His eyes were a really deep blue. It was almost like an electric shock, and I couldn't stop looking.
Three years had passed since the summer I had last seen Christian, and I had started a whole new life. Now I was starting my third year at the University of Alberta, and I knew I hadn't seen Mr. Blue Eyes during my first two years. The more I looked at him, the more I wanted to look at him. His name was Rogan Cormack, and I had never spoken to him. The first time I saw him, he probably passed under my radar. I didn't notice him until I heard him laugh. The sound made my heart take a dive and I took immediate, intense notice. He sounded exactly like Christian.
Then, I couldn’t stop staring.
His hair was black and cut very short in the back. It grew longer on top. His hairline was completely hidden since his hair was always brushed forward, so I couldn’t see if he had Christian’s widow’s peak. His eyebrows were extremely bushy and looked in need of Christian’s usual trimming, but no university student was as stylish as Christian had been. Rogan wore hoodies and toques. He also wore thick rimmed glasses; their frames an intense indigo, which made his eyes look even bluer. His goatee was trimmed close to his face and the rest of his jawline was always so cleanly shaven it was as if he shaved right before class.
The thing was, I couldn’t forget Christian’s laugh. When I went on vacation with him, all those years ago, I took pictures. I took movies. I recorded his voice and his laugh. My memory of him couldn’t fade, because I was reliving the time we had spent together by reviewing those photographs, watching those movies and listening to those sound bites.
When I started looking for hints that Rogan was Christian, I found them everywhere. His face looked different, everything about the way he styled his face was different. His eyelashes threw me at first. They were unbelievably black, like his hair. It changed the whole mood of his face. He looked ten years younger dressed like a student. He was obviously hiding who he was, not from everyone, but from me. Christian had a distinct Adam’s apple as an identifier. Rogan wore turtlenecks or scarves to ensure I never saw his neck. It was cold that fall, and he wore tight leather gloves that he hoped hid the right angles of his hands. The gloves hugged his hands so tightly, they were practically liquid, so even though I couldn’t see color, I could see shape and that hadn’t changed.
After staring at Rogan for two months, I could swear an affidavit that it was Christian in disguise. I didn’t question why he had chosen to appear in front of me as a different person. He had his reasons, both for being someone else and for not making contact with me. I hoped he had found an identity he could use that would allow us to be together, and was waiting for me to notice him, but I wasn’t quite ready to introduce myself.
I had changed. The girl I had been three years ago was gone. When I ran into people I had once known at boarding school, they didn’t recognize me. I had grown three and a half inches, and though I hadn’t lost more than twenty pounds, the added height had changed the whole shape of my body. I still had my freckles, though I hid them under liquid foundation. I had also learned to work with my curls so that they became ringlets instead of a frizzy poof. My hair was still more brown than blond, but apparently, I was unrecognizable because I had learned how to contour around my nose to make it look more elfin. Occasionally, I got asked out on dates by men I had known as boys who could not believe the transformation. Their surprise was almost insulting.
I knew Christian wouldn’t be fooled by makeup or weight loss. No matter how much I changed, he would know me.
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