The dark lake’s inky surface throws back distorted ripples, reflecting the pale streetlights that encircle it like a blinking necklace. Some serenity in the midst of this noisy polluted hate. So many lights in this city. It’s as though the stars were yanked from the blank sky and scattered across the streets. I stare out of this high apartment’s huge windows and glimpse the flickering water below, reminded briefly of my grandmother's stories: the lights in the water were fairies, she liked to say, dancing carelessly in reverie. Get too close and they'd vanish.

She’s in the kitchen, facing away, searching a pantry. “Want some water? Or some tea maybe?”

“Tea sounds great, thanks.” Anything sounds great honestly. I’m standing here wondering if we’re having the same thoughts. She’s probably wondering the same thing.

This is the fourth time she invited me to her place. Yeah I’m counting. Every time I come it feels more comfortable, more familiar. Like home. I’m not sure it’s real. It’s that heady feeling that warns me to be careful, but the confusion is part of what I like about it. As I stare at the back of her head I imagine what her thick bright hair smells like. Moments with her are tough to hold. I am falling under the spell again but hiding it with stupid jokes and dry comments about bad art and shitty writers. No shortage of words on that subject. She engages with my strong but loose opinions, she listens, laughs, responds. She has a point of view. It’s refreshing.

This hot tea is good. I should tell her, right? “This tea is good.”

“Thanks!” Our eyes lock for a second and we grin. We stand together silent in her kitchen, sipping this lemony honey concoction from gigantic steins that somebody probably made in an evening art class. She invited me over to listen to records. When was the last time you’ve done that? Just sat on the floor and listened to music. I shared a record collection with an ex-girlfriend once. She said I could take it, the player and the records, but they just sit in my closet now.

So we move over to her living room, a sprawling chamber with a gigantic couch, and sit ourselves down. Everything feels delicate. I can tell our brains are going at the speed of light and every gesture takes on significance, like the one she just made: sitting at the far end of the couch. Why over there? I’m confused, but that’s okay. I like the confusion. It’s better than being at my apartment alone.

“So should I put some music on?”

“Yeah sure. What do you have?”

“Mostly rock. 70s, 80s.”

“Cool. How about some Pink Floyd?” That’s my go-to. Yeah it’s obvious but those brooding, dulcet tones paint a room with their moodiness and turn the space into something altogether new. I like that headspace. My dad told me he would frequently eat a windowpane of orange sunshine and watch the walls melt to their albums when he was my age. He’s stuck in his acid days and that’s all he can talk about. I remember blasting Shine On You Crazy Diamond while driving alone through the American Southwest last year and viewing the jagged cracked landscape through a totally new lens. It’ll be nice to listen with somebody new this time. Hopefully she likes them too.

“Let me see. I think my roommate has some of their stuff.” Her roommate is not home, thankfully. She reaches for something on the coffee table in front of her. It's a bowl of weed. She lights it and takes a few hits, grimacing. “It’s strong. Want some?” I’ve never been one for weed so I turn it down. The smell of marijuana makes me think of another girl, so I try to avoid it.

She gets up and shuffles to her record collection. I clutch the huge stein of tea in front of my face and watch her flip through the rows of her records. “Oh this one’s good,” she mutters to herself. She keeps looking. Her back is to me and it’s fun to watch her search. Probably she’s a little high already. Maybe I am too? I didn’t smoke anything, I don’t think. I have the weirdest thought: will we still be friends a year from now?

“Found something! Not Pink Floyd. But you’ll love it. I hope.” She stands up and sets the record on the turntable with the care of a new mother.

“Cool, let’s hear it.”

Subtle pulsing rhythms emerge from the speakers. Finally a soundtrack for this evening. I like it a lot. I have a mild form of synesthesia which sometimes lets me see textures in sound, so her apartment has taken on a velvety red sheen.

She’s still at the turntable, facing away. I think she feels comfortable there. On the couch I felt some uncertain tension, an unvoiced question neither of us wanted to ask. She moves in time with the rhythm, graceful and elegant and in a world of her own. She reminds me of my grandmother’s fairies in the water. Get too close and they vanish.