Switching to paper and pen for a bit out of a sense of duty.  I'll probably be back in a few weeks when I get bored.

"She's always standing down there."

I looked up from my homework as my roommate Gloria pulled the curtains across our dormitory window.  I tilted my head quizzically.

"That girl is always standing down there.  She looks too old to be an undergrad, but too young to be a professor.  She's always dressed in a suit or a button down shirt even though it's been warm this August.  And she stands there looking so cold with a cigarette hanging out of her mouth, but she isn't smoking it.  It's just weird."

I looked back down and shook my head, "I don't know why you're so bothered by it.  I'm sure it's just another student who wants to make some kind of impression as a freshman.  She just looks old because of the way she dresses."  I'd seen her, too.  Not every day, but very regularly around lunchtime and often later at night this girl had been standing outside the entrance to my dormitory.  Sometimes she was reading, sometimes shuffling stacks of papers, and still others she was just standing there leaned against the building with an unlit cigarette hanging out of her mouth.  As far as I had seen, she'd never been inside the building, just hanging around outside.  I'll admit, it was a little weird.

"Well, you can say what you want but I think she's here waiting for someone.  Why else would she stand in the heat day after day?  It must be an unrequited love or something."  Gloria stepped away from the window and let the curtain fall back into place.

"Now YOU'RE being weird, making up stories about some random person without any real information.  Why are you so obsessed with her?"

Gloria looked at me and sighed, "I don't know.  She just looks really lonely, I guess."  She bent down and started digging in her backpack nonchalantly.

I had lost all focus on my homework so I pushed it aside and started chewing on the end of my pencil.  Gloria's comments had gotten me thinking about this strange girl outside our dormitory.  In the first couple weeks of the semester she had already become a kind of  legend.  People had tried to talk to her before and she wouldn't even look at them, like she was a ghost reliving her last days on earth over and over again and couldn't even see them.  I had thought it was rude to bother someone you don't know when they look so deep in thought, but Gloria had me wondering if she really was waiting for someone...maybe someone who wasn't coming.  It was an eerie feeling.  I got up from my desk and flopped onto my bed snatching my DS on the way over.  "I'm gonna relax for a bit.  Let me know when everyone is headed out to dinner."  Gloria nodded.  I rolled over toward the wall and sighed.

***

The semester progressed and the girl continued to hang about the entrance to my dormitory.  People continued to try and get her to talk and she continued to ignore them until eventually everyone lost interest.  Even Gloria quit commenting about it.  She became a kind of living statue, something you expected to see every day but somehow knew was more than just a decoration.  People even started standing by her like they were on vacation and taking pictures.  I couldn't help but think that it must be extremely taxing for her to keep showing up and getting poked and laughed at and gawked at.  Whatever it was she was waiting for must be extremely important.

One morning on my way to class I noticed something unexpected.  As I walked past our living statue she looked at me.  Our eyes met and she smiled.  I almost screamed!  I walked over closer and she continued to stare right at me and then gave a quick wave.  I couldn't believe this.  I really was like a statue had just reached out and grabbed me.  She started digging around in her pocket and then extended a box of cigarettes my way.  I made a sour face and blurted out, "I don't smoke so no thank you!" because I didn't know what else to say.  She shrugged and readjusted the cigarette that was lazily sticking out of her mouth.

By this time a crowd had gathered.  The statue had moved and the spell of her legendary status had been recast.  People started getting closer and closer so I decided to let them have her.  I was late to class anyway.  As I turned I saw her wave to me out of the corner of my eye and then her face went blank again.  I looked back and saw everyone crowded around that same unmoving statue.

I couldn't stop thinking about what had happened and going over and over in my head all the information that people had been spouting about our dormitory's living statue.  Never, ever, had anyone said anything about her waving or smiling or offering cigarettes.  I couldn't concentrate in class and when the professor dismissed us I immediately started back toward my dorm, dialing Gloria as I walked to tell her what happened.

By the time I got back the girl was gone, but that was normal.  I hoped it would be one of those days when she would return around dinner.  I wanted to test her, to see if she would react to me again.  It was all I could think about for the rest of the evening.  Dinner came and went and she didn't appear.  In fact, several days passed and I never saw her standing in her usual spot.  Rumors started to spread that I had scared her or broken some kind of spell on her or something.  It was really ridiculous, but at the same time I started to wonder myself.  What did she want with me?

***

Almost a week passed and she still hadn't been back.  I guess you could say we started to worry, but when someone is doing something strange is it really right to say that you "worry" when they stop doing it?  I had almost let her slip from my mind, but then she came back.  It was late, around midnight and I was skimming over some suggested reading near the window.  She had never come that late before, but there she was standing in her spot shuffling a pipe of papers in her hands.  I almost shouted, but Gloria was already asleep and I didn't want to wake her because she had a biology exam the following morning.  I grabbed a light jacket and threw it on over my pajamas.  I wasn't going to let this chance to make some kind of mythological history slip away.

I ran downstairs and burst through the front doors.  She looked right at me and smiled again like she had before.  Eureka!  For some reason she would react to me.  I jogged over and waved at her, but then I froze.  What was I doing out here?  Why was I so interested in this girl?  Why did she only react to me?  I quickly spit out the first thing that came to my mind, "What are you waiting out here for?"

She smiled and pulled the hair from her face, "I've been waiting for you.  Come with me."  She started to walk away and swung her jacket off and up onto her shoulder.

I stared at her blankly.  I was in my pajamas with some flimsy flip flops on and it was a little chilly outside.  Plus it was midnight and was standing talking with a weird living statue that would only talk to me.  But I couldn't refuse.  I was too interested in finding out what she was really up to, because I knew it couldn't have anything to do with me.  Maybe I'd read too many manga where the main character is suddenly told by a mysterious guardian that he/she has magic powers and I was hoping that was going on.  Maybe I was just bored and didn't want to go back to my room.  Maybe I wanted to become a legend like she was with the other students.  I don't know why, but I followed her.

She offered me a cigarette again and I was about to shove them away when I noticed there was a dinosaur on the outside of the box.  They were just candy cigarettes.  That's why they were never lit and she was never blowing smoke when she had one in her mouth.  I grabbed one out of the box and started chewing on it.

"I won't be back," she said after we had walked for a bit and she had plopped herself down on a bench.  "I waited for you and now you've met me, so I have no reason to come back."

I looked at her with a furrowed brow.  "Why me?  Why have you been waiting for me?"  I was so curious I could have burst.

"Because you're the only one who didn't come out and bother me.  You're also the only girl I saw reading manga.  And..."  she looked piercingly into my eyes, "because you're beautiful."

I was stunned for a few seconds while I processed the information I had just heard.  "You've been watching me?!  This is so creepy!  I don't know why I followed you out here!"  I turned to storm off but she grabbed my arm and shook her head frantically.

"Don't be angry!  I'm sorry!  I'll never come again!  Here!"  She shoved a little piece of paper into my hand, grabbed her jacket from the back of the bench, and bolted away.  A single tear fell from her chin and hit the ground at my feet.  I stood completely in shock for a few moments in the cold evening in my pajamas in the middle of the sidewalk, trying to figure out what had just happened.  I slowly unfolded the paper and it said simply, "If it's you, I'll always answer, but don't call me unless you mean it," and then gave a phone number. 

I stared at it for a couple of seconds and then started to walk in the direction she had run, then I started to run, and then I started to call out to her, but I couldn't think of anything to say except for, "Wait, statue girl!  Don't go!  I'm sorry!!"  I kept running until I saw her sitting under a tree sobbing.  As I approached she bolted again and I realized that I wasn't going to catch her in these flip flops in the dead of night.  I returned to the dorm completely confused.

The next morning I woke up when Gloria did for her exam.  I didn't tell her what had happened.  I had slept with that tiny piece of paper crumpled in my hands.  I didn't know what to do.  I grabbed my phone and held it in my hand for a moment questioning myself about what I was doing.  I dialed the number.  I set the phone down.  I picked it back up.  Gloria snapped her fingers in front of my face and I gave a yelp.  "What's wrong with you?  Shouldn't you be sleeping?  You don't have class for a couple hours, right?  And you look terrible!  Take care of yourself, okay?  I'll be back in an hour after my exam and then you can tell me why you ran out of the room last night at midnight."  I waved at her as she left the room.

But I couldn't tell her.  I wasn't even sure what had happened myself.  All I knew is that when I saw that tear hit the ground, my heart ripped into pieces.

"I'll never come again!"

It echoed in my ears, but she had given me her phone number.  I looked down at my phone again and hit the call button.

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I wonder if that would work, if I stood around in front of one of the undergraduate dormitories wherever I choose to go.  I think I daydream too much.