cogito ergo something

“Did you know the Weather Channel is based in Georgia?”
“What?” The girl looked over at the wiry, curly-haired boy seated next to her in Philosophy 101. It was the third class of their first semester, and the restless freshmen had not yet settled into de-facto seating.
“Sorry, just thought it was funny. I check the same site every day,” he said, watching her read the weather off her phone.
“Are you from there? Georgia?”
“Oh no, I just think it’s funny that the place that tells if it’s gonna rain or snow is based somewhere where it doesn’t do much of either.”
“Yeah, that is funny,” she said, turning back to her phone.
“I’m Aidan,” the boy said, grinning and waving sheepishly.
“Riley,” she said turning back and parting her thick bangs with a smile. “Where are you from then?”
“Oh, me? Vermont, Burlington actually. You ever been? What about you?”
“Miami, and no, no I haven’t. Sounds nice, I don’t really like the cold much though.”
“Yeah, but it’s not always cold. Fun fact: in New England the most talked about thing is the weather.”
Riley nodded slowly, glancing up at the clock and drumming her fingers on the desk. Class was about to start.
“Then sports. Not surprising when you think about it I guess,” Aidan said, furrowing his brow. “Anyways, sorry, didn’t mean to bother you, just saying hello.” He smiled and started to turn back towards the whiteboard.
“No, no, it’s fine!” Riley said. “Nice to meet you, good to actually talk to other freshman outside of that dreaded orientation shit.”
Aidan nodded enthusiastically and they shook hands awkwardly as their professor walked in.

Aidan returned to his dorm after class and tossed his phone, wallet, and keys onto his desk. His room was mostly barren, with books and papers lying around everywhere and a few printouts of Cézanne paintings taped to the walls. Somehow it always looked both messy and empty at the same time.
He sat down on the room’s sole chair and stretched out his legs, pushing aside textbooks and syllabi for his feet to rest on his desk. Surveying the room, he made a mental note to clean it sometime soon, then, glancing towards the window, looked towards his plant.
There was just one, a small green succulent in a ceramic pot he’d regrettably drawn all over with a Sharpie one day while bored. Save for the Scotch-taped 8.5x11s of Impressionism, it was the only decor in the room. And it was dying.
His mom had given it to him after he graduated high school, with the intention of it being the first of many cool, hip decorations for his college dorm. It was a Mexican Snowball, known to plant people as an Echeveria Elegans. (Aidan was not one of said people – he had learned the name from Wikipedia.) Back when the prospect of being in college was still exciting, he’d kept the plant on his home windowsill and watered it regularly for a few weeks. But one day he was forced to clean up his room to make room for family friends coming over, and somehow the little succulent ended up in the back of his closet obscured by a stack of winter clothes.
When it finally came time to pack for college, he rediscovered the Mexican Snowball and was excited to see it still seemed to be alive, barely. Its small mound of soil was bone dry and the edges of its leaves were crinkled and brown. Move-in day arrived and he set it on his new dorm room’s windowsill and watered it once. Two weeks into the semester he’d forgotten about it again. A never-opened copy of Lord of the Flies was leaned against it, probably obscuring its leftmost leaves from what little light the dirty windowpane let shine through.
Just as Aidan began to stare at the plant and wonder when it had last been watered, his phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out quickly and clicked it open, but it was just a news alert.

“Tic-tac?”
They were in class again. Aidan had sat next to Riley for the second time, his plastic desk rolled just a little bit closer to hers. He was holding out a container of orange mints, shaking it a little. She looked confused at first, but shrugged.
“Sure, thanks.”
“You ever try to eat some Tic-tacs and fuck up and a bunch hit you in the face?”
She laughed. “No, honestly, I don’t think so.”
“Must just be me then, guess I get a little too excited.” He tapped five or six more into his palm and exuberantly tossed them into his mouth.
“Nailed it that time,” she said with a smile.
Aidan pretended to curtsy in his chair.
The professor entered and Aidan noted aloud that he was, again, three minutes late.
“Yeah? I didn’t notice,” Riley said.
“Every class but one so far, he’s been exactly three minutes late. Once it was only two.” Aidan paid close attention to the clock each morning while the other students chattered in little groups. Riley, seated off to the side and usually on her phone, was the only one who seemed accessible enough to talk to.
“I did notice he doesn’t take attendance,” she said.
Aidan nodded. “There’s no participation grade on the syllabus. Just papers and exams.”
“That’s how it should be, especially for a class on Fridays.”
Aidan fought the urge to ask her what she was doing on these Fridays. Instead he opted for a slyer approach. “Hey, did you see the group project coming up?”
“I did, yeah. Isn’t it just partners?” Riley asked.
“I think – hey, do you have one yet? A partner?”
“Nah, haven’t really thought about it. You wanna do it together?”
Aidan’s eyes lit up. “Definitely!”
“Cool, let me get your number.” Riley opened up a blank contact on her phone.
Aidan wheeled his desk across another two inches of carpet towards her, taking the device and typing in his name. It buzzed a few times while he held it.
“You don’t mind if we… wait a little before starting, right?” Riley said. “I tend to be a bit last minute about things.”
“Not at all, me too,” Aidan replied quickly. “Just text me so I have you, too.”
She nodded and his phone dinged loudly. Aidan blushed and shoved it in his backpack as the professor began to speak, casting an irritated glance in Aidan’s direction.

Two weeks passed and the two continued to sit together, making small talk before each class while waiting for the professor to arrive. To Aidan’s dismay, Riley began to come a minute or two late, leaving him alone awaiting the professor with no one else to talk to. On the Friday before their presentation, Riley didn’t show up at all. Frustrated, Aidan debated texting her but instead decided to get to work on research for the presentation, only to get a much-awaited text from her later that afternoon.
“Sorry, couldn’t get myself to class today, you around this weekend?” it read. He suggested they get together sometime Saturday. She picked a cafe a few blocks from campus, and they agreed to meet up around 2:00.
When 1:00 Saturday arrived, Aidan set out to find the place, which turned out to be only a ten minute walk away, just as Google Maps had claimed. He ordered an iced tea and found a booth, opened his laptop, and drained the tea in a few minutes time. By the time Riley arrived, he had created a Powerpoint and fully populated it with carefully organized slides.
“Sorry I’m late, hope you weren’t waiting too long,” she said, looking at the time on her iPhone.
“No, no, it’s fine, I actually got a bit done on the presentation,” he said, the words barely escaping as he involuntarily looked her up and down. Gone were the hoodie and track pants she wore to class, replaced by a blue linen button-down and baggy silk pants with Converses. She looked so cool, so grown up, totally unlike the girls from his high school. Aidan suddenly wished he’d dressed better than Vans and blue jeans.
“Awesome, you didn’t have to do that! We’ll get it all done on time,” she assured him, then glanced towards where his sneakers met his cuffed jeans. “Hey, are those raw denim? Super cool, I have some too. Should’ve worn them, we could’ve been matching!”
Aidan beamed. “Yeah! They’re A.P.C., I got them in Soho. The store, it’s–”
“Oh, I’ve been, love it! Minimalist French stuff, really rad. Hey, did you get a drink already?”
Aidan had thrown out his empty iced tea cup twenty minutes before. “No, was waiting on you. What do you like, coffee or tea?”
“Definitely need coffee if we’re gonna get anywhere with this. You gotta try the lattes here, I’ll show you.”
They ordered their drinks and set to work on the project, which was almost fully outlined on Aidan’s slides. After an hour or two they were nearly finished, making fun of pictures of Descartes and sharing a pair of earbuds trading songs on Spotify.
Once the laptops were closed, Aidan asked Riley if she wanted to hang out sometime.
“Sure! Kind of busy this weekend but maybe during the week? I don’t know if you have a lot of homework or whatever, but after class I’m usually around.”
“Sweet, I’ll text you, alright?” Aidan said, trying to remember a time where something or someone had occupied his whole weekend.
Riley nodded and gave Aidan a brief hug before picking up her tote bag and waving goodbye. Aidan shivered as he watched her exit.

“She sounds cool,” Aidan’s roommate, Eli, said after he recapped the exchange that night.
“She’s awesome,” he assured Eli.
“Hot?” Eli yelled, switching on a vacuum. He was a sophomore, and of the two roommates, he was far more cleaning-inclined.
“Definitely,” Aidan said, looking out the window longingly. “Long black hair, beautiful green eyes…”
Eli nodded. “Nice work brother, happy for you. When do you see her again?”
“I’m supposed to text her sometime this week after class.”
“That’s good, seal the deal. Hey, can I get rid of this decrepit plant here? It’s yours, right?” Eli picked up the potted succulent and poked at its flaking leaves.
“No, no, just leave it, I’ll take care of it,” Aidan said. “My mom gave it to me, if she ever visits it’s the first thing she’ll look for.”
“Alright, alright,” Eli said. “Hey, are you still selling those jeans? I think I know a guy who might be interested–”
“No! Sorry, nah, decided to keep them. Thanks though,” Aidan said quickly.
“Damn, alright. Hey, can you pick your laundry up off the floor so I can finish up?”

After much consideration, Aidan decided to wait until Tuesday to send Riley the text. She agreed and replied with exclamation points, suggesting they grab dinner around 7:00.
They met up in front of the school and tried to decide where to go. Aidan opened up Yelp on his phone and Riley took out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter.
She offered him one and he nodded and took the pack. Aidan pretended to know what he was doing, fumbling and trying to pull one out, but the cigarettes seemed to be lodged too damn tight. She smiled and grabbed the package, hit the bottom once against her palm, and a cigarette slid out into her fingers perfectly.
“Thanks,” he mumbled, taking the cig and her lighter and flicking it a few times. It finally caught and he inhaled, then sputtered and coughed twice. “Been a while,” he said.
She nodded, watching him and smiling as she lit her own.
They decided on Thai food and walked to a restaurant a few blocks down. It turned out to be fully booked so they decided to take their chances with ramen across the street.
They ate across from each other and chatted about classes, then clothes and food and he told her he loved the way she dressed. She responded with an “Aww, thank you” and told him she always woke up late and could usually only manage makeup before classes.
“I hate the way I look in most of my clothes too,” Riley continued. “I can never find stuff that I think looks good.”
“What? No way. Don’t worry so much about your appearance, you’ve got nothing to worry about,” Aidan said.
“I think I have body dysmorphia,” Riley said.
“Oh.” Aidan looked down and fiddled with his chopsticks.
“It’s fine,” Riley said after a pause. “Pretty sure I’m getting past it, it’s not that serious. Anyways, what about you? What’s new with you?”
“Since Saturday? Umm… not a whole lot.”
She laughed. “Do that philosophy homework yet?”
“Of course not,” Aidan said with a smile. He had finished it and checked his work twice.
“Wanna do it together? Didn’t you say you don’t have class tomorrow?”
“Nope. Don’t you?” Aidan replied, remembering her schedule exactly as she’d described it on Saturday.
“Yeah, nothing I can’t miss, though. It’s supposed to be nice out, let’s do it in the park. I can try to get up at a reasonable time.”
“Sure, I’m down,” Aidan said, nodding and setting down the chopsticks he’d been squeezing for dear life.

The next morning Aidan woke up at 6:00 AM. He picked his books and papers up off the floor and organized them, placing them in the shelf and drawers that had previously sat unoccupied. He watered the succulent, studying its leaves, begging the brown edges to recede. Eventually he woke up Eli while shuffling through his desk, trying to find some way to occupy himself.
Eli rose groggily, squinting at his phone for the time. “What the hell man, what’s gotten into you? Since when do you get up this early?”
“Hey, sorry, couldn’t sleep,” Aidan apologized. “I can go to the library or something–”
“Nah, I’m up, it’s fine. You alright?”
“I just can’t keep her out of my dreams lately. I go to bed thinking about her, I sleep thinking about her, I wake up still thinking about her. I can’t escape it.”
Eli laughed. “The dreams are the fun part though. You can really have at it!”
“I don’t dream about sex,” Aidan said.
“Come on. You must’ve thought about it.”
“Not really, not like… that.”
“How then? Walking down the aisle, white dress, organ playing?”
“No, no, nothing like that,” Aidan said.
“So what then?”
Aidan paused. “Just us, sort of… sitting around, talking, somewhere warm, somewhere nice.”
“Ah, the honeymoon.”
“Forget it,” Aidan said, shaking his head.
“Sorry, sorry! Aren’t you seeing her today?”
“Yeah, going to the park to do homework, it’s gonna be great. Whenever she wakes up, soon hopefully.”
“I wouldn’t count on that,” Eli said, laying back down in his bed.

He was right. Riley didn’t text until almost 1:00. Aidan had already run through every possible scenario in his head before then – she’d decided she hated him, she’d reported him to the police for being a sexual predator, she’d somehow died in her sleep, etc. But all fears dissipated when her message popped up.
She asked if he could meet her on the quad around 1:45, and replied with a “Sure!!” after momentarily debating the number of exclamation points. There was nothing he wanted more than to see her, and her texts bit into his mind like a teenager’s first jolt of nicotine.
They met up outside and Riley apologized for being so late – she’d gotten up earlier, she explained, but couldn’t for the life of her find her phone. She worried she’d left it at the restaurant the night before, but it just turned out to be under her bed.
“That’s a relief,” Aidan said. “Don’t know what I’d do without my phone.”
“New York would be an awful place to lose it, too,” she said. “So few people would bother to get it back to you.”
“Someday, when I’m rich,” Aidan said as Riley chuckled, “I want to buy a bunch of iPhones, put my information in them, my home number, and scatter them around the city. I’d keep doing it until I started getting calls. I’d find the few people who would actually try to return a phone to you. We’d have to meet up in person, and I’d ask them to meet me somewhere kind of inconvenient, you know? Like just outside the city, somewhere they’d have to drive to or at least take a subway. The people who would do that are who I’d want to know, who I’d want to talk to and see again.”
Riley paused for a moment and thought. “You’d go through a lot of iPhones.”
“Probably, which is why I’d have to be rich first. But it’d be worth it to find those couple of people, right?”
She smiled and nodded. “Definitely.”
They took the subway to the park, chatting for a bit then sitting comfortably silent for a while, listening to the squeal of the train. They got off and Riley directed them to a spot under a tree where they opened their laptops and pulled up the philosophy homework.
About twenty minutes in, she interrupted with an abrupt “Fuck this,” and closed her laptop.
“What?” Aidan said, looking up.
“It’s too nice out for this. Let’s do something.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know, walk around, anything.”
He quickly packed up and followed Riley through the paths of Central Park. Riley lit a cigarette and Aidan was relieved she didn’t offer him one this time.

They left the park and walked around the city all day, stopping in front of stores to window-shop and picking out clothes they couldn’t afford for each other to try on. They bought dinner from a halal cart and eventually ended up back at school as it got dark.
Aidan mustered all the courage his 5’8” frame could handle and suggested they listen to music in his dorm. She agreed without a moment’s hesitation and followed him up. The elevator seemed to stop at every floor but no one else got on. Aidan could feel his own heart beating and was thankful he’d finally cleaned up his room that morning.
Eli wasn’t there when they finally arrived. Riley immediately commented on the decor. “Sparse! But I like it. Are the pictures yours?”
“Cézanne,” Aidan stammered, and she laughed.
“Yeah, I know. I mean did you put them up?”
“Oh! Yeah, of course, yeah.” Aidan pretended to tend to something at his desk.
Riley walked over to the windowsill. “Sick, I love succulents! I have, like, ten of them in my room. Where’d you get yours?”
“Found it at a place uptown,” he lied. “Have been meaning to get more.”
“Looks a little dry, you should repot it. Sometimes they just need new soil after a while,” she said, running her fingers along the leaves. “Music?” she asked, turning to Aidan, smiling.
“Oh yeah! Right.” He rifled through his drawers and pulled out a Bluetooth speaker. “You wanna pair to it?”
“Sure,” Riley said, scrolling through her Spotify and selecting a punk rock album Aidan couldn’t have recognized.
She sat down on his bed and closed her eyes, swaying back and forth slightly. For a second he just stared at her. She looked so confident, so comfortable, without a care in the world. It took him a moment to realize he was supposed to join her.
Aidan hopped up onto the bed and Riley grinned at him, nodding to the music. He leaned in to kiss her just as she began to reach for her phone.
“Oh, sorry,” Aidan said, turning away.
“What? No, I was just–”
“It’s cool, really, my mistake.” Aidan looked down, feeling his face redden.
“I didn’t mean to make you think–”
“Do you have a boyfriend?” Aidan interrupted.
“Not really, well, it’s complicated,” Riley responded. “I just thought we could hang out, you know?”
“Of course, yeah, my bad,” Aidan stuttered. “Yup, that’s me, zero ‘emotional intelligence,’” he muttered quietly.
“I didn’t say that.”
Aidan ran his hand through his hair. “I just figured after today, you know, seemed like a good time, like you were having a good time…”
“It was just one day,” Riley said. “I think you’re cool, you know?”
Aidan felt like his only hope, the girl who had talked to him, the one he had invested weeks of ceaseless thought into, was slipping away. He imagined her philosophy class desk rolling slowly back towards the wall and out the door, leaving him alone to face the chaos of the university. “But what if life was shorter?” he pleaded, “Like half as long? Or even just twenty years? A day would be a whole different thing.”
Riley squinted. “It’s not though. A day is a day. Some days I… I don’t even go outside! Some days you have to work, do homework, go to school, just rest or read a book…”
“But today you didn’t, we didn’t. We had fun, right? I mean– I did.”
“Of course, yeah… Look, I’m sorry Aidan, I should go.” She picked up her tote bag and walked towards the door. She opened it and left just as Eli walked in. He smiled and looked from Aidan to the open doorway where she had just been, then back again.

The next day Aidan texted her and received no response. He told Eli what happened and he shrugged. “On to the next one, man.”
Aidan wasn’t sure there would be a next one. His room gradually fell back into disarray as he waited for Friday when his philosophy presentation with Riley was scheduled. But every day he filled a glass and watered his plant, and he swore its color was starting to return.
Friday finally came. He sat down next to Riley and said hello. She replied with a “Ready?” and they said nothing more in the three minutes before their professor arrived. They got up and walked the class through Aidan’s slide deck on Meditations on First Philosophy while occasionally correcting each other on trivial details. Aidan ignored her afterward and left the class as soon as it was dismissed.

He went back to his room and stared at the Mexican Snowball, trying to will it to grow bigger, faster, to be the size of a human and fill the room. But it just sat there, staring back at him, its leaves like green eyes burning a hole into his head.
Aidan grabbed his wallet and left the room. He reached the elevators and jabbed at the down button repeatedly. It opened immediately, as if waiting for him, and ushered him down to the lobby without a single stop. He left the building and walked from Noho to the East Village until he found what he was looking for, a hardware and garden store with plants and tools in the window. He selected the largest ceramic pot they had, bought it and lugged it back to campus, ignoring looks from strangers along the way. He arrived at one of the university’s main greens, set the pot down, and began to dig feverishly into the grass with his bare hands. He was nearly done piling the pot full with dirt when a girl walked up to him, smiling.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
Taken aback, Aidan looked up and mouthed words that didn’t come out.
“Digging?” she offered. “You planting something?”
The words finally came. “My succulent, it needs new soil. I just got this for it, but I forgot to buy the soil. It’s dying, I have to save it.”
She laughed. “That’s awesome. Come on, let me show you a better place you can get it.”
He picked up the pot and followed the girl a block to a community garden tucked behind a dorm building.
“We planted this last semester, with enviro club. It’ll actually work for your plant, not like that grass sod bullshit.” She picked up a trowel from the corner of the garden. “Here, try this.”
Aidan took it from her and muttered, “Thanks.”
She laughed again. “I’m Mia. I’m a sophomore. I take it you go here, right? Or are you just here to steal our dirt?”
Aidan smiled and shook his head. “No, no. I mean yes. Well– I’m a freshman. Aidan. Uh, thanks, nice to meet you.” He reached out his grimy right hand and shook hers.
“Let me help you with that,” Mia said, picking up another trowel.

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