Temptation Has Kaleidoscope Eyes

I have discovered Temptation. He comes in the form of an eighteen-year-old boy with kaleidoscope eyes and soft, dirty blonde curls. His hands, larger than mine, never lose their heat. You want to be held by them. With all his warmth, it’s surprising that he smiles so sparingly – an eclipse of expression that is only shown when he genuinely feels it inside. Rare. He strums his own songs on his guitar, wanders outside with anyone interesting enough, hangs a fallen bus stop sign above his bed, spray paints over insults staining a tunnel wall, and comments, always comments, on things people usually don’t notice.

“That’s not how this game works,” he says when you try to steer the conversation, or be the one who convinces him to do something. That’s when he smiles – in between the why and the how, knowing that you are trying your hardest but will always lose in the end.

I have discovered Temptation.  It was Welcome Week ‘07, the time when incoming UMBC freshmen met the rest of the crew before a semester of pirating through a sea of uncharted experiences. On this particular Monday, during this particular moment, the freshmen were gathered in the University Center Ballroom for the “RU Ready? Rights, Responsibilities, and Resources” event. Three walls were lined with tables, each seated with a representative from a different resource office on campus; the fourth was occupied by a stage. The objective was to receive a sticker from every table by asking each a reasonable question.

I don’t remember the name of the table where I was waiting in line, but I do know it was the one closest to the stage. I had the strange feeling I knew the back of the head in front of me; but as I took a step forward for a look at the face, I realized I was wrong.

It was too late to pretend we hadn’t made eye contact. I had two choices: an embarrassing moment of awkward half-smiles after the common blunder of mistaking someone for someone else, or a nonchalant attempt to make a new friend. Having been a near-wilting wallflower in high school, I settled with introducing myself. As long as I met at least one new person each day, I figured coming to the Welcome Week events wouldn’t be a waste of time. Looking back, I should not have dismissed “RU Ready?” as a rhetorical question.

Temptation and I must have crossed paths multiple times again, because by Friday, we were walking around perfectly comfortable with each other’s company. He threw compliments at me and I caught them with all the verbal grace a teenage girl can muster. People teased me for how utterly obvious he was about liking me.

“So where are we going?” I asked for the first time in what was to become a common question-and-answer conversation between us.

“We’re going to find the highest point on campus,” he replied as he strolled along with his raised shoulders that never fell, in his shoes with scribbled notes from high school friends.

“I heard it was the 7^th floor of the library.”

We wandered through seemingly deserted buildings, winding up staircases and looking out of windows, eliminating the chance that I had heard wrong. When we finally took the elevator to the 7^th floor of the library, at the far left end we found a panoramic scene that spanned an empty, pink-carpeted circle lined with glass windows. It was the perfect juxtapose of land embroidering sky, stretching as far as Baltimore City. It has been my favorite spot ever since; his too, I think.

Later that day, as we walked up the grass-covered ledges that cascade down the front of the Commons, I was thrown off guard when Temptation asked me out to dinner. This was a bold request considering that we had already spoken about my religious background – about how my family is Muslim, so dating isn’t considered appropriate. Naturally, I said, “No,” flattered nonetheless. It was the first time I had been asked out, and I thought it was the first time any single person had shown interest in me as an individual  (but it was only because I was a girl – a piece of reality I chose to ignore).  The semester had yet to begin, and I was already dazzled with “the honeymoon stage” of college, as my mother labeled it and repeatedly warned me to keep in mind.

Luckily, I met Clarity during Welcome Week as well, who shared my goal of becoming an extroverted introvert. As much as we had in common, she was a much more objective version of myself. While my image of Temptation was rose-colored with intrigue for his whimsical ways and flowery words, she found him to be arrogant and rude. But it wasn’t until two or three weeks into classes that Clarity ever mentioned her honest opinion to me.

A round of Facebook stalking confirmed her suspicions. “BIG JERK” headlined the top of a message from someone who knew him, and we found out that he was involved in a “twisted love pentagon” back in high school. But I glazed over it with an open mind. Everyone has a history, right? When I had made a complete 180-degree turn myself, who was I to judge him by who he was in high school? College was a new era; it deserved a new slate.

My father had armed me with advice to live my era by, words that I think everyone should follow: “Make college a group activity. Study in groups, and have fun in groups. Don’t get too attached to one person, because once you do, you’ll feel miserable without them.”

But he had warned me too late. We began sharing pieces of ourselves over coffee, then lunch, then episodes of House, then at each other’s houses. He always took what I gave him and understood; then gave me something back to think about later. He even had something reflective to say after I described what I expect my rambunctious baby cousin to be like when she gets older. “You see, that’s the difference between you and me,” he pondered over the phone. “You always look at the way things will be in the future, and I see and appreciate them for what they are now.”

A constant desire to share every part of who I was consumed me. I have a tendency to scatter my secrets as if they were dandelion seeds, flying in a million different directions and settling on separate patches of earth. Temptation reminded me how striking a garden can be.

You are secrets wrapped in nice clothes. It is beautiful. If I had known how to archive texts back then, I probably would have saved that message forever. I was captivated. He was the astronomer I had been waiting for to map me out like a constellation in the sky – the close friend that I had always wanted who had humor, eloquence, and an equal passion for literature and writing. It was a two-way street, or else I would never have felt so forthcoming. Not a day went by when we didn’t hang out, or at least text to find out how the world was treating the other.

“Where are you all the time?” my friends would ask me. “We never see you anymore.” I would smile and shrug – I didn’t notice that I hardly spent time with anyone else.

One night I had joined him in the study lounge of his dorm building to catch up on biology. A few minutes after I was settled in, he put his book down and announced he had something to ask me. His sports team was having a winter formal, and he wanted me to be his date.

“Will you go with me?” he asked eagerly. Confused and flattered, I was hesitant to reply. I wasn’t sure why he had asked me, since I was under the impression we had settled on just being friends.

“Sure, why not?” I finally said.

“I don’t know the date of it yet, but I’ll let you know as soon as I find out.”

A mere moment later, I received a phone call. My thirteen year-old sister was crying hysterically into my ear, her words indistinguishable between heavy sobs. Trying to decipher at least a phrase, I held the cell phone away from me, but it only amplified the terror I heard in her howling voice. I told her to try to calm down, and resorted to having her text me what she was trying to say.

Our parents had gotten into another argument. It was really bad this time, she told me, worse than ever before. Our mother was leaving, a suitcase thumping down the stairs close behind; our father was yelling, stomping after her. Doors slammed, the car engine roared, and their voices were tangled in a mess of fury. My sister, overwhelmed and horrified, desperately told me I had to come home.

Holding all this frenzy in the palm of my hand, I looked to Temptation for comfort and support. It was the first time I had divulged the kinks and cracks of my family to someone. I don’t remember what he said, but I do know I felt some level of ease before rushing home – knowing he would be checking up on me later once the situation had been extinguished.

By the time I got there, everything had settled down. My sister was hiding in my room, while my parents seemed to be having a civil conversation in the minivan. I thanked God that my little brother hadn’t been home to witness the catalyzing event of their relationship falling apart and ricocheting off my siblings and me.

Temptation was the only person I spoke to about what was happening. I even told him about the earth-shattering conversation my father had with me. He told me that after twenty-two years, he didn’t love my mother. He said he couldn’t find it in himself to show an emotion he didn’t have, and he even asked me what he should do. It was the saddest day of my life. I never knew what it meant to have your heart broken until I had to listen to my mother cry herself hoarse night after night. I relayed everything I couldn’t grasp on my own to Temptation, and it was reassuring to have someone there, even if he had no power over what was happening.

As the semester wore on, our friendship reached a point of effortlessness. We could share happiness and sadness in the same conversation, or sit in a serene silence for hours and feel just as satisfied. Before I realized what was happening inside, I began to hear him in songs. I found him on my mind when I woke up and before I went to sleep. Even on the weekends, he was the favorite part of my day. He made me feel so gorgeous that I was the reason mirrors blushed. I was desperate to share the sunset behind my house for the simple reason that it is a stunning sight to see and I wanted him to see it. That let me know what I was feeling was genuine. But I was afraid to give it a name, because it would become something that way.

Temptation made it easier for me to share this when he told me he felt the same way. But now I wish I had smothered my feelings. Now, I wish I had stayed in tune with the frequency of reality. I wish I hadn’t tried to jump over the abyss of a culture gap that lay between us.

I was sitting outside of the library with my friend Neutrality, talking to her about what was happening between Temptation and me, and how it felt like he had been avoiding me the past week. It was a Friday, blistering with cold gusts of wind, and we had finished our math final with nothing to do but relax.

“He still hasn’t told me the date of the winter formal,” I said with a frown, huddling within my jacket to keep warm.

“Wait, the one for his sports team?” Neutrality’s expression had a shade of knowing, and she paused before continuing cautiously. “I… saw pictures of that on Facebook.”

I was struck senseless. Overwhelmed with questions of why and how, I could not find any logic for what I had just heard. Every so often I had asked him if he had found out the date of the formal, and every time his answer was, “I still don’t know.” Then things began to click. This was why he had been avoiding me the past week. This was why he had rushed off every time we ran into each other, with only so much as a hello and what he was rushing off to.  The girl he was always walking around with had something to do with it. She must have. In a second, she became Bitterness.

I spent the weekend confused and angry. When he texted to see what I was up to Sunday night, I called him a liar and told him not to talk to me. He tried to call, but I didn’t pick up.

A few days later, after I had cooled down and was in a reasonable state to talk to him again, I sent Temptation a text telling him so. But his response was, I need space. If we both want to, let’s just talk after winter break. Considering that, in college, winter break is a month and a half long, this was clearly a way to avoid me. Things will not be the same next semester, I told him, I won’t forget how you’ve hurt me.

You’ve hurt me too. You called me a liar and you don’t accept who I am.

It was unbelievable how immature and petty he could be, let alone non-confrontational. His words made no sense. Someone who had truly valued my friendship as much as Temptation repeatedly told me he did would have enough respect to resolve a conflict soon after it happened, let alone be honest with me.

A small part of why I wanted to resolve it was that his birthday was in the next week. I had already prepared his gift, with it a poem. It was the first time I had written one in a while, and I had strung together some of my favorite metaphors from my diary to make it.

Someone who favors the freehand strokes of prose,

And finds it easier to string together metaphors

Without being confined

To the left wall of a page,

Usually doesn’t spend the time

Shaping her intangible thoughts

Into tangible words that rhyme.

But a poem is a much more thoughtful and lasting way

Of telling a friend Happy Birthday.

It might not keep your neck warm,

Or put music in your pocket,

But I promise it is easy to tuck inside and lock it

In a place where only a poem

Can spread you out like a stretch of ocean;

And rising from beneath

Is a heartthrob for every league of emotion

Until all you see are hundreds of chests heaving,

Creating the movement of the surface.

It is a rhythmic pulsing you can’t ignore

As it rises and falls,

Rises and falls,

Then ebbs across a sandcastle shore.

I hope you spend the next year of your life

Drowning in moments of genius,

Speed-skating across the black ice

That hazards the sidewalks of life

Where you hop scotch through notes of music

To create a masterpiece of movement

With every strum of your guitar.

Take the time to smile at every gray-haired couple

Slowly making their way down an antique street;

Wondering how many birthdays it took them

Before they truly realized

That candles never glow

Any less brighter for you

Than they did the year before.

Somewhere between

The stars spackled in the sky

And the starfish clinging to the ocean floor,

I have ice cream sandwiched you

Right in the middle.

And little by little

You’ll come to realize

A birthday isn’t a birthday

Without some poetic rhythm

To jump start that birthday boy smile.

Although I was still angry, I was eager to give it to him and know what he thought of it. Temptation was still my friend, wasn’t he? Since we weren’t talking, I emailed it to him. He never responded.

It was the first time I had to learn what it meant to let go of someone – to invest so much into someone’s friendship, have expectations, and then be swiftly kicked to the curb for no apparent reason. I realized that I had experienced a spoonful of the sea of betrayal my mother was drowning in. A semester of investment seems like nothing compared to twenty-one years, and I was lucky in that way. I came out with a bruise instead of a scar. But oh how deeply this bruise felt imprinted on me. I thank Temptation, though, for bringing me closer to my mother. There is a difference between knowing and understanding; you have to experience what you know to truly understand it. (I also used to tell her about him, but stopped when her predictions of everything going downhill began to come true.) I told her too, but I doubt she knew everything I was trying to say in one line.

“My heart breaks when your heart breaks.” It must have been the hardest thing I’ve ever had to express to someone.

Over winter vacation, I often spoke with my friend Wisdom, and she brought to light things about my relationship with Temptation that I hadn’t noticed. Like the way I felt almost motherly toward him, wanting to help him with his weaknesses (he never talked about changing though, only of how they were a part of who he was). He smoked; I wanted to help him quit. He bottled things inside; I wanted to help him let them out. (Might I mention, I still found him perfect.)

“Be with someone you can grow with, who wants to grow with you too,” Wisdom advised.

My dear friend Strength reminded me of how girls create a support system for one another. And although I may lose track of who has which parts of me, I must remember that it doesn’t make me any less whole. Perspective explained the way guys think, and Support helped me listen. Looking out for me from every angle, Protection was ready to punch Temptation every time he saw him. And I, Innocence, was overwhelmed with the amount of respect my friends had for me, respect that lasted despite how I made Temptation my focus instead of them. These were the people I wanted to grow with.

The Spring ‘08 semester has begun and alas, I’ve found him in half of my classes. Thankfully, the lectures are large enough to avoid him. Two weeks in, Neutrality told me Bitterness had broken up with him after their winter break fling. The next weekend he texted me, Hey. Do you ever want to talk?

Obviously I refused. I had jumped off the rollercoaster that was Temptation and was not planning to get on that ride again. But a week later, after a second try, I accepted. I knew that until I told him the impact of all he had done, had explained to him every emotion that was simmering within me, I would not be able to move on.

We met the next night in the library on the 7^th floor, in the circle that we had discovered together. He sat down on the pink carpet, his arms wrapped around his knees, neck bent in guilt. I gave him a verbal smack-down of everything that had been bothering me, of every reason why he was a complete ass. (In his being non-confrontational, I learned how to be confrontational). All he could say was that he had no justification for what he did, and that he was sorry. I was complicated, so he ran away. But now he missed me – realized he had lost a good friend and wanted her back. Of course, it was what I wanted to hear, but I knew better. Suddenly, I wasn’t so naïve anymore.

Sitting with him in the middle, I could see every different angle of Temptation in a different section of glass. From his view, he saw the same of me. Our reflections met in the middle, and all together, it almost created an eclipse in motion. I considered how the semester had felt like an eclipse – how he had passed over me, and a glossier, yet tainted, Innocence had come out from the other side. Amazingly, later that night there was a lunar eclipse in the sky. While I watched it with my siblings, clustered together on the hardwood floor beneath my bedroom window, I let my friends know so they could witness it too. For old times’ sake, I told Temptation as well.

I have discovered Temptation. But I’ve found that by writing about him, he has become less real, and more of a character on a page. I still try to maintain my distance, though I do have moments when I miss him incredibly. With time, I will hear him in one less song, desire to tell him one less secret.