Anatomy of a Playlist

I. 

“Those Eyes” – Thirsty Merc

We stood on opposite sides of a train, right across from each other, both cradling copies of Gray’s Anatomy that were barely holding themselves together. We were both freshmen, a long way from home, and we looked just about lost enough for the part. Your university was three stops after mine.

The lightning pace and abrupt turn of the subway caused you to knock against me and both our books tumbled to the floor at our feet. You picked them up, handed me back one—I was almost certain we’d exchanged copies—and offered me your hand. “Hi,” you said, a little breathless. “You, too, huh?” You held up your—my?—Gray’s Anatomy.

“I suppose.” I shook your hand, and when you grinned, your whole face lit up, and I had to smile, too. "I'm Macy."

"Hi, Macy. So, what is the purpose of your perusal of the work of Henry Gray?”

“Guess.”

It really wasn’t a difficult conundrum.

One look at my penny loafers, you liked to joke, and you knew I was studying to become a doctor. I was, in fact, considering majoring in Psychology before heading to med school. I would never find out why you chose the loafers, of all things, to associate with doctors. Nothing about me screamed medical—my hair was down, two robin’s egg blue barrettes holding down wispy strands of black, and I was wearing a cardigan over a sundress that was definitely out of place in the fall.

I tried to place you, gazed from your dark, messy, long hair to your freckles to your crooked smile to the skateboard sticking out of your backpack, skipping all the way down to your worn-out green Converses. I moved back up and stopped at your eyes. Aha. An artist. I had the anatomy textbook because I was dealing with the cold hard facts, the science, and you were studying the images, the fluid architecture of our bodies.

Your eyes were blue, almost gray, but so bright I knew right then and there you were someone who creates. Eyes like that must have been able to see the beauty in everything, because they had so much beauty of their own.

I actually told you this. I still don’t know what made me do it. Your earnest smile turned into a smirk. “Was it really my eyes that gave me away,” you said, and at this point I noticed the paint stains trailing your shirt, arms, fingers, hands and jeans, “or are you just actually a writer? Or an actress, I can never tell.”

The train came to a stop and I had to walk out or be late for my next class. I threw the next words at you over my shoulder.

“If we keep running into each other this way, maybe you’ll find out.”

You didn’t have to. You had me pegged as soon as you said it. “You’ll be saving lives one day!” you called after me.

And I am.

I realized a second too late that you never even introduced yourself properly, never told me what to call you. As I watched the train move away, everything became a blur, but when I opened the book you gave back to me, some things remained clear, like the fact that we had exchanged copies. 

Or the fact that your name, scrawled in neat script along the bottom of the title page, was Jack. 

II.

"Infinite Arms” – Band of Horses

Days later we sat waiting for our train on two separate benches, one lonely, empty bench between them. I would never admit this to you, but I had begun looking for you every morning since we first spoke. I tried to shrug off my disappointment (not to mention talk myself out of going on Missed Connections) every time you didn’t show, but that morning, when you did show up, all denial was out the window as I felt shivers travel up and down my spine the moment I saw you. You had tried to skate past the turnstiles and were chased down by the guard. When you got close enough to me, you winked, and I laughed.