, and put both hands, palms flat against his chest and shoved. Hard. He wasn’t expecting that and stumbled backwards, annoyance flitting across his face.

“Wei!” he exclaimed.

She shoved the iphone at him, and stalked off, leaving him staring after her. After that she didn’t go to the field for two full weeks, stewing a little over his audacity. It was only after he showed up in front of her house for four nights in a row, that she had relented going out to meet him at the alleyway standing in the darkness. On those nights, she didn’t go too far or too long as the girls were asleep in their beds and Jason was away. Once he was back from his business trip, she again made excuses to slip away to the grass field by herself to meet William.

William continued to make overtures in his silent way, sometimes reaching a hand out very tentatively, not quite touching her face and then he would slowly withdraw the hand, straighten and act as if nothing had happened. She would let him, would hold completely still neither accepting nor rejecting it, but not encouraging him either.